Fully half of SpaceX’s 2022 launches were Starlink launches, which is basically SpaceX launching its own stuff at its own cost. Maybe the market isn’t as big as it looks?
Well, that’s not entirely fair. If it weren’t Musk doing it with ridiculous amounts of money, it might well be some other Croesus (Bezos?) doing it with ridiculous amounts of money. It’s the concentration of ridiculous amounts of money that makes it possible. What I was saying in answer to your question about why the competition want doing the same was that there probably wasn’t a big enough market for two such enterprises, especially when the first one probably isn’t even profitable. And since half the market seems to be another unprofitable boondoggle (Starlink) that seems right?
abrandt
4786
If anything, I’d think that Bezos would have dumped more money into his venture because of Musk to try to one up him. But I’ve tried to make it clear that I’m not trying to make out Musk as a “great man” in all of this. I just believe that the right combination of factors wouldn’t have coalesced without Musk being in the mix to have done what SpaceX has done, at least not for a long time. Bezos had the money, but all he seemed to want to do was get to go to space in a flying penis. Musk wants Mars. I’m not supporting that ultimate goal, but I do believe that being his goal led to a higher starting bar as to what they were trying to for. Most startups are doing small rockets. SpaceX had the Falcon 1 but basically used that as a proof of concept to jump into the much larger Falcon 9.
I guess I consider it something like going back to your Roman Emperor argument. The emperors were the only ones with access to the resources of the entire empire and so were the only ones capable of embarking on certain “grand” projects like, say, founding a whole new capital like Constantinople(I also realize Byzantium already existed at the site and was reasonably prosperous). Yes, it was the system built up over many generations and the work of millions that enabled Constantine to do that. But you can still debate whether or not Constantinople(Byzantium) would have been a major city/capital without Constantine. And you can even speculate as to how history might have changed if your position was that it wouldn’t have. For example, I’d argue that the ERE capital being elsewhere would have been a less defensible city and therefore probably fallen sooner than it ultimately did. I can do that without arguing that Constantine singlehandedly built a city and kept the empire alive for hundreds of years longer. He just happened to be in a position that allowed him to make decisions that nobody else at the time would have had the opportunity to make. In this SpaceX case, I guess Bezos also had the opportunity, but shot for a much smaller goal, like funding the construction of a new wall around the existing capital.
Timex
4787
Right now space X is the largest commercial space venture… But that doesn’t really change the world for anyone. It’s just a replacement for something the government had already done.
None of our lives are actually different as a result of Tesla or Space X.
Maybe at assume point in the future that may change, but right now? It doesn’t impact me at all.
Now, saying that, I would be willing to admit that in certain limited regions, like Ukraine or Iran right now, Starlink has some non trivial impact on normal folks… But still, that is limited at this point.
abrandt
4788
My initial reply this morning did come with that condition. I don’t think SpaceX has yet changed the world, but it still could. Cheap access to space could still end up changing the world in our lifetimes. Right now all they’ve done is shaken up an industry that wasn’t going anywhere.
It’s hard to predict the future, so of course I could be wrong. I personally don’t see how (relatively) cheap access to space will change the world. It’s only relatively cheap, and it’s only access for a vanishingly small number of people. Something like Starlink may be a thing that people end up using, but it’s an amazingly complicated way to avoid just building zillions of simple cell towers, and for most people it would not have been practically the slightest bit different from that solution.
Elon’s Mars plan is really just a variant of the plan to make things better by killing 99 out of every 100 people. Instead of killing them directly, the elect flee to Mars and let the rest die on the poisoned earth. It isn’t saving the human race, rather the opposite. And the idea that we can’t fix the Earth but we will be able to fix Mars strikes me as insane.
Edit: That isn’t directed at you @abrandt , just a general comment on the source of Musk’s enthusiasm for space.
abrandt
4790
Yep, I can’t draw for you a path from cheap space to changing the world. Just that it could very well open up the door to new industries/advancements that do.
A much more direct path to changing the world that the ultra wealthy could pursue would be dumping billions into a fusion startup that has the purpose of actually building a commercial-sized reactor in a hurry.
Timex
4791
I think it’s less of a decision that the earth is screwed and should be abandoned, and more of an acceptance of the fact that humanity shouldn’t be forever contained on a single rock floating through space.
A lot of men much smarter than Musk have said the same thing. Expanding beyond the earth seems like a natural step in humanity’s development at some point.
I mean, so does famine and war, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
Without delving into the whole question of long-term space colonization beyond the moon - except to note that humans have not in fact populated the Sahara, so why the hell would we want to populate even more desolate spots 60 million miles away? - let me say this:
Elon Musk is never going to Mars.
Elon Musk is going to spend the rest of his days doing what, deep in his heart, he loves most: shitposting about Internet drama while crouched over his device in a dark room. Everything he’s done over the last months show that this is his true passion, his real life’s work. He’s gonna keep on doing it until the money runs out and Tesla and SpaceX kick him off their boards and/or are sold to fund his efforts to turn the entire Internet into 8Chan.
SpaceX might conceivably go to Mars someday. But if they do, it will be despite Musk instead of because of him, after quarantining him from any active management role (which honestly I expect to happen at both SpaceX and Tesla before the end of 2023, Tesla because the stockholders demand it, SpaceX because their biggest client i.e. the government does.)
‘Natural step’ is an interesting phrase, since it is anything but natural. I think it’s reasonable to harbor a great deal of skepticism about whether the endeavor is anything like feasible for anything other than very small numbers of people for very limited lengths of time with massive subsidies coming from everyone they left behind.
It’s all part of the glibertarian dream, the idea that the elite can escape the miasma of the hordes and their sewage and live like gods on another world, free of taxes and the stench of human decay.
Yes, exactly. Look at how people live in Siberia, where there is at least air you can breathe.
Thrag
4795
The brutal month for TSLA continues. Down another 8% at the moment.
ShivaX
4796
It was less than it was considered impossible it was that the US government didn’t want to pay to develop it.
Then along came SpaceX and NASA gave them a grant to do the thing that NASA couldn’t afford to keep doing a few decades before.
Through the magic of privatization we have a space program again.
Still, better than relying on fucking Russia for it, so I’ll take it.
abrandt
4798
You’re right, I shouldn’t have said it was considered impossible. Maybe a better wording is that it was either considered to not feasible to overcome the engineering problems or not worth it. Again, the actual companies profiting off building and launching rockets had no incentives to do so. And you’re also right that SpaceX needed government grants to succeed, but ultimately it proved a much better investment for the government than all the money they throw at ULA(thanks, Congress).
Absolutely this.
Why isn’t the Tesla board busy kicking Musk to the curb. Does he have enough shares to obliterate the stock without anyone touching him? Is that legal?
I don’t know if removing Musk from Tesla management is good for the stock price. I think there may still be a lot of true believers holding onto Tesla shares.
What Musk needs to do is distance himself from Twitter and get back to being at Tesla locations to try to restore confidence is the idea that Tesla actually has a CEO that is working for Tesla.
Houngan
4801
He has 14%, I checked a week ago. But keep in mind the current valuation is driven in rather large part (still) by techbros and crypto kids pumping it. You throw out Musk that sucker is going to crater even harder.
ShivaX
4802
A Mars colony is more realistic.
Rational agents and all that jazz I suppose, but I don’t see what they have to lose. If I thought there was genuine value in the company, I’d get rid of the guy who was standing in the way of realizing it.
You guys are saying he’s actually keeping it from dropping further? Talk about an abusive relationship.
Is that golden stock with extra voting powers? That seems pretty darn low.
I’ve watched 10 episodes of Succession, so I’m kind of an expert on all things business.
Enidigm
4804
Human civilization is basically just a giant extended history of energy production. It’s possible humans will colonize the moon and neighboring planets and nearby stars, but not powered by technology that requires them to “burn” things.
If Musk ect really want to ‘save’ the human species by seeding colonies across the starts, 100% spend their time on advanced power generation, not rocket ships. Once we have a few orders of magnitude more efficient and powerful power generation systems, everything else can follow. It’s like trying to invent a submarine without the technology of steam engine (ie, the age of Galleys and oars).
