Apparently, cutting one kilogram from the weight of a commercial airliner saves about $2,200 in lifetime fuel costs. By contrast, putting a single kilogram of cargo into space costs $25,000 (a bit of a drag for those with aspirations of asteroid mining).
Author: Milan
In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023.
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“The International Space Station has cost more than 30 times its own weight in gold.”
http://qi.com/infocloud/weight
It can cost around $16,000 per kilo to send supplies like fuel into low Earth orbit. Transporting fuel to the Moon would cost at least five times as much, says Jeffrey Hoffman, a space-flight expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is familiar with SEC.