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

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

#111

Post by fragmede »

HeavyStorm wrote: post #55
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'm not very informed on SpaceX plans, but one thing I think people gloss over is how much maintenance a data center requires. Parts fail, computers get stuck on crash loops, etc. A space data center would need workers - computer people, not astronauts - and a constant supply of parts tob replace hardware. Whoever wrote this proposal doesn't understand neither space nor data centers.

I would pay so much money just to go on a mission to replace a bad stick of RAM on a data center in space.

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

#112

Post by Hikikomori »

adastra22 wrote: post #52
ben_w wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The material wealth of the Earth is only a small, small fraction of the accessible material in the inner solar system, let alone the universe. Starship fundamentally changes the game in ways people aren’t paying attention to because it pattern matches to sci-fi. But the economics are real: power and material far beyond what is available on Earth, on many cases at lower marginal price than terrestrial sources, and 100…

We don't even go for available materials on earth if they're slightly hard to get.

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

#113

Post by rsynnott »

ben_w wrote: post #109
rsynnott wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, given the pyrotechnics, the most obvious historical analog is the N1.

Perhaps, and good suggestion regardless, but the Soviet leadership was so adverse to negative publicity that it's hard to be sure how happy they were with hardware-rich testing. Throwing cheap rockets into the air until they don't explode worked fine for Falcon; but given how long it's taking, I'm not sure it's working okay for Starship, and I'm now completely convinced that this is a * terrible * way to make somethi…

The whole thing really does feel like a bit of a repeat of the N1 in the sense that it seems to be a “lash loads of relatively small engines together and see what happens” effort, though the N1 was abandoned quickly. I did wonder about this when I saw they were planning on using like 30 engines, because, well, N1, but I was assured that it was different this time.

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

#114

Post by ben_w »

incognito124 wrote: post #18
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'm also writing a blogpost on orbital datacentres, maybe we should compare notes!

Here's my current draft; I expect perhaps 20-30% of it will need rewriting, not counting anything I've yet to add: https://github.com/BenWheatley/blog/blob/main/2026/06/22-23....

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

#115

Post by ben_w »

rsynnott wrote: post #113
ben_w wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, and good suggestion regardless, but the Soviet leadership was so adverse to negative publicity that it's hard to be sure how happy they were with hardware-rich testing. Throwing cheap rockets into the air until they don't explode worked fine for Falcon; but given how long it's taking, I'm not sure it's working okay for Starship, and I'm now completely convinced that this is a * terrible * way to make somethi…

The whole thing really does feel like a bit of a repeat of the N1 in the sense that it seems to be a “lash loads of relatively small engines together and see what happens” effort, though the N1 was abandoned quickly. I did wonder about this when I saw they were planning on using like 30 engines, because, well, N1, but I was assured that it was different this time.

Likewise, though I figured they'd solved the "engines are a bit explode-y" with the Falcon 9 and Heavy.

Turned out not, and also that handling re-entry was much much harder than the Space Shuttle (and Buran) had made it seem.

Is this category of launch vehicle just that hard, or did Musk aggravate just enough of the competent engineers and lose just enough talent to grab defeat from the jaws of victory? Timeline's about right for the latter, but I could easily believe the former.

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

#116

Post by rsynnott »

ben_w wrote: post #115
rsynnott wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing really does feel like a bit of a repeat of the N1 in the sense that it seems to be a “lash loads of relatively small engines together and see what happens” effort, though the N1 was abandoned quickly. I did wonder about this when I saw they were planning on using like 30 engines, because, well, N1, but I was assured that it was different this time.

Likewise, though I figured they'd solved the "engines are a bit explode-y" with the Falcon 9 and Heavy. Turned out not, and also that handling re-entry was much much harder than the Space Shuttle (and Buran) had made it seem. Is this category of launch vehicle just that hard, or did Musk aggravate just enough of the competent engineers and lose just enough talent to grab defeat from the jaws of victory? Timeline's ab…

Thing about N1 and starship is they have _loads_ of small engines; lots of complex plumbing and vibrations. Falcon 9 has a more sensible number.

On re-entry, Buran re-entered once. You can’t read much into that. The shuttle did about a hundred times, but exploded doing it once and had a number of near misses. One reason it was killed off was that making re-entry safe was considered to be impossible. I think it’d be fair to say that re-entry for large objects remains an unsolved problem.

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

#117

Post by rsynnott »

ben_w wrote: post #110
rsynnott wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has any company ever dominated _any_ major market for a century? Struggling to think of one.

I can think of one, but it was awful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company Could be relevant if that whole "robot army" happens.

Doesn’t really count; that was more or less just a weird _country_ cosplaying as a company.

(There were a few of them. Fortunately it did not really survive as a concept)

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

#118

Post by __d »

laughing_man wrote: post #84
__d wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon9 has basically no market: the only thing that keeps it flying is Starlink. The whole AI/orbital datacentres/launch thing is a giant grift.

Falcon 9 has easily enough market launching commercial satellites to keep it flying outside of Starlink. It's the most efficient launcher in the world from a cost perspective. Falcon 9 was making money before Starlink existed.

That's not what Glynne said. The whole justification for Starlink was to create demand for Falcon.

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

#119

Post by [deleted] »

__d wrote: post #118
laughing_man wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon 9 has easily enough market launching commercial satellites to keep it flying outside of Starlink. It's the most efficient launcher in the world from a cost perspective. Falcon 9 was making money before Starlink existed.

That's not what Glynne said. The whole justification for Starlink was to create demand for Falcon.

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by jve »

__d wrote: post #118
laughing_man wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon 9 has easily enough market launching commercial satellites to keep it flying outside of Starlink. It's the most efficient launcher in the world from a cost perspective. Falcon 9 was making money before Starlink existed.

That's not what Glynne said. The whole justification for Starlink was to create demand for Falcon.

I can believe that as people questioned the need for _rapid_ reusability without the market. However saying that F9 has no market besides starlink is false. Take a look at Q1'24. report: https://payloadspace.com/payload-research-q1-space-industry-... 20 starlink / 11 commercial

2025 report https://spacedaily.com/t-spacex-launched-165-falcon-9-rocket...

123 Starlink / 42 commercial. Almost 1 commercial launch per week. I don't think any other launcher does 42 launches per year apart from china.

And the way F9 enabled Starlink is spectacular - a money printing machine on itself for SpaceX.

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