Quick and dirty analysis of the anti-matter concept of rocket propulsion

This analysis, if it could be called such, will look at only the potential advantage of this approach. In particular, the economic advantage from the standpoint of the rocket propulsion itself.

 

It should be obvious, and therefore unnecessary to point out just one thing: Any method that could deliver 100 km/sec of delta-v has got to be a big advantage over anything else.

 

For comparison, a Starship Superheavy can deliver 200 tons to low Earth orbit. Therefore, to put 200 tons in low earth orbit is one launch. In order for that same rocket to be refueled for any mission elsewhere would take 10 more launches for the refill. Therefore, each Superheavy launch would cost 11 Superheavy launches to attain 200 tons at Low Earth Orbit, with a capability to go elsewhere.

 

For an anti-matter rocket, assuming you already had the fuel, you could get 100 km/sec. That's a lot more bang for the buck. To make the comparision as fair as possible, assuming that you had the fuel from Earth to refill the Starship, it would take 10 launches from the ground. Each launch from the ground would deliver 1 km/sec of delta-v. Therefore, the anti-matter option is 100 times better.

 

If you take that out to Saturn with that 100 km/sec, which is possible, then you could return with enough anti-matter for 10 more Saturn launches. Therefore, it could be leveraged into a method that would ultimately prove to be 10,000 times better than with a chemical rocket.

 

Even if Starship could bring launches down to a million apiece, it would save 100 billion dollars in launch costs just for one round-trip Saturn anti-matter run. You could make many, many such runs. Therefore, there is no comparison at all with anti-matter. It's a no-brainer. Come to think of it, if one would count the 10 launches to get to orbit, the savings would be a cool $1 trillion for each round trip to Saturn!