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SpaceX is wasting resources questing for Mars, and satellite launches are the ultimate in discretionary spending—not popular in these uncertain times.
by new_realist 7y ago
SpaceX is wasting resources questing for Mars, and satellite launches are the ultimate in discretionary spending—not popular in these uncertain times.
- senectus1 7y agoits a stretch goal. you watch them fill the void with what they learn from stretching.
- azernik 7y agoLet's look at the SpaceX launch manifest for the next year (not counting Starlink), to get a look at what their cash flow comes from: - 6 military (US, South Korea, Germany) - 6 commercial telecommunications - 4 ISS cargo and crew transport - 1 astrophysics - 1 scientific earth observation - 1 tech demonstration - 1 rideshare of a bunch of cubesats Only those last four would I classify as "discretionary spending" - military spending is quite immune to the present crisis, telecoms is if anything more important than ever, and the ISS support is necessary to maintain an enormous capital investment. I think you have a mental image of the launch market looking mostly like those last four, when in fact that's a small minority of the market. (And of those four, two are of the institutional research category that gets budgeted and contracted years in advance; a 1-year crisis isn't going to have much effect on budgeting decisions for 2022 and onward.)