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Musk had the insight to aim for the overwhelmingly practical and economic benefits of reusable rockets. While the road to achieving those benefits directly was
by Nevermark 4y ago
Musk had the insight to aim for the overwhelmingly practical and economic benefits of reusable rockets.
While the road to achieving those benefits directly was a long road, the immediate indirect benefits of having a clear path to a major competitive (and customer) advantage were the quality of people he was able to inspire to work on the problem.
And as SpaceX began delivering reusability, their profit margins, and industry respect, have risen to a level that gives them overwhelming advantages for now and seemingly for some time to come.
A clear vision counts for a lot.
- ancientworldnow 4y agoThere are 0 hard numbers on profit margins and cost, just taking PR or best guesses at face value.
- Nevermark 4y agoWe don't have access to their dollar per-launch costs in their private ledger, but we do have very reliable access to their rocketry hardware per-launch costs. In percentage of rocket stages consumed / launch, their costs are significantly lower than any other entity in the industry. Also launch frequencies are higher, and their turnaround time on launches is significantly lower, reducing the fixed costs of having a launch system per launch significantly over the competition again.