Less cost, mo’ betta! I’ve seen guesstimates ranging from $10G to $50G, but I’d like to stress that I’ve never seen anything detailing how those numbers were arrived at. My guess is that the anchoring vessel would be around 130,000 tons displacement, and would take the lion’s share of the budget and possibly the lead time. If anybody’s seen any relevant numbers, I’d greatly appreciate a link to them.
The design I’ve seen proposed allows for around 30 tons per car, which could allow for a 5MW climbing motor, depending on the cooling system’s ability to handle the transition from sea level atmosphere to zero vacuum and gravity in the span of around 30 minutes. I’d hate to see the cooling system eat up the freight mass budget.
