131–140 of 189 posts
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Starlink revenues are already over $1B per year, and they're just getting started.
That's based on forecasts and not real numbers (because SpaceX is a private company), but it's a good point.
I saw on their YouTube channel that they are tentatively targeting 4/20 to light it up :)
ughft. I mean: I smoke hashish, but honestly, Musk's adolescent little references like these are really trite and demeaning to the magnitude of what his companies are hoping to achieve. S3XY, poop emoji and 'Titter'. ughft, just stop already.
Press releases from SpaceX have alluded to a possible launch date of 420, which I think would be hilariously on brand.
How fucking lame, especially for a company that drug tests.
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Two big take-aways from this video: - Half the size of the statue of liberty is it's base. Not that tall as a statue. - Seadragon, of which I'd never heard. 1) 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
I think it is highly unfair to compare concepts to actual built rockets, might as well just include the Enterprise from Star Trek as well at that point.
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I assuming they drug test because it's a requirement for govt contracts. Given that they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt, they can't exactly flippantly violate their best customers rules.
Under the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988, workers at any company that receives a federal contract of $100,000 or more are prohibited from using or distributing drugs in the workplace, and the firm must have a drug-free workplace policy. Elon himself is subject to drug tests by the federal goverment
On the other hand, I met a person recently who works for Lockheed and I'm pretty sure he was regularly (or randomly) tested at his workplace.
If they can pull this off I think we may enter an age with a clear "Before super heavy reusable launch" and "after". It's mind boggling how much stuff a Starship will be able to chuck into space and come down and then do it again and again. Consider this, the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment anywhere in the world within 90 minutes using this kind of capability. International…
> the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment The killer app for the military is missile defense. Currently the US has about 4 dozen ground based midcourse interceptors. Each costs more than $100 million and carries one single exo-atmospheric kill vehicle capable of destroying one single incoming threat. The kill vehicle weights 64 kg. A single starship could carry more than 1000 k…
I saw on their YouTube channel that they are tentatively targeting 4/20 to light it up :)
ughft. I mean: I smoke hashish, but honestly, Musk's adolescent little references like these are really trite and demeaning to the magnitude of what his companies are hoping to achieve. S3XY, poop emoji and 'Titter'. ughft, just stop already.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I said, I dont disagree with your broader point, and would agree that 80+% is a reasonable estimate. $1B income for Starlink makes sense given they have ~1M customers paying ~$100/mo, and a $4-500 hookup cost. Lasty, you have to consider that the government contract numbers you have are cummulative going back to 2012, while the Starlink revenue is annual (2022 only). If you look at government contracts for 2021,…
You're probably right; I could have phrased it better. I think we pretty much agree, given what data is available. My main point is that their business model is predicated government contracts early before they can transition to other income streams. That's not really crony capitalism and it's part of the intent of the government to spur new industries. But I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capit…
> I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public
I think a lot of people dont really get this nuanced distinction. Rockets and spaceships have always been never been built by the government. Most of the work was always done by publically traded companies. NASA, whomever, would put out a contract, and then be involved in high level diretion of the design process.
The difference with SpaceX is that 1) they not publically traded (who cares?) and 2) they dont take design direction from NASA for their rockets, and built what they wanted. Thats it!
The cool part is that they built somthing more ambitious buy cutting NASA out of the design process, and relied on the fact that it will be so good that NASA will want it when they saw it.
My quibble is that this is very different than the classic case of the government spuring new industires. The government was already buying rockets from established manufactures for a half centry. SpaceX just came in and ate other companies lucnhes by being more focused and more efficienct.
if this works out does there become a bottleneck in the world's ability to produce space-ready, useful things (satelites, telescopes, etc). Its incredibly costly and complex to build things like the james webb telescope and that would be a great problem to have, but are there any measures of the demand for rocket capacity at given price points?