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SpaceX files to go public

nytimes.com

581–590 of 631 posts

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#581

SpaceX has reduced the cost of getting a ton of mass into orbit by a factor of 10 and with their new system (Starship) it's poised further reduce that to 100x. They launch, land and re-use their rockets so often now that what was considered impossible 15 years ago is now routine. They currently put more things into space than the rest of the world combined and by a huge margin. They also have the most advanced intern…

This comment reads like an S-1 pitch deck and almost every claim is false or misleading. The $16B is not profit its revenue , and I strongly suggest to learn the difference before investing. The $8B figure is EBITDA, also known as, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, AND amortization. For a company running around 9500 LEO satellites with a less than 5 year lifespan, depreciation is the business. Their FCC…

How to do you factor in the military demand for Starlink?

If you follow the war in Ukraine, there is absolutely no denying that Starlink is a total gamechanger. Mostly because it's inherently hard to jam, but also got acceptable latency allowing for unrestricted FPV strikes. Because of this, Ukraine seems to have achieved Russian air-defense degradation to the point of limited "free hunting" in the deep.

In that use case, even "AI in space" kinda make sense to me, for future drone developments. One-way drones don't have to waste expensive compute for autonomy, when the compute can be in space above. This would save one RTT for drone control, too. For cheap, jamming resistant swarm (semi-)autonomy, to overwhelm AD, it seems like the perfect solution.

The cat is out of the bag, there is no way the military will ever let go of this capability. Cheap drones are the future, LEO sats provide the comms. There will be long running service contracts.

I see the civilian use rather as a "peace time" subsidiary, now, but the main customer will be the military. And due to SpaceX's launch platform and commercial offering, it's giving the US a hard technological edge in warfare, since it's difficult to afford a LEO sat network without cheap launches and civilian co-pay.

I am too stupid to make a proper economic argument, but it seems like a clever and sustainable business model :D Would love to hear your thoughts!

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reads like an S-1 pitch deck and almost every claim is false or misleading. The $16B is not profit its revenue , and I strongly suggest to learn the difference before investing. The $8B figure is EBITDA, also known as, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, AND amortization. For a company running around 9500 LEO satellites with a less than 5 year lifespan, depreciation is the business. Their FCC…

Those are a lot of great points but I'll nitpick a couple things. While it's true that Starship has never reached orbit, they have reached orbital velocity several times. They could have gone into orbit if they'd aimed in that direction, but they didn't because it's a test rocket and they didn't want it to stay up there if anything went wrong. And I don't think the multiple failure causes mean they aren't iterating.…

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Re: SpaceX files to go public

#583
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Radio Shack in 1995 shortly after carriers started subsidizing phones aggressively and you could “buy one for penny”. They were selling like crazy. Just some quick Googling says that cellphone penetration went from 1% in 1990 to 50% by 1999. The Motorola Startec was introduced in 1996 and clones came quickly thereafter and were all the rage

Although it’s also the case that people like me owned cell phones for quite a while but didn’t use them to any material degree especially for personal uses for a while.

Per minute costs were expensive, roaming from your local city took a lot of work, they were bulky bag phones and you still had to pay separate long distance charges, I’m not surprised.

Sprint changed that in the late 90s where all calls were 10 cents a minute anywhere you were calling from and too and you stayed on their network.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can post-IPO - depending on liquidity. I don't think that'll be an issue here. And if the thesis of "it's going to look good for the first 15 days" holds, you can indeed be very profitable by e.g. buying ATM puts. (The problem being that markets don't like sticking to time tables just to accommodate your investment thesis ;) So yes, you'll be able to take a bearish position fairly shortly after the IPO.

A Musk joint immediately after an IPO. ATM puts will be trading at what, 250% IV?

Probably. Hey, you picked a risky thesis heading into large uncertainty, that's not free.

But for the folks who are dead convinced it's all just a scam and it will quickly collapse, that's a way to put their money where their mouth is.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#585
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it’s also the case that people like me owned cell phones for quite a while but didn’t use them to any material degree especially for personal uses for a while.

Per minute costs were expensive, roaming from your local city took a lot of work, they were bulky bag phones and you still had to pay separate long distance charges, I’m not surprised. Sprint changed that in the late 90s where all calls were 10 cents a minute anywhere you were calling from and too and you stayed on their network.

Exactly. I eventually bought one and then an other and chose a calling area that was most likely to correspond with people I might communicate with on trips and the like but it was backup/emergency use. Not something you used personally day to day or even maybe week to week.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#586
post #15

You don't have to believe. If you have a 401k you will be an investor 15 days after launch. The IPO will go great, because the company will float a fairly small issuance. The big shareholders will not immediately sell. They will hold on and maybe even buy to support the price. Then, after 15 days, it will enter the indexes and everyone's 401k will start auto-buying this stock. You might say this is an obvious flaw in…

I really wish more people were aware of this. It's a major scandal and definitely not being talked enough about. Nevermind SpaceX, which at least have some importance for US defense industry, but xAI ? We will be investing in Elon's private venture, at the price that he himself set and which is at least 2 orders of magnitude too high...

>I really wish more people were aware of this. It's a major scandal and definitely not being talked enough about.

Aware of what? A rule change that has been asked for long before Elon stepped foot into the White House? Just because the collective brain rot and Elon Derangement Syndrome on BlueSky is calling it a "scandal" doesn't make it so.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is a colony on mars necessary?

I meant it was not necessary for the Antarctica station to be autonomous.

It’s about doing a test run there before we send people to Mars that have no backup plan when something goes wrong.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#588
Can't wait til the precious minerals market crash from asteroid mining goes kaboom, and just like that old tale about the king who left a wake of gold in his hajj, which ended up destroying the economy. In Cairo specifically.

Will mankinds's mouth be larger than its stomach?

Found the Emperor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant it was not necessary for the Antarctica station to be autonomous.

It’s about doing a test run there before we send people to Mars that have no backup plan when something goes wrong.

The Apollo missions had no backup plan. Neither did many great exploration expeditions in history.

Re: SpaceX files to go public

#590

Can't wait til the precious minerals market crash from asteroid mining goes kaboom, and just like that old tale about the king who left a wake of gold in his hajj, which ended up destroying the economy. In Cairo specifically. Will mankinds's mouth be larger than its stomach? Found the Emperor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa

maybe? if the LLM craze for the past cpl years has biased my thinking in anyway it’s that making a previously expensive technology more accessible will just drive demand for it up
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