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For a tiny bit more context, the military market is a limited. Defense has N number of launches they need, regardless of price. If SpaceX pushes prices down by
by dalbasal 9y ago
For a tiny bit more context, the military market is a limited. Defense has N number of launches they need, regardless of price. If SpaceX pushes prices down by 50%, demand will not double or triple, at least not fast.
The commercial market will respond to price. SpaceX is all about lowering the price of space-access, and growing the market. More flights. New use cases.
Elon has a great grasp of microeconomics, at least the parts he needs. Tesla was also clever in this regard.
- jbms 9y agoCheaper launches gives defence new use cases too. They'll start to launch smaller satellites into more orbits. It'll take time to change their processes, but they'll be launching small/cube/chip sats with all sorts of sensors.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 9y agoAnd for even more context, military spy satellites tend to cost a lot, somewhere in the $billions so way more than the launch. Commercial satellites often share common components and typically cost a few $100 million so not that much more than the cost of the launch. And in the commercial sector the transition to cheaper satellites to match cheaper launchers might be more feasible.
- dalbasal 9y agoGood point. I hadn't even thought of that. Along with long horizons generally, this probably explains a lot about militaries' "price inflexibility." Launching is a smaller component of more expensive whole.
- azernik 9y agoSame with the big NASA science payloads - if you're spending $8-9B on JWST, paying a $100M premium for a launch vehicle you're slightly more confident in is totally worth it.