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nearly all space companies operate on government money. we would be taxing ourselves

neltnerb 6y ago
You don't think satellite internet is break even without government funding? I have a hard time seeing it either, but I just can't see much market outside of military use. Maybe they're assuming 90% of their income will come from that.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Military + industrial + aviation. The target market is not elderly people retired to cabins in the woods. The antenna costs for individual users would be prohibitive (10s of thousands). SpaceX is aiming for military/government first, then fixed-point industrial (oil rigs, mining camps, large ships) and then aviation (internet onboard airliners). That's the priority structure. Another angle is to look at the orbital inclinations to see which customers Musk is targeting. At the moment he isn't sending sats further north than London (+/-51*). That suggests their first/primary/target market doesn't exist north of London. It looks like they are going after either the military drone or luxury aviation consumers. I don't see communities in Canada's north getting connected anytime soon.
CerealFounder 6y ago
Naw. Tax the profit. It's wild that the tax payer base doesn't seen ANY upside with grants and what not like this.
akiselev 6y ago
The people collectively provide the initial funding when stuff is still too high risk for private investors but they rarely sees any of the upside when it hits explosive growth except in a hand wavy "high tide raises all boats" or "cheaper widgets means more buying power" kind of way. In extreme cases it means we fund technologies that generate wealth that is immediately extracted by foreign entities but even in the best of cases, it creates a moral hazard that is best exemplified by the military industrial complex. It's a resource allocation efficiency issue, through and through. The government is always going to pick "winners and losers" in high value industries like defense, resource extraction, and aerospace but all of those investments have very rough feedback loops that are disconnected from the decision making process. If government investments/grants came at least with profit/revenue sharing arrangements, there would be a positive feedback loop and an opportunity for the system to evolve and improve even if the net income change after administration overhead is zero or even slightly negative. Obviously this isn't tenable for basic scientific research but our industries do very little of that anyway, even with government funding available.
dumbfoundded 6y ago
So it'd be a reallocation of the budget? Like the same dollar funds space based internet and also space based satellites. That sounds pretty efficient.

You don't think satellite internet is break even without government funding? I have a hard time seeing it either, but I just can't see much market outside of military use. Maybe they're assuming 90% of their income will come from that.

sandworm101 6y ago
Military + industrial + aviation. The target market is not elderly people retired to cabins in the woods. The antenna costs for individual users would be prohibitive (10s of thousands). SpaceX is aiming for military/government first, then fixed-point industrial (oil rigs, mining camps, large ships) and then aviation (internet onboard airliners). That's the priority structure. Another angle is to look at the orbital inclinations to see which customers Musk is targeting. At the moment he isn't sending sats further north than London (+/-51*). That suggests their first/primary/target market doesn't exist north of London. It looks like they are going after either the military drone or luxury aviation consumers. I don't see communities in Canada's north getting connected anytime soon.

CerealFounder 6y ago

Naw. Tax the profit. It's wild that the tax payer base doesn't seen ANY upside with grants and what not like this.

akiselev 6y ago

The people collectively provide the initial funding when stuff is still too high risk for private investors but they rarely sees any of the upside when it hits explosive growth except in a hand wavy "high tide raises all boats" or "cheaper widgets means more buying power" kind of way. In extreme cases it means we fund technologies that generate wealth that is immediately extracted by foreign entities but even in the best of cases, it creates a moral hazard that is best exemplified by the military industrial complex. It's a resource allocation efficiency issue, through and through. The government is always going to pick "winners and losers" in high value industries like defense, resource extraction, and aerospace but all of those investments have very rough feedback loops that are disconnected from the decision making process. If government investments/grants came at least with profit/revenue sharing arrangements, there would be a positive feedback loop and an opportunity for the system to evolve and improve even if the net income change after administration overhead is zero or even slightly negative. Obviously this isn't tenable for basic scientific research but our industries do very little of that anyway, even with government funding available.

dumbfoundded 6y ago

So it'd be a reallocation of the budget? Like the same dollar funds space based internet and also space based satellites. That sounds pretty efficient.