Transcost is one of the models that Elon broke.
On Sun, 2016-11-13 at 14:31 -0700, Ed LeBouthillier wrote:
So, in looking into this issue of scaling laws, I've come across the
Transcost model.
It puts forth the following Cost Estimating Relationship (CER) for
development costs (in man years) of an expendable launch vehicle
stage:
Cost(MY) = 150 * mass^0.48
In some ways, this gives a clearer model but it gives some correction
to my earlier statement. Since mass is:
Mass ~ L^3
The equation becomes:
Cost(MY) = 150 * (L^3)^0.48
which simplifies to:
Cost(MY) = 150 * L^1.44
So, in many ways, based on historical/statistical regressions, the
cost
is actually less than I originally thought.
The reference for the above is:
COST COMPARISON OF EXPENDABLE, HYBRID, AND REUSABLE LAUNCH VEHICLES
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a451291.pdf
