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It seems to me space is a social science type bet. Much like each and every climate change related tech. There is no guarantee that the public will be interes
by GDC7 5y ago
It seems to me space is a social science type bet.
Much like each and every climate change related tech.
There is no guarantee that the public will be interested in space or climate change 10 or 20 years from now, and space missions which are not telecommunications satellites entirely depend on the goodwill of taxpayers to keep providing the financing.
The alternative model to taxpayers money has been private investors believing that space would somehow change and start yielding some more standard ROI after decades of atypical ROI (mostly morale boost for the nation every time a rocket went up). But that's just the financial capital part, the revenue of the aforementioned companies still comes from Government contracts.
- ianvorbach 5y agoI agree that this was historically the case, but the newest generation of space companies are making a solid case that the financial ROI is a reality and not just a theoretical promise. As the industry matures, government customers are becoming less critical to the success of many of these companies (although gov't will always play a strong role).
- nradov 5y agoThere is also a commercial market for satellite imagery and weather monitoring.
- godelski 5y agoPeople talking about space is really weird to listen to. It's like people don't realize where all the information for their pocket computer comes from. Do people really not realize how essential the satellite infrastructure is to our modern economy? Hell, GPS alone is worth $1.4T[0]. Weather, imaging, internet, communication all heavily rely on space access as well and I wouldn't be surprised if each one of those were equally as valuable. Do people really just think space is sending people to the moon and/or mars and not realize what we do right above our heads? [0] https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2019/10/economic-benefits-global-positioning-system-us-private-sector-study https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2019/10/economic-benef...
- GDC7 5y ago> Hell, GPS alone is worth $1.4T The fact that it's worth that much doesn't mean that the companies sending those up there would make a fortune. I can give you the example of concrete. Don't people realize how vital concrete is for the modern economy? It's worth 100T, matter of fact it's unvaluable, putting a figure on it would be lowballing it. Do you want to start a concrete company though? Do you want to invest in it? NO! You want to start/invest the Microsoft, Google and Facebook of the world.
- senojretep356 5y agoThere are plenty of concrete/building material companies that do make a fortune: Heidleberg 18.85bn EUR Cemex 13bn USD CRH 27.59bn EUR Operating rockets and satellites, and using them to provide services back on Earth—is about $400 billion industry and is only going to grow. There will be plenty of companies that make a fortune in a market that size with relatively few players.
- GDC7 5y ago> There are plenty of concrete/building material companies that do make a fortune: Heidleberg 18.85bn EUR Cemex 13bn USD CRH 27.59bn EUR That's the revenue, if you look at profits they made 1B in 2019 with 57,000 employees. Also it was founded in 1874...
- njarboe 5y agoIf cost per pound to orbit drops by 100-1000 times with the advent of SpaceX's Starship rocket, who knows what kinds of space activities will be profitable. If it only costs $1 million to immigrate to Mars, you might be surprised how many people would give it a try and how many billionaires would sponsor whole colonies. Like when Europeans colonized North America.
- XorNot 5y agoThe cost to orbit drops being talked about are going to put space tourism solidly within reach of the middle class. At that point the market becomes basically infinite: it'll be a standard rite of passage to see Earth from space, much like how people go to Disneyland.
- mLuby 5y agoIt'll be like skydiving or visiting Everest basecamp or Antarctica. Maybe soon you'll pop open the window on one of these new suborbital flights and skydive from the black back to Earth!
- kiba 5y agoTourism is the least exciting value proposition to me. Industry and commercial activity is where it's at.