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Elon Musk says SpaceX faces ‘genuine risk of bankruptcy’ from Starship engine
- Flankk 5y agoBillionaire uses fake crisis to help fulfil childhood dream.
- kanwisher 5y agoYeah reducing costs of rockets by constant innovating is just his childhood dream /s Clearly he is making a large difference in making us a space faring world
- Flankk 5y agoI'm just going off what he has said in interviews. He has stated the entire goal of SpaceX is to make life multi-planetary. I didn't say it was just a childhood dream, that's what you said, sarcastically.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hulitu 5y agoNo. This is normal corporate speech to signal that only the board and some high level managers will get bonuses this year.
- inglor_cz 5y agoSeveral top ranking people were fired, which indicates that this is not just speech. Generally, this fits into Musk's repeated claims that the hard thing about Starship isn't to build a prototype or two, but to make a rocket factory, capable of churning hundreds of launchers a year. Raptors being the bottlenecks isn't that surprising. They have been developed fairly recently, do not contain many off-the-shelf components (if any) and given that there are ~ 30 of them on the booster alone, they should be manufactured by the hundreds too. Compared to the Raptors, the other technological learning curves that must be overcome before Starship flies regularly are much less steep. Steel welding, flight software, heat shields - all of these scale reasonably well from the (already flown) prototypes and build upon a long technological tradition.
- moistly 5y agoMaybe NASA can pick it up for pennies on the dollar. Bankruptcies are opportunities for the bold!
- PickledHotdog 5y agoThat would be something. Unfortunately it's more likely for the taxpayer to fund Musk and receive nothing in return.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Maybe NASA can pick it up for pennies on the dollar More likely, Boeing.
- gremloni 5y agoI truly hope not, SpaceX is a rare source of joy and enterprise in a sea of mediocrity.
- ralusek 5y agoSeriously. This would be a tragedy, and I'm really hoping this is just a questionable motivation tactic.
- mrep 5y agoSpacex was last valued at 100 billion, musk has 263 billion dollars of tesla stock at their current valuation which he can liquidate to personally finance spacex. Zero chance they go bankrupt as long as he has that much tesla stock value.
- itsoktocry 5y ago>musk has 263 billion dollars of tesla stock at their current valuation which he can liquidate to personally finance spacex. Zero chance they go bankrupt as long as he has that much tesla stock value. These points contradict each other.
- mrep 5y agoAs long as he doesn't do it all at once, not really. It's not like he would need all 263 billion at once and he sold 9.9 billion dollars worth this month alone [0]. [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/musk-sells-more-shares-one-billion-2021-11#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20just%20offloaded%20another,sales%20total%20to%20%249.9%20billion&text=Since%20his%20November%206%20Twitter,the%20social%20media%20platform%20approved https://www.businessinsider.com/musk-sells-more-shares-one-b....
- jimsimmons 5y agoI don’t know. People extend their sense of endearment towards space to SpaceX as it is the best positioned company. Americans have a ton of nostalgia about the space race. Hollywood gave a lot of cool tales. A lot of emotions at play here. Take a step back and look at the technology. Sure reusable rockets are cool but still way short of what we need to make it economical at scale. People in 60s over achieved and it’ll be a long time before we surpass them. Even then we have a long way ahead. Maybe if there’s a breakthrough in propulsion, fuels etc that’ll give a 10x-100x efficiency improvement then we can hope for something in our lifetime. Otherwise I still see it as a niche activity. I don’t really get this “single point of failure” argument. Sure, I won’t deny that risk but it’s situated in a cosmic timescale. I don’t see it with any urgency just as I don’t see earth being swallowed by the Sun or the heat death of the universe with urgency. These are cataclysmic events.
- LatteLazy 5y agoIn cash terms maybe but there are a queue of us (many much richer than I) who'd "invest" never expecting any monetary return.
- dkdk8283 5y agoIsn’t that exactly what will happen if they get a gov bailout? Remember TARP and GM?
- ryzvonusef 5y ago> The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong. > The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong. > In addition, we are spooling up terminal production to several million units per year, which will consume massive capital, assuming that satellite V2 will be on orbit to handle the bandwidth demand. These terminals will be useless otherwise. > What it comes down to, is that we face a genuine risk of bankruptcy if we can’t achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year. ---- so they need cheaper and more Raptors, so that they can have more Starships, so they can launch more Starlink sats, which will fund creation of even more Starships, so they can launch to Mars... Quite the pickle there, Mr. Musk.
- throwawaysea 5y agoIt sounds like this is a big issue because Starlink’s next generation depends on it. I didn’t realize STarlink played such a large role in SpaceX’s future financials. I personally would love to see more of Starlink and other such providers to compete against traditional broadband providers, especially when so many companies have shady practices like altering content, or censoring content, or throttling, or charging hidden fees, or whatever else. If they were truly on the brink, I would think they would rush to an IPO and rely on their large public following to generate the capital they need to continue forward.
- benlumen 5y agoAt this point, SpaceX is an important strategic asset to the US govt. Would they let it go under?
- olliej 5y agoMusk has repeatedly stated that "socialism" and government handouts are bad, so I'm sure he'd reject spacex getting financial support from the gov.
- arrow7000 5y agoMhm yes https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
- mola 5y agoLike all these anti social and anti welfare guys he loves to take government money for their private endavours.
- ctdonath 5y agoThere's a difference between government acting as an interested customer, vs government subsidizing something for political reasons. Government should not be just handing out money without getting at least that much value back. Government may very well hire a company to do something because it's more cost effective than DIY.
- thinkcontext 5y agoIf it went bankrupt its profitable Falcon business could be sold off and continue operating. Musk and other shareholders would get wiped out or maybe just a big haircut.
- h2odragon 5y agoDoes the gubmint see it that way? the parts of the US defense complex that need launch capability have their own and are very happy with the whole structure that provides them, it seems.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoSounds like some spin to take a larger share of the credit and get even more overtime out of his gnomes. But hey could well also be true
- loceng 5y agoIt's a possibility but I doubt it's a potential. They know what they're doing, so save some uncertainty occurring, they will only move forward and spend resources as signals state that it's a good decision, e.g. Starlink pre-orders and global demand. If that demand is real and Elon's projection that Starlink can support the under or poorly served bottom 3-5% then that's an estimated $30 to $50 billion annually in revenue; SpaceX expected to be a $5 billion/year business itself, at least in the near-term. He's setting an aim for the company and is spending resources requiring a convergence to reach certain milestones. If they borrow funds and have debt or loans they must start paying back but don't have the expected revenue coming in soon enough then they could be in trouble, but in reality so long as they're inching forward then they'll be able to get loans from any number of people who believe in what they're doing - or need them to succeed for security purposes. It's important for him to state this in order to build confidence that he's aware and to give a goal to the workforce.
- freemint 5y agoThe way use convergence makes no sense to me in that context. Can you rephrase that more elaboratly?
- loceng 5y agoSpaceX launch capacity must match being able to launch Starlink satellites (as well as upgrading them) as quickly as Starlink demand scales, as that's the revenue stream they're planning to rely/depend on. If rollout is slow, service is subpar/poor, then it won't scale as well because they won't want to oversaturate the available bandwidth.
- freemint 5y agoThanks. That's better. If SpaceX is really so dependent on Starlink i see doom for both. There are still substantiated doubts whether the buisness model of StarLink is solid and if it does an IPO if the buiness model is percieved as viable given potential competition from Bezos.
- emptyfile 5y agoIn other words: "Work harder peons"
- esarbe 5y agoThat's the gist of it.
- merpnderp 5y agoA peon is a low ranking unskilled laborer who makes peanuts. You likely meant “work harder top tiered, ridiculously paid, engineers and professionals, who could walk away at a moments notice to another ridiculously paying job if they want to.”
- tester34 5y agoAre SpaceX salaries actually "ridiculously high"?
- merpnderp 5y agoTo a peon? Absofrickinglutely.
- Apocryphon 5y agoSounds like they walk away in 6 month intervals. https://www.teamblind.com/post/Ex-SpaceX-employees-Why-did-you-leave-BkNV54Bz https://www.teamblind.com/post/Ex-SpaceX-employees-Why-did-y...
- comfysocks 5y agoAnyone who's worked on a software development "death march" has heard similar motivating speeches from their PM. Something along the lines of "Work harder, give up your weekends and evenings... (so that I can get promoted, and you can get a pat on the head)"
- Ftuuky 5y agoMaybe Musk cashing out some Tesla stock was in anticipation of a new investment in SpaceX?
- Someone 5y agoSo, they can’t built Raptor engines yet, but have to launch hundreds of them next year? 26 (launch a starship at least every two weeks) times 36 (number of raptors per starship, reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship) = 936 (They may need less powerful ones for putting starling into low earth orbit) These things better work reliably from the start, so that they can reuse them a lot. I don’t see them _build_ hundreds of them next year.
- kristianp 5y agoIsn't the Super Heavy + Starship stack supposed to be fully reusable? So they won't need to build new ones every two weeks.
- ls612 5y agoThe first few test flights will likely not be reusable as they need to verify things work as intended before attempting landing. That will probably entail a couple hundred raptors on expendable vehicles early on.
- Tangokat 5y agoIt seems investors are happy to pile cash into SpaceX - not very likely they go bankrupt anytime soon. Valuations: August 2020: 46b [1] Feb 2021: 74b [1] Oct 2021: 100b [2] And I'm sure a lot of private investors would love to buy a piece. Half of HN would buy at 100b valuation I think. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/04/16/is-spacex-really-worth-74-billion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/04/16/is... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/08/elon-musks-spacex-valuation-100-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/08/elon-musks-spacex-valuation-...
- hazza_n_dazza 5y ago$100b is just enough to put in a couple of bridges, or a few roads. Pocket change these days. eg, five tunnels in Victoria Australia, $50b https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/state-s-big-build-under-scrutiny-as-price-tag-hits-81b-20210416-p57jvi.html https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/state-s-big-buil...
- sneak 5y agoThis is the part that doesn't make sense to me. Look at Tesla stonk: everyone I know would gladly take a soldering iron to their fleshy undercarriage to buy SpaceX shares at nearly any price. (I'm not saying they should go public, I'm saying their actual real-world risk is dilution, not bankruptcy.) Seems like this might just be some "c'mon guys" cheerleading to get Elon Time and Human Time to converge a bit faster. He's said some super over-the-line shit before ("pedo guy", "S Elon's C") and it would not surprise me if this were just more of the same. Ultimately the whole thing is bottlenecked on production of unprecedented machines, and if I were in his shoes, I would be saying and doing literally anything I could think of to get the individual humans responsible for those tasks to work a) super hard and b) as close to nonstop as is physically possible. Doesn't make it right.
- itsoktocry 5y agoValuations are not cash-on-hand, and private valuations (insiders trading with each other) are barely relevant. >And I'm sure a lot of private investors would love to buy a piece. Are you sure sure? Because SpaceX has been fundraising for years, and has had trouble getting financing as recently as a couple years ago. Maybe the people with the money know something you don't? Space is hard and expensive.
- ajuc 5y agoAt this point I interpret everything Elon says as "please increase/decrease the price of this asset so I can sell/buy it".
- panick21_ 5y agoThat seems like a 'you' kind of problem. Maybe you should rethink your assumptions when you assumptions lead to incredibly nonsensical outcome. Are you saying he want to lower the worth of SpaceX so he can buy more of it? Can you show that he actually did that? Seriously, the idea that he goes threw life, manages multiple company and every public statement is some 4d level stock manipulation is just galaxy brain nonsense. It literally doesn't make sense.
- skinnymuch 5y ago> That seems like a 'you' kind of problem. Maybe you should rethink your assumptions when you assumptions lead to incredibly nonsensical outcome. This appears to be a ‘you’ problem as well. You have your biases. They have theirs. To say only one person’s views lead to nonsensical outcome is a biased view. > Are you saying he want to lower the worth of SpaceX so he can buy more of it? Can you show that he actually did that? They didn’t say this. They wrote a vaguer statement. You jumped in and assumed a lot.
- panick21_ 5y ago> They didn’t say this. They wrote a vaguer statement. You jumped in and assumed a lot. I am just trying to understand by what 5D logic you are coming to your conclusion so I am speculating. I am literally struggling how anybody could come to such a conclusion because its so nonsensical. It just literally make no sense to interpret his action over the last 20 years with this framework.
- skinnymuch 5y agoI’m not sure what you mean by your first paragraph. I’m not the OP. This is exactly why it’s bias. I see Elon as half charlatan. In my eyes, it’s hard to not see this as super obvious. For you, it’s not like that at all.
- panick21_ 5y agoPeople need to understand this in context of rocket engine production. For comparison, Blue Origin has sold the BE-4 to ULA many years ago. The are testing 2 qualification engines, they have 2 engines in production that hopefully will finish sometimes in a the next few months. We don't know how many are in production beyond that but likely not all that many. These engines will still cost around 7 million $ per engine. That is a more normal production rate, one engine in a cycle of months or even slower. SpaceX just for the test campaign alone is already on SN-100+. Most engines are never even produced in such numbers. SpaceX already has quite high production rates relatively to what would be considered normal. What SpaceX is attempting to do here with the Raptor, and mass producing them in a cycle of a single day is something that has never been even approximated by anybody. This is not a relatively simple engine like to Soviets use for Sozus. This is one of the most complex and most powerful engines ever built. SpaceX has some experience as the Merlin is already one of the most mass-produced engines, but its simpler and they never attempted to push the production quite to where they want the Raptor to be at. He is here still talking about the Raptor built in Hawthorne, they are building a new factory to reach the daily rate in Texas: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/09/raptor-factor-testing-mcgregor/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/09/raptor-factor-testin... What I also think is that some people might misunderstand is that this is not about producing a functioning engine, this seems to be really about how fast they manage to do it. Fans are trying to track these kinds of things: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyEcDQJVoAAF4rB?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyEcDQJVoAAF4rB?format=jpg&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7t5hBjWYBEyeFe?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7t5hBjWYBEyeFe?format=jpg&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7t5h9YXoAcHqxK?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7t5h9YXoAcHqxK?format=jpg&name=... Here some amazing 3D animations for Raptor to see how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCwN00ozWa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCwN00ozWa8 --------------------------------------------------- Edit: For something totally different, the biggest issue with launching Starship 2x per week is that they literally have no place to do that from. Even if the get approval in Boca, that's for 12 launches a year. Getting more then that might not be very easy. The launch platforms from the ocean will likely not be ready. The might be able to launch more from the Cape, but that is also quite contested. And they would have to duplicate the mechazilla launch infrastructure there as well. I really hope the planning they are doing are not that tight. I can see how mass production of Starlink Sats could really bad a very tough cash burn if you can't launch them. All that said I don't think its like SpaceX will fail anytime soon. Edit 2: SpaceX e-mails usually are not leaked so seeing this is quite surprising. I hope this is not a fake. It seem like it makes sense.
- xtine085 5y agoSounds like a fair cry. Another way to motivate investors to pump money into SpaceX.
- ordiel 5y ago"That just sound like slavery with extra steps" Morty Smith
- panick21_ 5y agoOoh La La Someone's Going To Get Laid In College - Rick
- thinkcontext 5y agoBoth Starship and Starlink are extremely risky, "bet the company" scale projects. Then making Starlink dependent on precise timing of Starship just compounds the risk. Raptor problems aren't even what most people would have guessed are the biggest risk, there are several things about Starship that could be considered harder. They mentioned the tile problem but there's also catching the booster, re-entry, reliably doing the flip maneuver, weight gain, etc.