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It’s worth noting that when the started, there was not reusable rockets, and Tesla was not in the satellite business.

gpm 7y ago
It looks like Oneweb first received funding in January 2015. It looks like they had started working on the idea in 2014. (Per Wikipedia) SpaceX's first propulsive landing attempt was September 2013, by the end of 2014 they had twice succeeded at controlled descents over the ocean. Their first landing on a solid surface (i.e. actual recovery of the booster) was late 2015. So yes, there weren't yet reusable rockets, but the writing was very clearly on the wall. Tesla still isn't in the satellite business unless you count the roadster that SpaceX launched, Starlink is part of SpaceX. It was announced at roughly the same time as Oneweb receiving funding (January 2015). My understanding is that Oneweb and SpaceX had been in talks that broke down, so they knew it was coming.
- fragmede 7y ago
  > the writing was very clearly on the wall. With the gift of hindsight that's true, but I disagree, it wasn't clear back then. Keep in mind that the concept of reusable rockets has been around ever since the first rocket launch around the 1960's, and we (humanity) threw away the entire thing. It took SpaceX to make reusable rockets real, but not for lack of trying on the part of Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors (in the US). SpaceX had only a very small (single digits) number of test launches they could do before running out of money. A couple more grid fin unknowns causing failures and SpaceX would have gone bankrupt so it wasn't clear back then. Also keep in mind that back in 2015, it wasn't clear that Tesla was necessarily going to be successful either. The Model 3 was still a couple years away so nothing was really proven, publicly. What would have happened if SpaceX had run out of money, we'll never know, but in the interim 5 years, the reusability of SpaceX's rockets has become clear. Despite all the shorts betting against Tesla, Elon Musk succeeded and smart money has learned not to bet against him, whether it be SpaceX or Tesla.
  - gpm 7y ago
    SpaceX was already profitable by the time they were trying for propulsive re-use, they could afford to throw away as many first stages they needed to (after delivering payloads with them) to figure it out. The "one more failure and we go bankrupt" stage of SpaceX was well before that, when they were initially trying to launch a rocket. Tesla's success is relevant to Elon Musk maintaining full control of SpaceX and funding mars mission research. It wasn't at all relevant at that point for whether or not SpaceX would continue to exist as a company, or succeed at re-use.
  - Tuna-Fish 7y ago
    > SpaceX had only a very small (single digits) number of test launches they could do before running out of money. A couple more grid fin unknowns causing failures and SpaceX would have gone bankrupt so it wasn't clear back then. This is in no way true. When SpaceX was working on F9 reuse, their business was (very) profitable at their launch prices. They are still pricing F9 launches at a point where the launches would be profitable if every launch was expendable. Reusability was not what they needed to win -- it was the victory lap after they had already won. There is a lot of fud arguing otherwise based on external estimates, but they all fail to take into account that the internal cost of F9 is only less than a fifth of what all the competitors pay for their comparable rockets. The reason is that SpaceX is extremely vertically integrated, and every component that goes into their rockets is heavily optimized for cost first and performance second. For example, most other American launchers use RL-10's for their upper stage engines. There is a good reason for this -- RL-10 with it's best-in-class Isp is quite possibly the best upper stage engine that exists. However, this comes at a rather steep cost that is not public knowledge but was in 2017 estimated to be ~$25M. The costs of the rocket engines on a F9 is not public knowledge either, but is known to be less than $500k each, or at most ~$5M total.

gpm 7y ago

It looks like Oneweb first received funding in January 2015. It looks like they had started working on the idea in 2014. (Per Wikipedia) SpaceX's first propulsive landing attempt was September 2013, by the end of 2014 they had twice succeeded at controlled descents over the ocean. Their first landing on a solid surface (i.e. actual recovery of the booster) was late 2015. So yes, there weren't yet reusable rockets, but the writing was very clearly on the wall. Tesla still isn't in the satellite business unless you count the roadster that SpaceX launched, Starlink is part of SpaceX. It was announced at roughly the same time as Oneweb receiving funding (January 2015). My understanding is that Oneweb and SpaceX had been in talks that broke down, so they knew it was coming.

fragmede 7y ago
> the writing was very clearly on the wall. With the gift of hindsight that's true, but I disagree, it wasn't clear back then. Keep in mind that the concept of reusable rockets has been around ever since the first rocket launch around the 1960's, and we (humanity) threw away the entire thing. It took SpaceX to make reusable rockets real, but not for lack of trying on the part of Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors (in the US). SpaceX had only a very small (single digits) number of test launches they could do before running out of money. A couple more grid fin unknowns causing failures and SpaceX would have gone bankrupt so it wasn't clear back then. Also keep in mind that back in 2015, it wasn't clear that Tesla was necessarily going to be successful either. The Model 3 was still a couple years away so nothing was really proven, publicly. What would have happened if SpaceX had run out of money, we'll never know, but in the interim 5 years, the reusability of SpaceX's rockets has become clear. Despite all the shorts betting against Tesla, Elon Musk succeeded and smart money has learned not to bet against him, whether it be SpaceX or Tesla.
- gpm 7y ago
  SpaceX was already profitable by the time they were trying for propulsive re-use, they could afford to throw away as many first stages they needed to (after delivering payloads with them) to figure it out. The "one more failure and we go bankrupt" stage of SpaceX was well before that, when they were initially trying to launch a rocket. Tesla's success is relevant to Elon Musk maintaining full control of SpaceX and funding mars mission research. It wasn't at all relevant at that point for whether or not SpaceX would continue to exist as a company, or succeed at re-use.
- Tuna-Fish 7y ago
  > SpaceX had only a very small (single digits) number of test launches they could do before running out of money. A couple more grid fin unknowns causing failures and SpaceX would have gone bankrupt so it wasn't clear back then. This is in no way true. When SpaceX was working on F9 reuse, their business was (very) profitable at their launch prices. They are still pricing F9 launches at a point where the launches would be profitable if every launch was expendable. Reusability was not what they needed to win -- it was the victory lap after they had already won. There is a lot of fud arguing otherwise based on external estimates, but they all fail to take into account that the internal cost of F9 is only less than a fifth of what all the competitors pay for their comparable rockets. The reason is that SpaceX is extremely vertically integrated, and every component that goes into their rockets is heavily optimized for cost first and performance second. For example, most other American launchers use RL-10's for their upper stage engines. There is a good reason for this -- RL-10 with it's best-in-class Isp is quite possibly the best upper stage engine that exists. However, this comes at a rather steep cost that is not public knowledge but was in 2017 estimated to be ~$25M. The costs of the rocket engines on a F9 is not public knowledge either, but is known to be less than $500k each, or at most ~$5M total.