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It's also likely that lowering launch cost does (and already has) increased demand. But the timescales are large. It took SpaceX less time to make a reusable ro

It's also likely that lowering launch cost does (and already has) increased demand. But the timescales are large. It took SpaceX less time to make a reusable rocket than it will take the industry to pivot to more and cheaper launches. But it is starting to have an affect already. There are multiple companies talking about launching and maintaining satellite "constellations", not just Starlink. Launching and maintaining that kind of network is difficult if you can only launch once a year and it costs what launches cost 10 years ago.

ncmncm 5y ago
Starlink is the only thing that will keep SpaceX from imploding while they wait for people to understand their value. Needing, and bankrolling, several hundred launches over several years will gradually get people used to the idea of bulk freight to orbit, and some will find other plausible uses for the capability, and shepherd the idea through fundraising channels. It will take time.
- consumer451 5y ago
  I am curious how long it will take the currently low volume and high margin satellite production industry to re-align to the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins. I could see the incumbents being very reticent to do so.
  - wumpus 5y ago
    Any company that wishes to compete with Starlink needs to be careful of costs. One reason OneWeb ran out of money is that they ended up spending 2X/satellite than their plan, in their fancy high volume factory.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Competing with starlink is likely difficult, but there will be lots of room to disrupt observation, satellite radio, etc etc etc.
      - wumpus 5y ago
        People are already doing earth observation from larger numbers of small satellites and very large numbers of cube sats. https://www.planet.com/our-constellations/ https://www.planet.com/our-constellations/ They started with this strategy before Starlink was started.
  - rtpg 5y ago
    It’s not the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins, it’s SpaceX’s business model which requires it (or, I suppose, expects it) It is possible that there is a cap in how much stuff people want to put into space. (EDIT: I do think it’s possible for SpaceX to exist as an entity that is simply smaller and not wasting its time trying to make its CEO Baron Harkonnen , but hey corporate ownership law amirite?)
    - consumer451 5y ago
      > It’s not the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins, it’s SpaceX’s business model which requires it (or, I suppose, expects it) I used the wrong word there. I was thinking more in terms of: SpaceX enables higher volumes, etc.. I know it's not a perfect analogy but cheap and predictable global shipping enabled business models which were not possible before. Maybe cheap and predictable access to space will do the same.
    - trevyn 5y ago
      >It is possible that there is a cap in how much stuff people want to put into space. I’m still trying to figure out if Earth is the slave planet or Mars is the slave planet, and how that’s gonna play out. Either way, lots of stuff to move.
      - consumer451 5y ago
        > Either way, lots of stuff to move. Have you heard about SpinLaunch? SpinLaunch really came out of left field for me as a serious contender. Really curious how they plan to re-balance a multi-ton spinning mass when half the mass gets ejected at 10,000 RPM. That sounds nuts but the scale test went OK, so I guess they have a handle on that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch
    - AlanSE 5y ago
      Am I alone in thinking that the Earth is finite and humanity has already outgrown it? We need to start making use of resources in space, because if we don't the ecological consequences are dire. Space doesn't have a biosphere. We need to take all the terrible things we're doing to this biosphere and move them out. There is no other long term solution. The needs of humanity will only continue to grow, even if our population levels off. I very much get the picture that New Space has an if-you-build-it-they-will-come approach which is soon facing a reckoning. It is very important that the whole of society pivots their thinking to the only thing that will give Earth a long-term future.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Incumbents are governments, and government's favorite thing to do is increase economic output so as to increase tax revenue among other things, so I'd expect governments to find way to incentivize launches. As far as how long it will take, it didn't take long for a single company to revolutionize the industry, I expect that those that want to keep up will fill the gap. It's honestly probably going to be mostly new names, some of which we have not heard of yet.
- baq 5y ago
  Starlink is much bigger than that. It isn’t life support. It’s the ultimate cash cow, profits from which are in at least some part expected to fund some part of a Mars mission. This is why SpaceX isn’t public - your wall street shareholders would suffocate Musk with lawsuits before he would be able to finish saying ‘Martian mission’.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Agreed that Starlink will be a huge cash cow, anyway until competition surfaces. $60B ARR? At issue is whether and when their planned launch capacity ever finds other customers. Once all 30k birds are up, will there be other uses for the launchers, besides going to Mars? Do they need more than a dozen or two, for the job?
    - baq 5y ago
      Starlink's orbit is so low, especially the large constellation, that it requires almost constant replenishment of birds due to extremely fast decay (order of 1-2 years of useful service life?) So yeah, if they ever launch the whole 30k, they'll be flying quite often; the first replenishment will likely happen before the constellation is complete if the start slow.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Eh...SpaceX has investors knocking down doors trying to throw money at them, even before starlink was announced. They'd be fine without starlink, though I am excited for orbital internet.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Investors is one thing, customers another. It is possible customers will appear, but most uses don't seem to need many launches. Even a really big telescope doesn't seem to need more than 50 launches, $2.5B. A moonbase needs fuel depot runs in the tens per year, and the occasional crew exchange, all under $1B/y.
- vkou 5y ago
  Alternative theory: People have a decent understanding of the value of satellites, and it's SpaceX who doesn't. If you lower the dollar cost of going to the dentist by 10x, you're not going to see people going to the dentist 10 times more often.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    If someone made having my mouth professionally cleaned more convenient, I would change the schedule to every 3 months instead of every six. We can anticipate some businesses would benefit from having low-cost access to microgravity environments - right now you carefully select your experiments, because it's extremely costly, but, if it weren't, you wouldn't need to. While satellite/probe/crewed-craft building has an extensive industrial chain with multiple bottlenecks that would hold it back if launch costs plumeted, there are others that have few and that would be enabled. We'd probably need a lot of barriers so that people don't launch cubesats for $100 in volumes that make LEO dangerous.
    - vkou 5y ago
      And if someone had self-cleaning easier, you wouldn't be going in for cleaning at all. Nobody cares about satellites themselves. What they care about is using them for something useful. Communication and imaging. At some point, both markets will become saturated. I don't know what level of demand there is for them, but it's entirely conceivable that it will be long-term limited by something other than launch costs.

ncmncm 5y ago

Starlink is the only thing that will keep SpaceX from imploding while they wait for people to understand their value. Needing, and bankrolling, several hundred launches over several years will gradually get people used to the idea of bulk freight to orbit, and some will find other plausible uses for the capability, and shepherd the idea through fundraising channels. It will take time.

consumer451 5y ago
I am curious how long it will take the currently low volume and high margin satellite production industry to re-align to the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins. I could see the incumbents being very reticent to do so.
- wumpus 5y ago
  Any company that wishes to compete with Starlink needs to be careful of costs. One reason OneWeb ran out of money is that they ended up spending 2X/satellite than their plan, in their fancy high volume factory.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    Competing with starlink is likely difficult, but there will be lots of room to disrupt observation, satellite radio, etc etc etc.
    - wumpus 5y ago
      People are already doing earth observation from larger numbers of small satellites and very large numbers of cube sats. https://www.planet.com/our-constellations/ https://www.planet.com/our-constellations/ They started with this strategy before Starlink was started.
- rtpg 5y ago
  It’s not the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins, it’s SpaceX’s business model which requires it (or, I suppose, expects it) It is possible that there is a cap in how much stuff people want to put into space. (EDIT: I do think it’s possible for SpaceX to exist as an entity that is simply smaller and not wasting its time trying to make its CEO Baron Harkonnen , but hey corporate ownership law amirite?)
  - consumer451 5y ago
    > It’s not the new paradigm which requires higher volumes and lower margins, it’s SpaceX’s business model which requires it (or, I suppose, expects it) I used the wrong word there. I was thinking more in terms of: SpaceX enables higher volumes, etc.. I know it's not a perfect analogy but cheap and predictable global shipping enabled business models which were not possible before. Maybe cheap and predictable access to space will do the same.
  - trevyn 5y ago
    >It is possible that there is a cap in how much stuff people want to put into space. I’m still trying to figure out if Earth is the slave planet or Mars is the slave planet, and how that’s gonna play out. Either way, lots of stuff to move.
    - consumer451 5y ago
      > Either way, lots of stuff to move. Have you heard about SpinLaunch? SpinLaunch really came out of left field for me as a serious contender. Really curious how they plan to re-balance a multi-ton spinning mass when half the mass gets ejected at 10,000 RPM. That sounds nuts but the scale test went OK, so I guess they have a handle on that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch
  - AlanSE 5y ago
    Am I alone in thinking that the Earth is finite and humanity has already outgrown it? We need to start making use of resources in space, because if we don't the ecological consequences are dire. Space doesn't have a biosphere. We need to take all the terrible things we're doing to this biosphere and move them out. There is no other long term solution. The needs of humanity will only continue to grow, even if our population levels off. I very much get the picture that New Space has an if-you-build-it-they-will-come approach which is soon facing a reckoning. It is very important that the whole of society pivots their thinking to the only thing that will give Earth a long-term future.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Incumbents are governments, and government's favorite thing to do is increase economic output so as to increase tax revenue among other things, so I'd expect governments to find way to incentivize launches. As far as how long it will take, it didn't take long for a single company to revolutionize the industry, I expect that those that want to keep up will fill the gap. It's honestly probably going to be mostly new names, some of which we have not heard of yet.
baq 5y ago
Starlink is much bigger than that. It isn’t life support. It’s the ultimate cash cow, profits from which are in at least some part expected to fund some part of a Mars mission. This is why SpaceX isn’t public - your wall street shareholders would suffocate Musk with lawsuits before he would be able to finish saying ‘Martian mission’.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Agreed that Starlink will be a huge cash cow, anyway until competition surfaces. $60B ARR? At issue is whether and when their planned launch capacity ever finds other customers. Once all 30k birds are up, will there be other uses for the launchers, besides going to Mars? Do they need more than a dozen or two, for the job?
  - baq 5y ago
    Starlink's orbit is so low, especially the large constellation, that it requires almost constant replenishment of birds due to extremely fast decay (order of 1-2 years of useful service life?) So yeah, if they ever launch the whole 30k, they'll be flying quite often; the first replenishment will likely happen before the constellation is complete if the start slow.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Eh...SpaceX has investors knocking down doors trying to throw money at them, even before starlink was announced. They'd be fine without starlink, though I am excited for orbital internet.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Investors is one thing, customers another. It is possible customers will appear, but most uses don't seem to need many launches. Even a really big telescope doesn't seem to need more than 50 launches, $2.5B. A moonbase needs fuel depot runs in the tens per year, and the occasional crew exchange, all under $1B/y.
vkou 5y ago
Alternative theory: People have a decent understanding of the value of satellites, and it's SpaceX who doesn't. If you lower the dollar cost of going to the dentist by 10x, you're not going to see people going to the dentist 10 times more often.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  If someone made having my mouth professionally cleaned more convenient, I would change the schedule to every 3 months instead of every six. We can anticipate some businesses would benefit from having low-cost access to microgravity environments - right now you carefully select your experiments, because it's extremely costly, but, if it weren't, you wouldn't need to. While satellite/probe/crewed-craft building has an extensive industrial chain with multiple bottlenecks that would hold it back if launch costs plumeted, there are others that have few and that would be enabled. We'd probably need a lot of barriers so that people don't launch cubesats for $100 in volumes that make LEO dangerous.
  - vkou 5y ago
    And if someone had self-cleaning easier, you wouldn't be going in for cleaning at all. Nobody cares about satellites themselves. What they care about is using them for something useful. Communication and imaging. At some point, both markets will become saturated. I don't know what level of demand there is for them, but it's entirely conceivable that it will be long-term limited by something other than launch costs.