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Yep. And they are trying to get Raptor 2 to less than $2M a pop (iirc). The "cattle not pets" of rocket science.


SLS is at $100 million apiece and has no realistic path forward for improving that. Fail-and-iterate was never even an option for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25#Space_Shuttle_program ("contract extension to manufacture 18 additional RS-25 engines, with associated services, for $1.79 billion")


Raptor2 also is being upgraded with things like electric gimbaling vs hydraulics. I think that was a hydraulic unit at the bottom of super heavy that exploded a few sec after lift off. So... electric gimbaling it is then. ;)


I think they are actually below the $2M mark already and the actual goal is to get to 250k per engine (At least for non gimbal sea-level engines).




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