I think there is still a pricing problem with reusability because spacex doesn’t have any competition that is reusable.
There is no downward pressure on pricing because spacex only has to be slightly cheaper than the cheapest non-reusable rocket. So for a marginal cost of, let’s say, $2m for a reflown booster, there are still able to charge $50m+.
But since their customers are seeing prices of $50m, space is still expensive... nothing much has changed.
(I’ve simplified this by omitting the fact that the upper stage is not reusable)
A lot of BFR development is being done in the open in Boca Chica, and you can follow along because it’s being live-streamed almost 24/7. BFR has had small incremental hops recently and will try for a 15km flight this week. We’ll see what happens.
Hopefully Bezos and Blue Origin can get New Glen on the launch pad soon. It is the only viable competitor to SpaceX that I see at the moment. One other possibility is for some company in China to appear on the scene.
Elon Musk has said he would love some competition because it helps increase the pace of progress. He even tried that internally for a bit by developing StarShip in two locations for awhile. I heard him in an interview saying that SpaceX might have too many great engineers and that it would be better for his goal of a city on Mars to have them spread over many companies.
There is no downward pressure on pricing because spacex only has to be slightly cheaper than the cheapest non-reusable rocket. So for a marginal cost of, let’s say, $2m for a reflown booster, there are still able to charge $50m+.
But since their customers are seeing prices of $50m, space is still expensive... nothing much has changed.
(I’ve simplified this by omitting the fact that the upper stage is not reusable)
A lot of BFR development is being done in the open in Boca Chica, and you can follow along because it’s being live-streamed almost 24/7. BFR has had small incremental hops recently and will try for a 15km flight this week. We’ll see what happens.