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Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted. Plus, other companies are having a hard enough
by dotnet00 3y ago
Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted.
Plus, other companies are having a hard enough time competing already (even small launch is facing tough competition from the F9 rideshares), if SpaceX dropped their prices too low, it'd quickly run most of the launch market out of business, which is not in the interests of a company that wants to improve accessibility to space.
This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload.
- nordsieck 3y ago> Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted. OK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit driven business. > This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload. Yeah. SpaceX hasn't said anything, but I tend to believe that they'll move to a capabilities based pricing model where customers pay by the KG and/or m^3. That way they can compete for small payloads while getting paid appropriately for large ones.
- kiba 3y agoOK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit driven business. If you want to just make money, there are far easier and less risky industries you can invest your money in than launch services and rockets. You can even just invest your wealth in an index fund and earn a return that is basically risk-free.