Does anyone have any idea how to figure out what their "energy per Pound to orbit" is and how it might compare to their competition? Would be curious as their relative efficiencies.
It turns out that "relative efficiencies" from an energy standpoint is not the relevant consideration, by two or three orders of magnitude.
Fuel costs for launch vehicles are a negligible fraction of the total cost to fly. Musk is working the rest of the problem by simplifying the design, designing for manufacturability, using off-optimum technologies, building everything under one roof, and so on.
