Thieving Canadians versus Elon Musk

A recent analysis puts the cost of launching 1kg into low Earth orbit (LEO), on Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket, to approximately USD1500 per kg.

Musk is developing his Starship launch vehicle in the hope of significantly reducing this cost of launching mass to orbit. He has stated that his target is about USD10.00 per kilogram to LEO, which assumes full and rapid reusability and a very high launch cadence for Starship. But this is an aspirational long-term operating cost; it seems that more conservative estimates put Starship launch costs at about USD100–200 per kilo.

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The above Coronet edition of John Wyndham's Stowaway to Mars of 1972 weighs 110 grams. If we add 90 grams for minimal packaging (to reach a total of 200g), it seems that Elon Musk would presently charge approximately USD300 to launch a copy of this book into LEO, but he expects to be able to eventually be able launch a copy into LEO for USD2.00 (while more conservative estimates put it at USD20). This is good news for LEO book collectors.

As you can see below, one thieving bastard bookseller (JMCbooksonline, of Cheverie, NS, Canada) is presently asking USD140 [A$196] to launch, I mean post, this book to Australia (see listing here). For the record, I can post 250g to Canada for A$23.05—less than one eighth of this.

This postal charge is the equivalent of USD700 per kilo—more than double the present cost of launching Wyndham's Stowaway to Mars into orbit via a Falcon 9, soon to be thirty-five times the cost of launching it into LEO via Starship, and, if Musk's dreams are realised, three hundred and fifty times the cost of launching it into orbit.

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Anyone in Australia who buys books from overseas soon learns that postage from Canada is extremely slow and extremely expensive—possibly the slowest and most expensive postal service in the world, but certainly the slowest and most expensive postal service I am familiar with.

When buying from Canada, there are no bargins to be had, and few books are rare enough to justify stuffing the pockets of either Canadian postal services or Candian Booksellers.

I wonder how long it will be before Musk realises that international parcel post represents an arbitrage opportunity, and that he can use Starfall—the uncrewed reusable re-entry/cargo capsule being developed by SpaceX—to massively reduce the cost of postage of 1970s paperbacks from Canada (or the US) to Australia?