Summarizing: Wall Street Journal had a look into the finances of SpaceX In 2022, revenue was up to 4.5 billion dollars and costs up to 5.1 billion dollars 2022 loss ended up to over 0.5 billion...
Summarizing:
Wall Street Journal had a look into the finances of SpaceX
In 2022, revenue was up to 4.5 billion dollars and costs up to 5.1 billion dollars
2022 loss ended up to over 0.5 billion dollars, less than the almost 1 billion dollar loss in 2021
1.3 billion dollar was spend on R&D
It wrote down the value of its bitcoin assets. Bitcoin markets responded negatively and dropped by 8% today.
Considering how damn expensive rocketry is, only losing .5 billion a year is pretty damn good. SpaceX has always been the most compelling of Musk's ventures and the one that seems to be having a...
Considering how damn expensive rocketry is, only losing .5 billion a year is pretty damn good.
SpaceX has always been the most compelling of Musk's ventures and the one that seems to be having a measurable positive impact on humanity and science.
At this point its Shotwell's venture, that man has had ever decreasingly little real power over there for awhile now (if ever), if you ever want to know what SpaceX is really doing or planning,...
Musk's ventures
At this point its Shotwell's venture, that man has had ever decreasingly little real power over there for awhile now (if ever), if you ever want to know what SpaceX is really doing or planning, you have to follow her public remarks.
I can't really take her much more seriously than Musk. I saw (admitedly only parts of) an interview where she was talking up how starship would do suborbital passenger travel and that it would be...
I can't really take her much more seriously than Musk.
I saw (admitedly only parts of) an interview where she was talking up how starship would do suborbital passenger travel and that it would be a good way to go across the globe for a meeting and being able to be back for dinner. She's either a grifter like Musk, or she's an idiot for not seeing the many different ways that will be a bad idea.
I might be a little cynical about anything Musk touches though.
Suborbital rocket travel isn't inherently impossible or even impractical - it's been proposed as a method of moving around Mars, for example. Markets will be small, but in theory a few routes with...
Suborbital rocket travel isn't inherently impossible or even impractical - it's been proposed as a method of moving around Mars, for example. Markets will be small, but in theory a few routes with larger volumes of high-paying customers (say, New York to Beijing?) are workable. It all comes down to questions of launch pricing and reliability, both of which SpaceX hopes to solve with Starship by making launch very cheap with efficiency and reusability, and also by launching huge volumes of Starship to verify safety on launch and landing, prior to human passengers. Now, I wouldn't bet on Starship being used in this manner, but suggesting suborbital travel as a use case for a new class of rocket doesn't deserve to be called grifting or idiocy in my books. Naiveté or overpromising, sure.
I realize I didn't respond to this specifically. Musk saying you'll be able to use your Tesla as a robo-taxi in 2 years... that's a grift because it may have influenced consumers or investors with...
Now, I wouldn't bet on Starship being used in this manner, but suggesting suborbital travel as a use case for a new class of rocket doesn't deserve to be called grifting or idiocy in my books. Naiveté or overpromising, sure.
I realize I didn't respond to this specifically. Musk saying you'll be able to use your Tesla as a robo-taxi in 2 years... that's a grift because it may have influenced consumers or investors with lies. SpaceX isn't selling a product to consumers with a future promise that's a lie and they're not publicly traded BUT they may be using this hype to bring in VC money which is the grift IMO.
Calling her an idiot is a bit harsh I'll be honest but IMO "over-promising naiveté" is being a bit generous.
I just don't buy this as viable anytime soon let alone her timeline, which 5 years ago was "within 10 years".
It's not impossible but its a bad idea given current reliability as well as reliability in the foreseeable future. Just some rough thoughts on it The concept of vertical landing a rocket with a...
It's not impossible but its a bad idea given current reliability as well as reliability in the foreseeable future. Just some rough thoughts on it
The concept of vertical landing a rocket with a load of passengers. There's almost zero margin for error or any sort of part failure.
environmental impact VS even a private jet is huge
COST and all the implications that has
rapid reusability is a key to success (financial) but I think this still is far off or maybe not really possible in the near future
time to travel from the gate to a pad, load, fuel, do safety stuff, and rocket being more picky about weather (I think?)
popular routes being the only ones viable means that for a lot of people it may be quicker to fly. Example, launch pad on east coast USA... anyone on the west coast will have to fly there. It might make it pointless for those passengers.
I could probably go on. My point is, there's no way they had a serious boardroom meeting about the viability of this and came to the conclusion it was a good idea or financially viable.
SpaceX rockets aren't just "slightly cheaper" the costs to send payload to orbit is up to 90% less than it's competition. Not sure how anyone could ever say that's not dramatically cheaper. (At...
SpaceX rockets aren't just "slightly cheaper" the costs to send payload to orbit is up to 90% less than it's competition. Not sure how anyone could ever say that's not dramatically cheaper. (At least this is all the data I could find on the subject.) The competition you listed aren't making even a fraction of the launches or rockets that SpaceX is. They launch more rockets than any other US based entitycombined. That's an amazing feat, especially considering how relatively new the company is.
I'd be interested to see your sources on how other rocket companies are more efficient, I was under the impression that SpaceX has pretty much always been ahead of everyone.
Also saying that starlink is a threat for Kessler syndrome is in my opinion very melodramatic. Their satellites are designed to safely deorbit in just a few years, they're not going to be up there for centuries. Not to mention that starlink is miles ahead of any other satellite Internet company that I'm aware of in both coverage, latency, and speed. I don't expect them to be profitable soon if ever, but it's pretty disingenuous to call them not innovative or useful haha. I know several people in very rural areas who had no access to usable Internet for years, who are now on Starlink and it's insane how much better it is than standard satellite. It's not as good as cable Internet obviously but when the alternative is more expensive, riddled with data caps, slower, less reliable, and has higher latency I don't see the issue.
I'm sorry if I'm mischaracterizing but your entire comment reads as a bitter anti-SpaceX/Elon Musk person instead of someone who's objectively weighing the facts of the situation. And to get ahead of it, I have no love for the muskrat, I didn't even care for him back when reddit saw him as the savior to humanity, but I am impressed with what SpaceX has been able to accomplish in 20 short years.
Probably one of the most interesting things SpaceX has done with regards to reusability is turnaround time and cost in getting a used Falcon booster back out on the pad. The process is nowhere...
Probably one of the most interesting things SpaceX has done with regards to reusability is turnaround time and cost in getting a used Falcon booster back out on the pad. The process is nowhere near as invasive, costly, or laborious and drawn-out as previous attempts at spacecraft reuse, and it's not a fluke… they have it down to a science at this point having accumulated 188 booster reuses and counting in a very short period of time.
Falcon 9 can carry 5-10 times the payload of a Vega or Minotaur rockets, they are not really comparable. There have been 53 Falcon 9 launches so far this year (50 of them using reused boosters) -...
Falcon 9 can carry 5-10 times the payload of a Vega or Minotaur rockets, they are not really comparable.
There have been 53 Falcon 9 launches so far this year (50 of them using reused boosters) - 0 Vega launches and 0 Minotaur launches. Falcon 9 is basically dominating the commercial launch business right now, and I imagine the cost they offer their customers is a huge part of the reason for that.
Many Falcon 9 launches have multiple customers and multiple satellites on board. They've done launches with 100+ different satellites in a single launch. Even the Starlink launches (with ~50...
Many Falcon 9 launches have multiple customers and multiple satellites on board. They've done launches with 100+ different satellites in a single launch. Even the Starlink launches (with ~50 Starlink satellites) often have 1 or more customer satellites included in the payload to optimize capacity utilization.
If Vega or Minotaur were really competitive on price, you would expect more than 0 launches (with no more than 2 planned by each for the entire year, compared to 90+ planned Falcon 9 launches)
SpaceX have re-launched a booster 21 days after it landed (this time includes transportation - SpaceX claimed it only took 9 days to refurbish the booster for its next flight) The #1 and #2 most used boosters have been launched 16 times each so far, with 9 different boosters having been launched 10 or more times. I don't fully know what goes into the booster refurbishment process in between launches, but from what I do know, I don't think "torn down and rebuilt" is an accurate description.
But if what you are saying is true (launching with wasted capacity, not realizing any savings from reuse, etc.) then it is honestly even more impressive how successful and competitive the Falcon 9 program has been so far.
1.3bn on R&D must be mostly going towards Starship, that matches other estimates I've seen of how much SpaceX is spending on it. Starlink is interesting, a lot of people seem to think SpaceX need...
1.3bn on R&D must be mostly going towards Starship, that matches other estimates I've seen of how much SpaceX is spending on it.
Starlink is interesting, a lot of people seem to think SpaceX need to spend a lot to put it in place, but those costs won't actually end. They'll need to replace the satellites every five years or so, which means it really requires a continuous investment. I do wonder if that will limit the profits SpaceX will be able to reap from it.
Thing is, if Starship works its absolutely huge for spaceflight. The specs and costs of payload are absolutely flagship in the industry. It'll make their whole operation cheaper if they can just...
Thing is, if Starship works its absolutely huge for spaceflight. The specs and costs of payload are absolutely flagship in the industry.
It'll make their whole operation cheaper if they can just starship everything from that point. Which is exciting from an industry standpoint for sure.
I imagine the idea is to continue investing in the infrastructure to make launching the satellites as "cheap" as possible. They already have the cheapest rockets in the world by a large margin
I imagine the idea is to continue investing in the infrastructure to make launching the satellites as "cheap" as possible. They already have the cheapest rockets in the world by a large margin
I think Starlink is fairly profitable even with consistent Falcon 9 launches. And as the other commenter stated, if launch costs come down by the amount SpaceX is aiming for with Starship, the...
I think Starlink is fairly profitable even with consistent Falcon 9 launches. And as the other commenter stated, if launch costs come down by the amount SpaceX is aiming for with Starship, the economic equation shifts even more in Starlinks favour. I think it was a good move to set up the satellite network before the cheaper launch capability, giving you a set of early adopters. With this, SpaceX will benefit the most from lower launch costs, multiplying their first mover benefit. Other satellite ISPs will be playing catch-up even more, now having to rethink their constellations almost from scratch. I'm a little concerned over astronomy interference and space debris, but I'm hopeful that with lower launch costs, it might be solvable. We could have a whole fleet of space telescopes to augment or replace ground based telescopes, and be able to launch space tugs to remove inoperative satellites and debris.
Summarizing:
Considering how damn expensive rocketry is, only losing .5 billion a year is pretty damn good.
SpaceX has always been the most compelling of Musk's ventures and the one that seems to be having a measurable positive impact on humanity and science.
At this point its Shotwell's venture, that man has had ever decreasingly little real power over there for awhile now (if ever), if you ever want to know what SpaceX is really doing or planning, you have to follow her public remarks.
That's probably a good thing
Sure, but musk still owns it which is what I was referring to
I can't really take her much more seriously than Musk.
I saw (admitedly only parts of) an interview where she was talking up how starship would do suborbital passenger travel and that it would be a good way to go across the globe for a meeting and being able to be back for dinner. She's either a grifter like Musk, or she's an idiot for not seeing the many different ways that will be a bad idea.
I might be a little cynical about anything Musk touches though.
Suborbital rocket travel isn't inherently impossible or even impractical - it's been proposed as a method of moving around Mars, for example. Markets will be small, but in theory a few routes with larger volumes of high-paying customers (say, New York to Beijing?) are workable. It all comes down to questions of launch pricing and reliability, both of which SpaceX hopes to solve with Starship by making launch very cheap with efficiency and reusability, and also by launching huge volumes of Starship to verify safety on launch and landing, prior to human passengers. Now, I wouldn't bet on Starship being used in this manner, but suggesting suborbital travel as a use case for a new class of rocket doesn't deserve to be called grifting or idiocy in my books. Naiveté or overpromising, sure.
I realize I didn't respond to this specifically. Musk saying you'll be able to use your Tesla as a robo-taxi in 2 years... that's a grift because it may have influenced consumers or investors with lies. SpaceX isn't selling a product to consumers with a future promise that's a lie and they're not publicly traded BUT they may be using this hype to bring in VC money which is the grift IMO.
Calling her an idiot is a bit harsh I'll be honest but IMO "over-promising naiveté" is being a bit generous.
I just don't buy this as viable anytime soon let alone her timeline, which 5 years ago was "within 10 years".
It's not impossible but its a bad idea given current reliability as well as reliability in the foreseeable future. Just some rough thoughts on it
The concept of vertical landing a rocket with a load of passengers. There's almost zero margin for error or any sort of part failure.
environmental impact VS even a private jet is huge
COST and all the implications that has
rapid reusability is a key to success (financial) but I think this still is far off or maybe not really possible in the near future
time to travel from the gate to a pad, load, fuel, do safety stuff, and rocket being more picky about weather (I think?)
popular routes being the only ones viable means that for a lot of people it may be quicker to fly. Example, launch pad on east coast USA... anyone on the west coast will have to fly there. It might make it pointless for those passengers.
I could probably go on. My point is, there's no way they had a serious boardroom meeting about the viability of this and came to the conclusion it was a good idea or financially viable.
SpaceX rockets aren't just "slightly cheaper" the costs to send payload to orbit is up to 90% less than it's competition. Not sure how anyone could ever say that's not dramatically cheaper. (At least this is all the data I could find on the subject.) The competition you listed aren't making even a fraction of the launches or rockets that SpaceX is. They launch more rockets than any other US based entitycombined. That's an amazing feat, especially considering how relatively new the company is.
I'd be interested to see your sources on how other rocket companies are more efficient, I was under the impression that SpaceX has pretty much always been ahead of everyone.
Also saying that starlink is a threat for Kessler syndrome is in my opinion very melodramatic. Their satellites are designed to safely deorbit in just a few years, they're not going to be up there for centuries. Not to mention that starlink is miles ahead of any other satellite Internet company that I'm aware of in both coverage, latency, and speed. I don't expect them to be profitable soon if ever, but it's pretty disingenuous to call them not innovative or useful haha. I know several people in very rural areas who had no access to usable Internet for years, who are now on Starlink and it's insane how much better it is than standard satellite. It's not as good as cable Internet obviously but when the alternative is more expensive, riddled with data caps, slower, less reliable, and has higher latency I don't see the issue.
I'm sorry if I'm mischaracterizing but your entire comment reads as a bitter anti-SpaceX/Elon Musk person instead of someone who's objectively weighing the facts of the situation. And to get ahead of it, I have no love for the muskrat, I didn't even care for him back when reddit saw him as the savior to humanity, but I am impressed with what SpaceX has been able to accomplish in 20 short years.
Probably one of the most interesting things SpaceX has done with regards to reusability is turnaround time and cost in getting a used Falcon booster back out on the pad. The process is nowhere near as invasive, costly, or laborious and drawn-out as previous attempts at spacecraft reuse, and it's not a fluke… they have it down to a science at this point having accumulated 188 booster reuses and counting in a very short period of time.
Falcon 9 can carry 5-10 times the payload of a Vega or Minotaur rockets, they are not really comparable.
There have been 53 Falcon 9 launches so far this year (50 of them using reused boosters) - 0 Vega launches and 0 Minotaur launches. Falcon 9 is basically dominating the commercial launch business right now, and I imagine the cost they offer their customers is a huge part of the reason for that.
Many Falcon 9 launches have multiple customers and multiple satellites on board. They've done launches with 100+ different satellites in a single launch. Even the Starlink launches (with ~50 Starlink satellites) often have 1 or more customer satellites included in the payload to optimize capacity utilization.
If Vega or Minotaur were really competitive on price, you would expect more than 0 launches (with no more than 2 planned by each for the entire year, compared to 90+ planned Falcon 9 launches)
SpaceX have re-launched a booster 21 days after it landed (this time includes transportation - SpaceX claimed it only took 9 days to refurbish the booster for its next flight) The #1 and #2 most used boosters have been launched 16 times each so far, with 9 different boosters having been launched 10 or more times. I don't fully know what goes into the booster refurbishment process in between launches, but from what I do know, I don't think "torn down and rebuilt" is an accurate description.
But if what you are saying is true (launching with wasted capacity, not realizing any savings from reuse, etc.) then it is honestly even more impressive how successful and competitive the Falcon 9 program has been so far.
Not sure if I'm missing something obvious, but what on Earth is a rocketry company doing with bitcoin assets?
1.3bn on R&D must be mostly going towards Starship, that matches other estimates I've seen of how much SpaceX is spending on it.
Starlink is interesting, a lot of people seem to think SpaceX need to spend a lot to put it in place, but those costs won't actually end. They'll need to replace the satellites every five years or so, which means it really requires a continuous investment. I do wonder if that will limit the profits SpaceX will be able to reap from it.
Thing is, if Starship works its absolutely huge for spaceflight. The specs and costs of payload are absolutely flagship in the industry.
It'll make their whole operation cheaper if they can just starship everything from that point. Which is exciting from an industry standpoint for sure.
I imagine the idea is to continue investing in the infrastructure to make launching the satellites as "cheap" as possible. They already have the cheapest rockets in the world by a large margin
I think Starlink is fairly profitable even with consistent Falcon 9 launches. And as the other commenter stated, if launch costs come down by the amount SpaceX is aiming for with Starship, the economic equation shifts even more in Starlinks favour. I think it was a good move to set up the satellite network before the cheaper launch capability, giving you a set of early adopters. With this, SpaceX will benefit the most from lower launch costs, multiplying their first mover benefit. Other satellite ISPs will be playing catch-up even more, now having to rethink their constellations almost from scratch. I'm a little concerned over astronomy interference and space debris, but I'm hopeful that with lower launch costs, it might be solvable. We could have a whole fleet of space telescopes to augment or replace ground based telescopes, and be able to launch space tugs to remove inoperative satellites and debris.