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Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout? What would a bailout loo

Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout? What would a bailout look like, another Solarcity? https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/29/spacex-raptor-crisis/ https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/29/spacex-raptor-crisis/ "Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this... ...we will need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster. 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"

salawat 5y ago
Then don't balls to the wall spool up terminal production, bump out your timescale, and shift your strategy to doing more launches, and hope there is enough interest to weather things. Frankly, I have issues with someone who defied every forseeable risk inherent in operating an LEO satcom network. There is a reason most long term comm infra tends to go to GEO... Replacing stuff in LEO because the atmo ate it is expensive.
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Their products don't seem too popular. E.g. Falcon heavy flew 2 missions in 2019, and 0 since then.
  - humanwhosits 5y ago
    6 FH are scheduled for this year https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceX/wiki/launches/manifest https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceX/wiki/launches/manifest
  - mlindner 5y ago
    Musk wanted to cancel Falcon Heavy, and according to rumors did internally, but then Shotwell (SpaceX COO) reminded him that they'd already sold Falcon Heavy missions to the Air Force so it forced their hand. In reality it should've been canceled as it's not very profitable. What happened is that the Falcon 9 performance kept getting better and better and ate up the market segment that would have been put on to Falcon Heavy.
newaccount2021 5y ago
zakwear 5y ago
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- mlindner 5y ago
  Musk has not "threatened" to take Starlink public. IF Starlink were to go public it would not be some absurd crypto currency ICO. And no they're not "blocking astronomers". https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument-analyzes-impact-of-starlink-satellites https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument... Please don't spread propaganda.
mlindner 5y ago
> Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout? Musk clarified that stance on Twitter. They are not in fact close to bankruptcy. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1465793233729069063 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1465793233729069063

salawat 5y ago

Then don't balls to the wall spool up terminal production, bump out your timescale, and shift your strategy to doing more launches, and hope there is enough interest to weather things. Frankly, I have issues with someone who defied every forseeable risk inherent in operating an LEO satcom network. There is a reason most long term comm infra tends to go to GEO... Replacing stuff in LEO because the atmo ate it is expensive.

irthomasthomas 5y ago
Their products don't seem too popular. E.g. Falcon heavy flew 2 missions in 2019, and 0 since then.
- humanwhosits 5y ago
  6 FH are scheduled for this year https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceX/wiki/launches/manifest https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceX/wiki/launches/manifest
- mlindner 5y ago
  Musk wanted to cancel Falcon Heavy, and according to rumors did internally, but then Shotwell (SpaceX COO) reminded him that they'd already sold Falcon Heavy missions to the Air Force so it forced their hand. In reality it should've been canceled as it's not very profitable. What happened is that the Falcon 9 performance kept getting better and better and ate up the market segment that would have been put on to Falcon Heavy.

newaccount2021 5y ago

zakwear 5y ago

[dead]

mlindner 5y ago
Musk has not "threatened" to take Starlink public. IF Starlink were to go public it would not be some absurd crypto currency ICO. And no they're not "blocking astronomers". https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument-analyzes-impact-of-starlink-satellites https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument... Please don't spread propaganda.

mlindner 5y ago

> Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout? Musk clarified that stance on Twitter. They are not in fact close to bankruptcy. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1465793233729069063 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1465793233729069063