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SpaceX designed reusable rocket first stage to slash costs. Everybody said reusability only makes sense when there's lot of flights - because large development

• jzawodn 2y ago
  They didn't invent Starlink. They bought the company.
  • sweettea 2y ago
    I don't think this is correct. As far as I understand it, Elon/SpaceX did attempt a previous investment in satellite internet, but it had died long before Starlink came to be in 2014.
    • andsoitis 2y ago
      Indeed. Starlink was publicly announced in January 2015 with the opening of the SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington Full surrounding history at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
• codeflo 2y ago
  > Starlink, which is already in black It doesn’t make sense to claim “Starlink is profitable” if the underlying rockets still lose money and you don’t account for that in the claim. > they'll have to invent something which needs a lot of super-heavy launcher flights Losing money with your expensive solution? Easy, just invent a profitable problem.
  • wmf 2y ago
    If Falcon 9 was a company it would probably be profitable and Starlink could probably pay Falcon a fair price and still be profitable. Obviously SpaceX is not profitable overall because they are investing tons in Starship.
• WalterBright 2y ago
  The bright dividing line in the history of the west coast was when the first transcontinental railroad was built. It transformed everything at a pace that astonished its predictors.
  • WalterBright 2y ago
    Currently, we launch little things into orbit. With big, cheap rockets we can launch big things, like an interplanetary craft, a spinning space station, robots to spread out through the solar system, even a moon base.
    • skybrian 2y ago
      But the question is what can they do that's more useful than communication satellites to people on Earth? That is, who pays for the rocket launches, and why? More space science and exploration is nice. We'd get more for less. But I don't think space exploration budgets will increase?
      • WalterBright 2y ago
        > But the question is what can they do that's more useful than communication satellites to people on Earth? Sure. And nobody predicted how incredibly useful the transcontinental railroad would be. "Nothing Like It In The World" by Stephen Ambrose https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1863-1869/dp/0743203178 https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...
      • yetihehe 2y ago
        Space mining (for platinum etc) would probably be THE most useful and profitable business for big launches.
• TMWNN 2y ago
  > Now they use the money to get Starship flying, and in 1-3 years they'll likely get it to fly well enough. And they'll have the question what to do with that huge capacity, so they'll have to invent something which needs a lot of super-heavy launcher flights. Could it be a significant Moon base, for tourism, science, manufacturing, resource utilization? While I agree that there will be payloads built specifically for Starship's massive capacity, most aren't going to need that much space. Historically, an entity (company, academia, government) that wants to launch a satellite has had to not only buy/build it, but also buy the rocket, then wait months/years for launch. Some small satellites have been able to hitch a ride on launches of larger payloads, but even there the timing is out of the smallsat's owner's control. With Starship, an entity only has to build a satellite. As it nears completion, the entity will go to spacex.com, find a day with a Starship launch with sufficient open capacity, and reserve a slot. If the satellite is delayed, the reservation can be moved to another day (perhaps with some percentage of the deposit withheld if too close to launch time). In other words, Expedia for space. There will be as many Starship launches as needed. Maybe the combined Starlink+outside customer demand will at first result in one launch a week (less frequent than Falcon 9's launch cadence, because of Starship's greater capacity). Maybe over time it will rise to two, three, five, seven, ten, 20 weekly. The more frequent and more consistent the launch cadence, the more confident customers will be that a launch slot will be available when they want one.
  • chii 2y ago
    The commoditization of space launches is going to allow new developments in space for which there is no predecessor.
• threeseed 2y ago
  > Starlink, which is already in black But which isn't the business people think it is. It is making the majority of its revenue from populated areas in wealthy countries [1]. Making it very susceptible to the improvements in the rollout of fibre which is happening in most countries. For example in Australia they are upgrading our fibre network to 1Gbps which is 10x the speed of Starlink. [1]: https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-on-track-to-hit-6-6b-in-revenue-this-year-quilty-report-estimates/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-o...
  • monero-xmr 2y ago
    Not an either-or, if I need internet I need it, and have all manner of backups for power and internet. I added starlink to complement fiber, cable, and mobile broadband. Simply put I cannot be offline for any reason other than medical incapacitation / death
    • pnut 2y ago
      Yikes
  • bogantech 2y ago
    > For example in Australia they are upgrading our fibre network to 1Gbps which is 10x the speed of Starlink. I don't know of anyone using Starlink in areas with fibre, only rural areas with no fibre.
    • threeseed 2y ago
      In Australia for example rural areas are all being wired for fibre. And you only need to lay fibre once and you can benefit at least for the next century if not longer as we continue to invent new ways to multiplex data.
      • kalleboo 2y ago
        Do you have any source on the plans for rural fibre? My parents just keep being told to be content with Sky Muster. Australia is huge, it's going to take multiple decades to build out to even a fraction of the communities.
• napierzaza 2y ago
  [dead]
• adastra22 2y ago
  > so they'll have to invent something which needs a lot of super-heavy launcher flights. Mars. Their reason (and market) for Starship is Mars.
  • tsimionescu 2y ago
    There is no market for Mars. No one needs, or even really wants, to build anything on Mars. Taking a human there just to show that we can might be a cute publicity stunt, but that's the only possible rational motivation for Mars in the next 500 years or so.
    • dyauspitr 2y ago
      Nonsense. I can definitely see completely sealed habitats buried underground in mars.
      • tsimionescu 2y ago
        You can imagine them, but they are not actually realizabile with current technology, and there is 0 purpose to actually doing it. Making them self-sustaining to act as a safeguard if the Earth is destroyed is also way, way beyond our current technology.
        • dyauspitr 2y ago
          Why? 150 metric tons of concrete (what one starship can carry), is enough to build 4 single family homes. A standard excavator is 10-20 tons so you can carry 10-15 on one starship. It doesn’t take much more than that to build a deep hole and make a concrete hab. These would have to be modified for mars but not significantly. I’m not sure what this technology is that we don’t have. It sounds like you could have a functional research lab on mars with less than 5-10 starship trips. Purpose is purely subjective. You could have said the same thing about the ISS before it was built but it has been invaluable.
          • 2y ago
• qbxk 2y ago
  international shipping, and _maybe_ eventually travel you can launch a rocket from anywhere on earth to arrive anywhere on earth in under 30m. first we'll just have better express package deliveries (oh, and military logistics). but eventually they'll decide it's safe enough for people to ride on and you'll just kiss the Kármán line on your way to and from lunch in Kathmandu