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The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

ft.com

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Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#31

Post by close04 »

adastra22 wrote: post #17
ben_w wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge negative margins, according to the article: "Starting with the reusable rockets, MS expects SpaceX to eat itself. Launch costs will collapse by more than 99 per cent versus their historical average within 10 years, it says. Operating margin on launches will have jumped to about 40 per cent, from around negative 50 per cent currently, but 40 per cent of less than 1 per cent still isn’t very much." Though as someo…

This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace. There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure.…

> This is my industry I know it well

How far ahead is SpaceX compared to the competition, a decade? More? Less? Is the gap closing or growing?

> Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace.

Do you expect they maintain these margins on launch and whatever services they deliver from space as that gap is closing? Is their first mover advantage practically unassailable because it's in space? Tesla built the EV market and are having their lunch eaten by the competition.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#32

Post by ubercore »

ben_w wrote: post #7

My draft blog post about all the things that are up with space data centres keeps getting bigger and bigger. "The other half of the MS model is data centres. “Orbital compute deployments” start in 2028, reach cost parity with their earthbound equivalents by 2031, and put 364GW of rigs in space by 2040." With 25% efficient cells, at 500 km altitude, in a terminator-tracing SSO, this is enough to occupy a *contiguous*…

I just skimmed that linked paper. Only mention I found of cooling is:

> Cooling would be achieved through a thermal sys- tem of heat pipes and radiators while operating at nominal temperatures.

Isn't that drastically underselling potentially one of the harder parts of this whole endeavor?

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#34

Post by aczerepinski »

ben_w wrote: post #19
adastra22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace. There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure.…

> And if you think, as Morgan Stanley seems to, that the only money to be made in space is selling launch of earth orbiting satellites, you’re going to miss out on the boom that is going to make the first quadrillionaire. I was with you up to this point. Quadrillionaire? Seriously? On species-wide economy of 0.1Q/year? On a timescale short enough that SpaceX remains a coherent entity and you don't have to account for…

Can’t rule out hyperinflation doing some heavy lifting :)

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#35

Post by stoneman24 »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #24
adastra22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace. There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure.…

> SpaceX started moving into their own constellations because lower prices open up new markets, and this lets them access those markets without having to lower launch prices the alternate take here is that even at current prices, falcon 9 is more than capable of completely filling space demand which makes building a >10x bigger vehicle seem kind of dumb

I think the main idea for starship is fully reusable ( which falcon 9 isn’t) and much larger capacity (both volume and mass). Driving down the cost of getting mass to orbit.

I googled and got the following costs per kg to orbit Falcon approx $3000 / kg Starship (early) $600 / kg Starship (target) $ 100 / kg

If they can achieve the target, it’s transformative. The Chinese will follow the lead and be available for some commercial customers but the majority of the market will be SpaceX.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#36

Post by small_model »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #21
adastra22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace. There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure.…

China and other competitors have other ideas, even if you're not aware of them. When your whole pitch is that you're commoditising a technology, don't be surprised when you get a commoditised market.

Their lead is insurmountable, might bleed 1/2% to china but they own launch market and will do for the next century.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#37

Post by antonvs »

discreteevent wrote: post #28

Panhandler > I sat out the TMT bubble until they quit using the term "information superhighway," and it saved me an 80% drawdown. > I'm sitting out the AI / chip / SpaceX [AICSX, pronounced like the wrestling shoes?] bubble until they stop using the word "compute" as if it were a noun. > I'm guessing I'll save myself a drawdown on a similar scale. A comment under the original article.

> until they stop using the word "compute" as if it were a noun.

That’s a bit silly, since it is a noun at this point, meaning computing resources or computing capacity.

It’s nowhere near being a term similar to “information superhighway”, which was never a technical term used within the industry, it was purely used in communication mostly to the public or in government agency and contractor slide decks.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#38

Post by piva00 »

ubercore wrote: post #32
ben_w wrote: post #7

My draft blog post about all the things that are up with space data centres keeps getting bigger and bigger. "The other half of the MS model is data centres. “Orbital compute deployments” start in 2028, reach cost parity with their earthbound equivalents by 2031, and put 364GW of rigs in space by 2040." With 25% efficient cells, at 500 km altitude, in a terminator-tracing SSO, this is enough to occupy a *contiguous*…

I just skimmed that linked paper. Only mention I found of cooling is: > Cooling would be achieved through a thermal sys- tem of heat pipes and radiators while operating at nominal temperatures. Isn't that drastically underselling potentially one of the harder parts of this whole endeavor?

Very drastically, the ISS solar panels can generate up to 120kW of power, look at the size of its radiators needed to cool it down.

Scaling that to the hundreds of GW range is quite laughable.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#39

Post by rithdmc »

ben_w wrote: post #19
adastra22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace. There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure.…

> And if you think, as Morgan Stanley seems to, that the only money to be made in space is selling launch of earth orbiting satellites, you’re going to miss out on the boom that is going to make the first quadrillionaire. I was with you up to this point. Quadrillionaire? Seriously? On species-wide economy of 0.1Q/year? On a timescale short enough that SpaceX remains a coherent entity and you don't have to account for…

In which currency? 1 billion Rupiah is less than 60,000 usd ;)

A quadrillionaire would only need $60 billion or so.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#40

Post by antonvs »

ubercore wrote: post #32
ben_w wrote: post #7

My draft blog post about all the things that are up with space data centres keeps getting bigger and bigger. "The other half of the MS model is data centres. “Orbital compute deployments” start in 2028, reach cost parity with their earthbound equivalents by 2031, and put 364GW of rigs in space by 2040." With 25% efficient cells, at 500 km altitude, in a terminator-tracing SSO, this is enough to occupy a *contiguous*…

I just skimmed that linked paper. Only mention I found of cooling is: > Cooling would be achieved through a thermal sys- tem of heat pipes and radiators while operating at nominal temperatures. Isn't that drastically underselling potentially one of the harder parts of this whole endeavor?

I view articles like that as a kind of roleplaying, essentially. The authors are pretending to be space hardware engineers, but the results are not remotely realistic.
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