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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#131

Post by notahacker »

cptaj wrote: post #116
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

This is on a similar scale to complaining about there being too many tennis balls on the surface of the earth. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Nah, it's more akin to complaining about the number of bullets crossing your path. They don't occupy much space, but the fact they're moving at 17,500mpg means you want to ensure you avoid them, and ideally for there to be fewer of them fired at more predictable intervals.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#132

Post by umeshunni »

nba456_ wrote: post #62
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

Oh great the NIMBYs are coming for space now.

Not Above My Back Yard - NAMBY?

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#133

Post by umeshunni »

Rover222 wrote: post #110
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

Incredible how the first instinct is just to complain about progress these days. The degrowth mindset is really taking hold. There is a huge amount of "space" available even in low orbital shells. Which also naturally decay.

There's a reason most of the western world isn't capable of building anything these days.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#134

Post by xp84 »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #100
Centigonal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hank Green did a video recently advocating for an "orbit value tax" -- like a Georgist Land Value Tax, but for orbits. This tax would, among other things, help fund orbital cleanup and internalize the externality of polluting orbital shells. It's an idea that deserves more discourse IMO. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjW6zuYmos

Ugh. People already trying to find ways to gate keep space by raising the financial barrier to entry before we've even been able to capitalize on cheap space flights. I'm sure SpaceX and others will be against this until suddenly, they're not, when they realize they're one of the few that can even afford to pay it. Like when Amazon finally had warehouses in all fifty states and suddenly quit campaigning against onlin…

How else are the entrenched interests who control most of what happens on Earth to guarantee their continued dominance off world? And yes, it’s exactly like the creep of taxation, copyright police[1], and censorship into the Internet when they realized people were going there in part to avoid those.

[1] I’m not really mourning the loss of Napster, but rather rolling my eyes at the way YouTube has made having more than 6 seconds of any song a death sentence for the video, killing fair use dead, since demonetization directly halts distribution of a video.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#135

Post by seattle_spring »

ck2 wrote: post #127
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

https://satellitemap.space

That map makes it look extremely crowded. Actual relative satellite size is many magnitudes smaller than each of those 1-pixel representations.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#136

Post by Rover222 »

umeshunni wrote: post #133
Rover222 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredible how the first instinct is just to complain about progress these days. The degrowth mindset is really taking hold. There is a huge amount of "space" available even in low orbital shells. Which also naturally decay.

There's a reason most of the western world isn't capable of building anything these days.

Yeah. And on the other hand, Chinese culture tends to embrace and optimize progress. I blame the French for infecting western universities with the de-growth mindset.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#137

Post by skissane »

fastball wrote: post #123
nonethewiser wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be one-in-the-same soon enough

Seems unlikely now that both are separate public companies. Creative accounting acquisitions are somewhat more difficult in that context.

Alternative take: if a SPCX-TSLA merger proposal is publicly announced, that will create market enthusiasm (quite possibly irrational) about “unlocking synergies” which will temporarily pump both stocks, thereby making Musk (and all the other insiders) richer, even if only temporarily.

Plus, the two firms already cooperate heavily, and Musk wants them to cooperate more, but being two separate public companies adds a lot of legal friction to that cooperation (each board has to review and sign off on things independently) and legal risks (shareholder lawsuits alleging they are cooperating in ways contrary to shareholder interests)

So I think, from Musk’s viewpoint, it is a very logical next step, which means it probably will happen sooner or later

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#139

Post by everfrustrated »

ElProlactin wrote: post #61
pavon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that seems grossly unrealistic. They are growing. Neutron is almost complete, and I'd expect significant growth in their launch revenue from that, and their space services are also doing well. So I could easily see their revenue increasing 5x over the next 5 years, maybe 10x. But that market cap can only be justified by the space market as a whole growing 100x, and RL maintaining a significant portion of it wit…

> Neutron is almost complete... I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars from my early investments in RKLB but this isn't true if by "complete" you mean they have a proven launch vehicle. The company is now targeting late 2026 for Neutron's inaugural flight. Neutron was announced in 2021. There were hopes for a 2024 first flight. Then it was mid-to-late 2025. Now it's Q4 2026 after a failure related to the stage 1…

Yes tho I'd argue that Rocket Lab has the finances to easily weather a few more years of Neutron set back if that ends up happening (fingers crossed it doesn't happen). They aren't going bust anytime soon. So I don't see the downside as being zero.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#140

Post by TheJoeMan »

ralfd wrote: post #76
TheJoeMan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At present, I don't believe there are industry standards / codes mandating minimization of reflectivity. My understanding is that SpaceX has engineered for this from their own internal requirements and "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback). As we anticipate a major scale-up of LEO in the future, it follows that "cost pressures" may (mal)incentivize players to skip this conc…

> "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback) I hate this cynicism in everything. People didnt work there 10 years ago to be millionaires in a far away IPO, they worked there because they are Team Space.

I'm not quite understanding, sorry if what I said was misconstrued. You don't think the engineering team considered reflectivity from a moral perspective? I am saying there needs to be some standards set out so that future engineers at unscrupulous companies have something to point at as a requirement.
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