Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance' • Hacker News Board

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#521

Post by tristanj » Sun, May 31, 2026, 12:54 AM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #369

tristanj wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing to read comments like these, because they remind me of the massive awareness gap between people who understand SpaceX's product line, and those who don't. In your world, you only see and interpret SpaceX's existing products. You then see SpaceX's eye-watering valuation, and then are confused where this comes from. Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these pro…

I'd love to know what your analysis. This is a genuine request. No snark. I'm genuinely curious of other view points.

I'll mention the ones no one else is talking about.

The Golden Dome buildout will deliver $200-300 billion in revenue to SpaceX through 2040 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s... . Golden Dome is only viable with low-cost Starship, and SpaceX will build the satellites housing the radars, IR detectors, interceptors, and backbone communications network. The interceptors themselves will likely be built by existing players i.e. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. SpaceX revenue here is astronomical, potentially $500+ billion if a full buildout occurs.

Starlink Mobile is atrociously underestimated, with Starlink V3/V4 satellites and the $17 billion Echostar spectrum, Starlink will deliver 4G speeds direct to cellphone for thousands of customers per cell across the globe. It will never match the bandwidth throughput of terrestrial towers but will be extremely cost competitive in rural areas. A single cellular tower costs ~$250k to build and tens of thousands per year to maintain. It will be far cheaper for mobile operators to partner with SpaceX than do their own costly buildout. Assuming quick adoption, revenue will be $50-100 billion per year by 2040, with high margins.

Not to mention Starship, which in its incomplete form of V3 already has the lowest cost-to-orbit of any launch vehicle ever, will usher in a wave of space exploration. The moat is huge, Starship is 15 years ahead of the competition.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#522

Post by tristanj » Sun, May 31, 2026, 1:02 AM UTC

emj wrote: post #357

tristanj wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing to read comments like these, because they remind me of the massive awareness gap between people who understand SpaceX's product line, and those who don't. In your world, you only see and interpret SpaceX's existing products. You then see SpaceX's eye-watering valuation, and then are confused where this comes from. Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these pro…

Isn't Spaceship an requirement to make starlink profitable?

You mean Starship. And not it's not, Starlink is already extremely profitable, currently running at a 60% profit margin.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#523

Post by tordrt » Sun, May 31, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

ninalanyon wrote: post #472

tordrt wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think this makes sense, given how insanely much more polluting coal is. You have to burn massive amounts of coal to power the liquid refinery, 50% of the energy lost essentially in the conversion process. In addition to that liquid coal has double the emissions of regular oil. Air quality would have been a disaster. EVs in scale would have maybe happened sooner, but they would have give us much less value, and…

> Air quality would have been a disaster. What do you mean would have been? It was a disaster. Perhaps you are too young or insufficiently well travelled to have experienced the effects of burning coal in, say the UK in the 1950s and 1960s or in China even in the last few decades. Without oil the push to solar and wind would also have been accelerated, probably. What is it about oil and as that you think made it acce…

Yeah, my point was that it would have been even worse without oil and gas.

solar, wind and semiconductors all require a very advanced petrochemical supply chain. You simply couldn't produce any of this without products derived from oil and gas.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#524

Post by tordrt » Sun, May 31, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

fpoling wrote: post #474

tordrt wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think this makes sense, given how insanely much more polluting coal is. You have to burn massive amounts of coal to power the liquid refinery, 50% of the energy lost essentially in the conversion process. In addition to that liquid coal has double the emissions of regular oil. Air quality would have been a disaster. EVs in scale would have maybe happened sooner, but they would have give us much less value, and…

In 1920 in Berlin there were more electrical taxes than gasoline one. But cheap gasoline killed electrical car industry. Without that electrical cars would proceed to develop and batteries with high capacity would happen much sooner. As for pollution it would not be that bad. Fuel would be expensive and cars with combustion engines would not happen on massive scale. There would be much more freight by trains and nucl…

You are talking as if oil and gas delayed the future, which I dont think makes sense at all.

I think we are underestimating all the derivatives we use from oil and gas here.

I think this is all very optimistic. I think not having oil and gas would have been a major setback to global progress I dont think it would have made us more advanced within batteries or electrical cars than we are today. And especially not even close to overall general global progress we have reached today.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#525

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Sun, May 31, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

nolok wrote: post #158

eberkund wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that? Chinese EVs?

Not parent, but Tesla is currently worth more in the stock market than the ten biggest car seller combined That's with falling sales, with no new product in sight and their latest release a big dud (despite SpaceX ordering massive amount of it to prop it up), and with a pricing and thus margin that is going to be massively lowered or beaten by Chinese ev. Protectionism by the US can only go so far, the US alone doesn…

Tesla's EV is worth about the same as the the EV of the term biggest car companies combined. It is highly speculative, but their current new product is the Semi, which started volume production last month, and they have the robotaxi and Optimus in the pipeline.

One advantage they have over other manufacturers is their willingness to move into (and out of) adjacent verticals to optimize product cost/design/etc.

They could be beaten by EVs from China/etc, but only time will tell.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#526

Post by tristanj » Sun, May 31, 2026, 3:05 AM UTC

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #410

tristanj wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing to read comments like these, because they remind me of the massive awareness gap between people who understand SpaceX's product line, and those who don't. In your world, you only see and interpret SpaceX's existing products. You then see SpaceX's eye-watering valuation, and then are confused where this comes from. Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these pro…

"You just don't understand bro" has been the trite handwaving of criticism for a over decade now. It already wore out when the bitcoin bros kept saying it to all their critics. > I can tell you are in the unaware group, since you don't mention nor analyze two of SpaceX's world-changing products (Starship and Starlink Mobile). Just because I did not mention Starship by name does not mean it's not in the reply. And Sta…

> They are looking 10 years forwards. I am looking 10 years back.

And that's your flaw. Companies are priced by looking ahead and projecting future revenue and earnings, not by looking 10 years into past. Your analysis is fundamentally flawed for this reason. Neither of SpaceX's major future revenue drivers (Starship and Starlink) existed a decade ago. This explains your confusion regarding SpaceX's valuation.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#527

Post by Geezus_42 » Sun, May 31, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC

copx wrote: post #395

Geezus_42 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX isn't opening space to everyone. They're are preparing for the select few to be able to escape once the earth is no longer sustainable due to their own efforts.

Actually given that the first colonists on Mars will live pretty miserable lives before dying early of radiation poisoning Musk and Co are trying to recruit other people to move there. Musk, Thiel, Bezos etc. none of these guys have ever said they want to move there.

No they aren't. They're trying to design robots that can build the habit for them before they arrive and pamper them once they are there. Maybe they'll send a few human guinea pigs first to work out the kinks, but they ain't trying to go to Mars, or anywhere, for the good of the human race as a whole.

Musk has repeatedly talked about how he wants to go to Mars.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#528

Post by thg » Sun, May 31, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #515

thg wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starship is going to make whole entire industries viable that were not viable previously. Starship is a complete and utter failure, as you can read about here, among other places: https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-is-going-nowh... > It might even take a significant chunk of air freight which is going to be a big deal with rising oil prices. By being several magnitudes more expensive than an airplane wo…

Starship in its current incomplete form (v3 fully expendable ship and booster) already has the lowest cost to orbit in $/kg of any launch vehicle ever. It's around $400/kg to orbit fully expendable. Add in booster reuse, which SpaceX has already demonstrated on test flight 9, and the cost to orbit drops to $200/kg.

A fully reusable Starship has a launch cost of around $75m - $90m and the last V3 launch managed 44 tonnes of payload on a sub-orbital flight of not even 200km (Starlink satellites have an orbit of around 550km). That's an optimistic launch cost of $1.700/kg for a rather meaningless altitude and assuming a fully reusable Starship that doesn't keep blowing up.

I have no idea where you pulled your $400/kg number from, but it's complete and utter nonsense. To be economical at all, Starship needs to reach its target capacity of 100 tonnes to orbit, which is simply never going to happen. But even if it somehow does, it's physically impossible for Starship to ever make it further than the moon, at extreme costs, due to the refuelling requirements and fuel boil-off in orbit.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#529

Post by tomhow » Sun, May 31, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC

haaz wrote: post #356

pietervdvn wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fossil fuel industry is both the most subsidized industry worldwide ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies ) and the second most expensive source of energy (at least for electricity production). The only energy source that is more expensive is nuclear (!).

[flagged]

> You are an idiot

Hey, this is not OK on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better than this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#530

Post by eigenspace » Sun, May 31, 2026, 9:02 AM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #517

eigenspace wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment The idea is to use tungsten because of the high melting point and hardness so that it survives re-entry in order to best strike the rival datacentre.

This has zero advantage over drones or ICBMs. It’s a joke, a Cold War fever dream.

It was a joke, but now it's a totally serious proposal because it can help with heat dissipation in orbital datacenters. Very serious. No joking here.