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SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

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Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#21

Post by jocaal »

krisroadruck wrote: post #14
asdff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a for profit company. Therefore profit margin must be achieved. What is profit margin but waste? Government is allowed to actually run at cost or under cost. Contracting with for profit entities therefore makes no sense, other than to further the profit of those entities.

Brother the government just labels "profit" differently. Most people would call it grift, pork, or "inefficiency". Government waste dwarfs private sector waste by orders of magnitude. The utopia where governments efficiently and wisely put our tax dollars to their best use doesn't exist, never has, and likely never will.

That utopia exists, the only problem is it is a communist country where you have no individual rights and can't own land.

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#22

Post by asdff »

jocaal wrote: post #21
krisroadruck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brother the government just labels "profit" differently. Most people would call it grift, pork, or "inefficiency". Government waste dwarfs private sector waste by orders of magnitude. The utopia where governments efficiently and wisely put our tax dollars to their best use doesn't exist, never has, and likely never will.

That utopia exists, the only problem is it is a communist country where you have no individual rights and can't own land.

It exists here too in small subsets of government. A parks dept that hires their own landscapers instead of contracting with a landscaping company is such an example of this utopia. A municipal power company with greatly reduced rates in comparison to a private utility. A university that runs its own prep kitchen facility over prepackaged GFS/cisco.

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#23

Post by Rebelgecko »

mrloopex wrote: post #8

Due to subsidies and investment fraud and subsidized tax breaks to 1% shareholders this will cost the US 10x more than if NASA just did it. People like to say nasa was a bloated waste of money, but thinking beyond k=1 it is obvious privatization costs even more in the long run.

This whole series of launches costs about the same as 1 SLS launch. Plus SpaceX is probably more aligned with DOW goals than NASA

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#24

Post by Pragmata »

asdff wrote: post #11
LaffertyDev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is that NASA could launch 18 rockets for ~$160 million total or ~8.8 million per launch? Or is your argument that the "real" cost of this $1.6B SpaceX / Space Force contract is in fact closer to ~$16B or ~$160B after accounting for tax subsidies and investment fraud?

It is a for profit company. Therefore profit margin must be achieved. What is profit margin but waste? Government is allowed to actually run at cost or under cost. Contracting with for profit entities therefore makes no sense, other than to further the profit of those entities.

>What is profit margin but waste?

Compensation for the risks taken and opportunity cost lost by doing this instead of something else.

Are you serious? I suggest you re-evaluate your priors because you're spouting things that demonstrate a severe lack of consideration for 1st, 2nd and 3rd order effects.

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#25

Post by LaffertyDev »

asdff wrote: post #19
LaffertyDev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that NASA, by virtue of being a government entity unburdened from profit seeking, could launch 18 rockets for less than $1.6B total or $88 million per launch?

Theoretically, absolutely. Of course it gets messy in reality. But theoretically there is no reason they couldn’t. If someone in a certain office snapped their fingers they could nationalize spacex for example and remove profitability requirements while preserving institutional knowledge and team structure. Just musk will no longer be the richest man on the planet.

This is now an argument I can start to get behind. There isn't a need for profit seeking or "dollar optimization" and I fully subscribe to the argument that the government can just "do things". I likewise fully subscribe to the argument that the ability for the government to just "do things" has been eroded over time systematically.

But, like, that's divergent from "This SpaceX contract is pure grift" that OP was not so subtly implying.

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#26

Post by sinuhe69 »

asdff wrote: post #19
LaffertyDev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that NASA, by virtue of being a government entity unburdened from profit seeking, could launch 18 rockets for less than $1.6B total or $88 million per launch?

Theoretically, absolutely. Of course it gets messy in reality. But theoretically there is no reason they couldn’t. If someone in a certain office snapped their fingers they could nationalize spacex for example and remove profitability requirements while preserving institutional knowledge and team structure. Just musk will no longer be the richest man on the planet.

When has NASA got even close to that number of dollar per kilo payload in its long history? AFAIK, never.

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#28

Post by silveraxe93 »

asdff wrote: post #19
LaffertyDev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that NASA, by virtue of being a government entity unburdened from profit seeking, could launch 18 rockets for less than $1.6B total or $88 million per launch?

Theoretically, absolutely. Of course it gets messy in reality. But theoretically there is no reason they couldn’t. If someone in a certain office snapped their fingers they could nationalize spacex for example and remove profitability requirements while preserving institutional knowledge and team structure. Just musk will no longer be the richest man on the planet.

Practically, that's exactly what Chavez did. Where did that lead?

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#29

Post by voxic11 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #27

18 launches for $1.6B sounds like a terrible deal for SpaceX. Will they even profit?

The standard catalog price for a dedicated falcon 9 launch is $74 million. So this is actually up-charging the government a bit (I assume there is some custom work or extra cost for arranging for the appropriate security/secrecy).

Re: SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches

#30

Post by vel0city »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #27

18 launches for $1.6B sounds like a terrible deal for SpaceX. Will they even profit?

1,600M / 18 means $88.8M per launch.

Supposedly they've been selling launches for ~$74M per launch.

https://nextspaceflight.com/rockets/3/

If its profitable at $74M then I'd imagine its more profitable at $88.8M. There could be some extra costs for dealing with government customers, but I imagine a lot of those $74M launches were also government customers. Lots of estimates of their cost per launch is somewhere <$20M.

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