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I think if SpaceX only cared about things to the extent it makes them money, they would have picked a simpler business and made a lot more money by now. I agre

I think if SpaceX only cared about things to the extent it makes them money, they would have picked a simpler business and made a lot more money by now. I agree with you about science-per-dollar, but I don't think that was ever the criteria for large projects like this (or ISS). Sometimes the payoff is in learning to do the next hard thing, building the next generation of tools, etc.

misterkrabs 5y ago
I think if there's money to be made, there's a business that will pop up to fill that niche.
- 0xfaded 5y ago
  The missing part here is that there needs to be enough money to be made to offset the risk and startup costs to justify upfront investment. The last decades have been dominated by tech giants building mostly software, and this has set the bar for risk/expectations when ideas are competing for dollars. It is not at all obvious to me that a hugely expensive and insanely high risk venture such as putting humans on the moon would magically materialize as a product of a hypothetical free market in today's world. Moonshots require risks and rewards shared by larger society. It would be impossible, for example, for NASA to capture the complete value of technology developed to go to the moon. However, the body of knowledge filtering out into society at large justifies NASAs continued funding (that and jobs in key states /s). It would be hard to justify that SpaceX was a rational business venture without hindsight. And many emoyees who work for SpaceX are known to have made economic tradeoffs. There is definitely something beyond "free market" to the story.
tim333 5y ago
Indeed SpaceX is basically controlled by Musk ("Owner Elon Musk Trust (54% equity; 78% voting control") and he's said he's kept it private basically so he can work on making humanity multiplanetary without having to answer to shareholders as to whether that increases shareholder value or not.
emteycz 5y ago
You're just ignoring how fucking insanely out of this world rich are SpaceX shareholders going to be in 30 years. Space mining and manufacturing at scale will turn the world on its head, and Musk is the king of scaling technology. The first mover advantage of having thousands of rocketships with a convenient refuel stop and human settlement mid-trip to the asteroid belt is gigantic. Do you think he's really trying to bore tunnels under Las Vegas or wherever? Nah, that boring machine is going to be stuck to the nose of a Starship. SpaceX will be the CHOAM and Spacing Guild of our age. Yeah, Musk could've made money faster. He also could've simply retired after PayPal. Evidently he's not a person who'd do that.

misterkrabs 5y ago

I think if there's money to be made, there's a business that will pop up to fill that niche.

0xfaded 5y ago
The missing part here is that there needs to be enough money to be made to offset the risk and startup costs to justify upfront investment. The last decades have been dominated by tech giants building mostly software, and this has set the bar for risk/expectations when ideas are competing for dollars. It is not at all obvious to me that a hugely expensive and insanely high risk venture such as putting humans on the moon would magically materialize as a product of a hypothetical free market in today's world. Moonshots require risks and rewards shared by larger society. It would be impossible, for example, for NASA to capture the complete value of technology developed to go to the moon. However, the body of knowledge filtering out into society at large justifies NASAs continued funding (that and jobs in key states /s). It would be hard to justify that SpaceX was a rational business venture without hindsight. And many emoyees who work for SpaceX are known to have made economic tradeoffs. There is definitely something beyond "free market" to the story.

tim333 5y ago

Indeed SpaceX is basically controlled by Musk ("Owner Elon Musk Trust (54% equity; 78% voting control") and he's said he's kept it private basically so he can work on making humanity multiplanetary without having to answer to shareholders as to whether that increases shareholder value or not.

emteycz 5y ago

You're just ignoring how fucking insanely out of this world rich are SpaceX shareholders going to be in 30 years. Space mining and manufacturing at scale will turn the world on its head, and Musk is the king of scaling technology. The first mover advantage of having thousands of rocketships with a convenient refuel stop and human settlement mid-trip to the asteroid belt is gigantic. Do you think he's really trying to bore tunnels under Las Vegas or wherever? Nah, that boring machine is going to be stuck to the nose of a Starship. SpaceX will be the CHOAM and Spacing Guild of our age. Yeah, Musk could've made money faster. He also could've simply retired after PayPal. Evidently he's not a person who'd do that.