It will be fascinating to see what they come up with. $50 million for just the upper stage is so expensive compared to Falcon 9. According to the numbers in the article, SpaceX can launch 3 Falcon 9s for the price of that one upper stage.
And potentially $100 mil for the 4 engine variant of the upper stage. The rumor was that the real costs were uncompetitive, but I wouldn’t have guessed this much.
I like what Rocket Lab is trying with the cheap and light upper stage for Neutron. I like what Stoke is trying with the fully reusable Nova upper stake. Blue has done the opposite.
Of all the things Bezos could blow money on, I guess subsidizing launch costs isn’t the worst. At some point, though, that creates a noncompetitive environment that screws over real companies trying innovative things.
