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I'm curious who his biggest customers will be?

• Nowado 6y ago
  I'm more curious who the smallest was will be.
  • gpm 6y ago
    A university cubesat team.
    • garmaine 6y ago
      I look forward to the day Colorado School of Mines or University of Central Florida has their own Starship, and an undergraduate astronaut cadre.
• eitland 6y ago
  US military. Besides cost and risk there's nothing preventing this from being used on earth, in fact I've already seen the use case mentioned here on HN.
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    DOD is already talking to SpaceX for rapid cargo transport applications. “A military team is working with SpaceX to flesh out the prospect of shipping routes that pass through space, the head of U.S. Transportation Command said Oct. 7.” “That group could demonstrate as early as 2021 whether quickly sending cargo around the globe via space is feasible, Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons said.” “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” Lyons said at a National Defense Transportation Association event. “Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo and people. There is a lot of potential here.” https://www.airforcemag.com/dod-spacex-may-soon-prove-the-military-can-ship-cargo-through-space/ https://www.airforcemag.com/dod-spacex-may-soon-prove-the-mi...
    • golergka 6y ago
      > rapid As in rapid disassembly?
    • luma 6y ago
      Anywhere on the globe in less than an hour... plus months of planning and days of preparing the launch vehicle. How fast can one "scramble" a Starship off the ground?
      • toomuchtodo 6y ago
        I assume fast turn around times from the Boca Chica (Texas) spaceport. Pick whichever Starship SN is refreshed and ready to go. Less Space Shuttle, more Southwest Airlines. Vehicles on the ground are vehicles not generating revenue.
        • fastball 6y ago
          Problem is you kinda need a spaceport at the destination so that the starship can get back to you.
          • rlt 6y ago
            You might be able to have a hub and spoke model, where the Starship drops off its cargo then hops back to a hub for stacking on another Super Heavy.
            • ben_w 6y ago
              Given the drone ship landings of the Falcon first stages, I wonder: could you land a Starship on a US aircraft carrier? And the obvious next question: given Musk is happy to take ship names from pop culture and sci-fi, might he name one of the Starship vehicles “Enterprise”, and could the Starship Enterprise land on the USS Enterprise (CVN-80)?
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
• modeless 6y ago
  There aren't enough customers to justify building something like Starship, so SpaceX created their own biggest customer with Starlink. They are also hoping to provide Earth-to-Earth passenger service to compete with airlines on long distance routes, which would be orders of magnitude more launches than any other use. It seems quite unlikely that they could compete on safety though.
  • m4rtink 6y ago
    Not enough customers yet - if they can get it working its just a total money printer. Orbital refueling, tourism, cheap microgravity research, manufacturing and material processing or even early solar farms and habitats! Or you might even just start by launching 20 tons of coffee beans, roasting them in orbit and selling them as "Space Coffee" - it migh still be worth it with the per launch costs they have mentioned.