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A look into the finances of SpaceX

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Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#241

Post by lamontcg »

grimwall wrote: post #58
mrguyorama wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SLS is about maintaining the ability of the US to build rocket engines like the RS-25 and those massive SRBs. The Government is worried about waking up some morning and China has leapfrogged us to the Moon and it'll take 20 years for us to institutionally remember how to get back there. And SpaceX has not yet demonstrated the ability to land humans on the Moon while NASA has. They're making sure that we can definitely still use big dumb stupid expensive technology to get there. If Starship works they may wind up pivoting away from SLS in the future, but then SpaceX will also get to take its pick up the remains of that program and their engineers (if they aren't already benefiting from a lot of cross-pollination).

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#243

Post by pfdietz »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #217
avmich wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1990's Dan Goldin, the NASA administrator at the time, was looking for ways to return to the Moon for cheap. One of the least expensive variants which was presented included launching multiple Protons and assembling lunar exeditionary complexes on LEO. The quoted number at that time was $1 billion to put boots on regolith again. Falcon-9 is about as capable in terms of payload as Proton. And even without inflation…

That plan was rejected for the reasons I stated in a sibling comment.

Completely terrible reasons. There is no good justification for SLS.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#244

Post by mcpackieh »

jwells89 wrote: post #171
mcpackieh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's literally a theory about a conspiracy . That doesn't mean it isn't true. And Elon Musk saying he wants to create Mars colonies doesn't make it true, anymore than Howard Hughes saying he wanted to mine magnesium nodules off the ocean floor made that true. Look at Starship objectively. It's not a Mars rocket. That bellyflop through the atmosphere stunt won't work on Mars, and man-rating it even for operation…

> The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere. I'm only an enthusiastic layman on the topic of spacefaring, but isn't the launch vehicle a critical variable when designing habitats for other planets? It doesn't seem practical to take anything much further than paper u…

If they don't start serious habitat development until Starship is ready, then, Starhip will be decades old by the time anybody is ready to make a Mars colony. Besides the structure of the habitats themselves, there a ton of technology that would need to be developed first. Life support equipment and systems, space suits, vehicles, any sort of plan to produce food. Nobody is seriously developing this stuff, you have a few million dollars here and there thrown at university projects but no serious investment. It would take a Manhattan Project sized commitment, but who would pay for that? Not Elon Musk, he says that he assumes other people will. There's no money in Mars colonization, it's a pipe dream for young dreamers.

> To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying.

It doesn't make sense developing Starship unless you have paying customers lined up. Launching satellite constellations is a market that actually exists, Mars colonization doesn't and won't for decades at least, by which time Starship will likely be obsolete anyway.

Furthermore, you're ignoring the part where Starship isn't a Mars rocket and doesn't even resemble a Mars rocket. If Elon Musk had never spoken of Mars, there would be zero reason to suspect that Starship was meant to be a Mars rocket. His words alone are the basis for this belief. How much are his words actually worth to you?

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#245

Post by avhon1 »

Fordec wrote: post #120
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…

In other news it cost me $1500 to do a year of grocery shopping trips while it cost $1500 for one transatlantic return trip holiday. Apples to oranges comparison. 400km to low earth orbit is not compatible to a 384400km trip to another gravity well.

Distance is almost completely irrelevant for comparing launch vehicles.

Also, Falcon 9 has delivered multiple payloads to lunar orbit. Examples are ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1, SpaceIL's Beresheet, and South Korea's Danuri. In interplanetary space, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test was launched on a Falcon 9.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#246

Post by [deleted] »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #214
tomp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, not all the credit. She might be brilliant, but she's worked other space jobs before. So clearly whatever company Musk has created, has allowed her to actually showcase her brilliance. CEO sets the vision. Without vision, even perfect execution is pointless.

"clearly" is doing so much heavy lifting for you it puts both starship and sls to shame... If you have evidence to support that takeaway I'd love to see it. I don't have evidence one way or the other, though I have seen unconfirmed scuttlebutt that SpaceX is successful _despite_ Musk, in no small part due to actively distracting and babysitting him to prevent him from meddling

[deleted]

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#247

Post by bob1029 »

DennisP wrote: post #50
bob1029 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Short of investing in them, you could look for companies in industries that are likely to benefit from cheaper space access. I've been investing heavily in domestic tooling, manufacturing and construction. Screw chasing only SpaceX, wouldn't you also like to capitalize on things like our gigantic semiconductor mfg build-out? Playing the supply chain is often times better than having direct access to the thing you w…

That thought occurred to me but I couldn't find an ETF or an easy way to find the right companies. How do you go about it?

What I do is browse aimlessly through RH until see a tag like "Industrials". Then, I click this and I can see a list of like 50 companies that do all things yellow-square in sim city.

It's like fish in a barrel if you have patience to sort through the information and type fake contact info into investor web forms to get at presentation materials.

You definitely don't need a Bloomberg terminal subscription to do this stuff.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#248

Post by penjelly »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #224
penjelly wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks, thats what i get for asking bing instead of looking myself

Ah the penalty of dated LLM models

technically bing should have access to this regardless because it can access the internet (despite its training cutoff date) but its my fault for not digging deeper and trusting its output

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#249

Post by cubefox »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #214
tomp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, not all the credit. She might be brilliant, but she's worked other space jobs before. So clearly whatever company Musk has created, has allowed her to actually showcase her brilliance. CEO sets the vision. Without vision, even perfect execution is pointless.

"clearly" is doing so much heavy lifting for you it puts both starship and sls to shame... If you have evidence to support that takeaway I'd love to see it. I don't have evidence one way or the other, though I have seen unconfirmed scuttlebutt that SpaceX is successful _despite_ Musk, in no small part due to actively distracting and babysitting him to prevent him from meddling

That's complete nonsense. There is a lot of evidence that Musk makes all the important decisions (like switching Starship to steel) while Shotwell seems to handle mostly day-to-day business. Moreover, Shotwell has, as far as I know, not actually founded any successful companies, while Musk has.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#250

Post by andromaton »

penjelly wrote: post #203
philipwhiuk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crew-1 to Crew-6, DM-2, Inspiration 4, Axiom 1, Axiom 2 10 missions A crewed mission to the ISS every 6 months plus a handful of commercials. Your numbers are way off.

thanks, thats what i get for asking bing instead of looking myself

Also for saying "my research". Saying "bing says" would have been just as bad.
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