5 ms·

It's been said before, but what people need to understand is that the goal of this service isn't to make money- it's to balance demand. SpaceX can plan to laun

by mabbo 10y ago

It's been said before, but what people need to understand is that the goal of this service isn't to make money- it's to balance demand. SpaceX can plan to launch be 30% more launches than their actual customers need. All those extra rockets are used for internet satellites. If there's an accident (boom) or a sudden need for more rockets, the internet satellites get delayed, and the paying customer gets a rocket. If customers are finicky about using re-flown rockets, that's fine, the internal customer doesn't care. If a customer backs out for any reason, the internal customer takes their place. Rocket production gets a smooth flow going, which improves production efficiency.

jblow 10y ago
If there's an accident (boom) then the paying customer's payload is destroyed and in most cases they will not have a duplicate payload just standing by to be launched. Building satellites takes a while.
- mcbits 10y ago
  I think the theory is that the next customer scheduled for the dead rocket can share some other rocket instead. The internal satellite(s) on that rocket get delayed, but at least it would be loaded to capacity even if the previous rocket didn't go boom.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Wrong. The goal is to make money. Billions of dollars. That money is to help fund Mars colonization, which has been SpaceX's ultimate goal from the beginning. There's also some nice synergy in that similar tech can be used to deploy a global communications network for Mars as well.
namlem 10y ago
Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars.
- rsync 10y ago
  "Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars." Which I continue to misunderstand ... You can go to Mars ... you can have an outpost on Mars ... you can have scientists and tourists and so on go back and forth to Mars - all very positive and exciting. But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths. Your teeth will decay. Your bones will weaken (even with hours per day of resistance work, which will be mandatory). Your heart will weaken. Your organs will malfunction. You will get cancer from a weakened immune system. Red blood production goes down. Your body is built for and tightly coupled to Earths gravity. I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan.
  - vkou 10y ago
    We know the problems of long-term exposure to zero-G, but will long-term exposure to .3G have them? I'm genuinely curious.
  - donkeyd 10y ago
    > I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan. Maybe they just cant can't, but don't care. Some people could be willing to decrease their lifespan in order to colonize a different planet, making the human race interplanetary. Also, theoretically, people will evolve over time to be able to handle those conditions. We're used to making plans a couple years ahead. When thinking of interplanetary colonization, we should think many generations ahead.
    - vkou 10y ago
      Evolution happens over many generations, if people who are less fit for survival die before, or are prevented from reproducing. You don't want to go down that road.
      - seanp2k2 10y ago
        The alternative is to stay on a planet where 20-40% of people don't even "believe in" evolution or taking care of the planet which their eventual descendants would need to inhabit, many times in favor of short-term capital gains. I fail to see how we're not already, as of about a hundred years ago, pretty screwed either way.
shaklee3 10y ago
That's not true. Wsj got their revenue projections for 2020+, and the bulk of it was satellite internet revenue. http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-shows-loss-in-2015-heavy-expectations-for-nascent-internet-service-1484316455 http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-sh...
- mabbo 10y ago
  And maybe they will make money. But they aren't making the company just to make a profit from it- they're making it to increase demand for rockets, which they also make. The smart industrialist expands his business to become his own supplier and his own customer.
  - shaklee3 10y ago
    You said the goal of the service isn't to create money. It is. And it's intended to make the company profitable. Launches won't be for quite some time.
lmm 10y ago
But SpaceX already has a launch backlog as long as my arm. They don't seem to be wanting for customers.

by mabbo 10y ago

jblow 10y ago

If there's an accident (boom) then the paying customer's payload is destroyed and in most cases they will not have a duplicate payload just standing by to be launched. Building satellites takes a while.

mcbits 10y ago
I think the theory is that the next customer scheduled for the dead rocket can share some other rocket instead. The internal satellite(s) on that rocket get delayed, but at least it would be loaded to capacity even if the previous rocket didn't go boom.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

Wrong. The goal is to make money. Billions of dollars. That money is to help fund Mars colonization, which has been SpaceX's ultimate goal from the beginning. There's also some nice synergy in that similar tech can be used to deploy a global communications network for Mars as well.

namlem 10y ago

Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars.

rsync 10y ago
"Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars." Which I continue to misunderstand ... You can go to Mars ... you can have an outpost on Mars ... you can have scientists and tourists and so on go back and forth to Mars - all very positive and exciting. But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths. Your teeth will decay. Your bones will weaken (even with hours per day of resistance work, which will be mandatory). Your heart will weaken. Your organs will malfunction. You will get cancer from a weakened immune system. Red blood production goes down. Your body is built for and tightly coupled to Earths gravity. I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan.
- vkou 10y ago
  We know the problems of long-term exposure to zero-G, but will long-term exposure to .3G have them? I'm genuinely curious.
- donkeyd 10y ago
  > I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan. Maybe they just cant can't, but don't care. Some people could be willing to decrease their lifespan in order to colonize a different planet, making the human race interplanetary. Also, theoretically, people will evolve over time to be able to handle those conditions. We're used to making plans a couple years ahead. When thinking of interplanetary colonization, we should think many generations ahead.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Evolution happens over many generations, if people who are less fit for survival die before, or are prevented from reproducing. You don't want to go down that road.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      The alternative is to stay on a planet where 20-40% of people don't even "believe in" evolution or taking care of the planet which their eventual descendants would need to inhabit, many times in favor of short-term capital gains. I fail to see how we're not already, as of about a hundred years ago, pretty screwed either way.

shaklee3 10y ago

That's not true. Wsj got their revenue projections for 2020+, and the bulk of it was satellite internet revenue. http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-shows-loss-in-2015-heavy-expectations-for-nascent-internet-service-1484316455 http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-sh...

mabbo 10y ago
And maybe they will make money. But they aren't making the company just to make a profit from it- they're making it to increase demand for rockets, which they also make. The smart industrialist expands his business to become his own supplier and his own customer.
- shaklee3 10y ago
  You said the goal of the service isn't to create money. It is. And it's intended to make the company profitable. Launches won't be for quite some time.

lmm 10y ago

But SpaceX already has a launch backlog as long as my arm. They don't seem to be wanting for customers.