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A look into the finances of SpaceX

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Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#51

Post by mcpackieh »

didibus wrote: post #33
mcpackieh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk of putting people on Mars is how they recruit young idealistic engineers. I think to understand what SpaceX is actually about you need to understand who Michael Griffin is and what he's all about. He went with Musk when he tried to buy an ICBM from Russia; he conceived of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program and gave the contract to SpaceX, before SpaceX had ever put anything into orbit. Ditto the Commerc…

> During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia > In December 2008, with SpaceX again on the verge of bankruptcy, Griffin awarded SpaceX along with his own Orbital Sciences company each contracts with a combined value of $3.5 billion It's crazy how nepotism is still such an important aspect of success today. It's very likely had they never known each other, SpaceX would not e…

It's very likely that if Michael Griffin and Elon Musk had never met, Elon Musk would not be in the space business at all and Michael Griffin would have induced some other person to play the same role. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX both exist to make "proliferated" LEO constellations possible. He founded one and had his fingers all over the founding of the other. He's gone above and beyond to keep both these companies afloat.

Considering the nature and role of the LEO constellation Michael Griffin wants to build, remember Elon Musk's talk about "preventing extinction". Ostensibly he's talking about making a 'backup' population of humanity on Mars, but that makes zero sense. Serious customers for Mars colonization don't actually exist and SpaceX hasn't invested in the development of Mars habitat technology themselves. What they're actually doing is developing boosters capable of launching proliferated LEO constellations for feasible amounts of money (a capability SpaceX is now demonstrating with Starlink.)

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#52

Post by pfdietz »

cypress66 wrote: post #45
bell-cot wrote: post #35

From Reuters... > In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported. > The company reported about $5.2 billion in total expenses for 2022, up from $3.3 billion the year earlier, according to the report. That $5.2B of expenses got 61 successful, production Falcon rocket launches in 2022. Vs. some pretty-reasonable estimates put t…

Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.

A rational return to the moon program that had to choose between Falcon and SLS would choose Falcon.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#53

Post by space_fountain »

el_nahual wrote: post #42
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably cap ex which means they can use depreciation to improve their bottom line numbers.

By definition, spending on something that is consumable (like a rocket launch) is not a capital expenditure. A capital expenditure is when you buy something whose value slowly decreases with time. If a factory buys a building for $10MM, it isn't any poorer. Yes, it has $10MM less in the bank, but it also has a building worth $10MM. As the building loses value with time the factory gets poorer: it's that loss of value…

A starlink launch takes lots of money but results in dozens of new satellites in orbit that in theory could be sold to some other company looking to create an internet constellation. That doesn’t seem that different from a factory where it takes money to build the factory, but then the factory can, in theory be sold. Yes the launch disappears, but the thing the launch did doesn’t.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#54

Post by loandbehold »

foota wrote: post #37
loandbehold wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't depreciation reduce their bottom line as opposed to improve it?

Depreciation happens over several years, whereas other expenses are immediate, right?

oh i see what you are saying. so depreciation vs expensing all at once.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#55

Post by mrguyorama »

cypress66 wrote: post #45
bell-cot wrote: post #35

From Reuters... > In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported. > The company reported about $5.2 billion in total expenses for 2022, up from $3.3 billion the year earlier, according to the report. That $5.2B of expenses got 61 successful, production Falcon rocket launches in 2022. Vs. some pretty-reasonable estimates put t…

Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.

And NASA will probably be very happy to use such a cheap system once they are convinced it meets their reliability standards. The point of SLS IMO is to keep a backup option if SpaceX has some horrific, unpredicted setback or design problem.

Surely people understand redundancy in aerospace right?

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#56

Post by stetrain »

pfdietz wrote: post #52
cypress66 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.

A rational return to the moon program that had to choose between Falcon and SLS would choose Falcon.

If the primary goal is sustainable payloads to the moon. I think Congress considers this a secondary goal over funding and jobs being directed at their states.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#57

Post by oivey »

pfdietz wrote: post #52
cypress66 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.

A rational return to the moon program that had to choose between Falcon and SLS would choose Falcon.

You’d probably have to figure out on orbit manufacturing, then, so I don’t think that is at all clear.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#58

Post by grimwall »

mrguyorama wrote: post #55
cypress66 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.

And NASA will probably be very happy to use such a cheap system once they are convinced it meets their reliability standards. The point of SLS IMO is to keep a backup option if SpaceX has some horrific, unpredicted setback or design problem. Surely people understand redundancy in aerospace right?

The point of SLS is pork, full stop.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#59

Post by samr71 »

mcpackieh wrote: post #21
Laremere wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go work for them on a position that has equity as part of the compensation. Otherwise, I doubt it. Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public. Additionally SpaceX as a company is oriented around putting humans on mars. Until that happens, I expect a supermajority of ownership would be against the profit seeking motives that an IPO creates. Short of investing in them, you could look for companies…

Talk of putting people on Mars is how they recruit young idealistic engineers. I think to understand what SpaceX is actually about you need to understand who Michael Griffin is and what he's all about. He went with Musk when he tried to buy an ICBM from Russia; he conceived of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program and gave the contract to SpaceX, before SpaceX had ever put anything into orbit. Ditto the Commerc…

This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect.

Now, to do that, they'll need to scratch the government's back. Doesn't mean that Mars isn't priority #1.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#60

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

bilekas wrote: post #39
more_corn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean twit-er-x is exciting, just in a more train wreck sort of way.

Yeah.. it's a strange guilty pleasure to see all the changes i view as stupid, to perform as badly in the real world.

Most of the changes seem to be great to me. Long form video. Longer posts. Revenue sharing.

Great changes so far

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