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Lol, how delusional. ArianeGroup literally just got 5 billion $ plus use of lots of tax payer subsidized infrastructure. That is 4 billion $ more then SpaceX e

Lol, how delusional. ArianeGroup literally just got 5 billion $ plus use of lots of tax payer subsidized infrastructure. That is 4 billion $ more then SpaceX ever got for development of Falcon 9. Falcon 9 got an old shitty broken down launch sites they had rebuild, ArianeGroup got a whole new built launch site for free. But feel free to live in fantasy land. > It’s not a like for like comparison especially give SpaceX keeping its books private and giving no clear public indication of how reusable its rockets really are or their refurb cost. Actual smart people and analyist firms have done a lot of work on this. And literally every single expert on the topic disagrees with you. Its literally impossible to assume SpaceX is not saving money, because it would be insane for them to do 100+ launches if they couldn't do as cheaply as they claim. > Given Musks history of creative accounting quoting their PR numbers, the ones they pitch congress, as facts is naive in the extreme. No idea what you are talking about. All SpaceX contracts with the government a fixed cost. What they actually cost doesn't matter, if SpaceX can't deliver, they pay it themselves. If the were constantly offering prices cheaper then they can do things for, they wouldn't exist. Its amazing the brain power it takes to believe that SpaceX is losing money on launches, losing money on development contracts, and is developing Starlink and Starship and is losing money on Starlink operations. But somehow they still exist because 'mmhhh they raised money'. Problem is we know how much money SpaceX raised, you can look it up. And we know what they get paid for their government contract. Their money raising isn't that crazy, in fact, its hard to believe that they have enough to work on Starlink and Starship at the same time. Other companies have spent far, more on things that are far less impressive. But somehow they did both at the same time while also developing human launch. Increasing launch rates. And taking on a number of other fixed price development contracts. And somehow they still exist. Anybody who actually studies these numbers come to the same conclusion. And those simply don't agree with you. Go and actually try to build a model and do the numbers yourself. You will prove yourself wrong. But of course you wont do that, because you were already to lazy to look up what all the space analysts already concluded. Better just keep repeating those anti-Musk talking points you found on twitter from people who wouldn't know what side of a rocket points up.

londons_explore 2y ago
> Problem is we know how much money SpaceX raised If they wanted to raise money without it becoming public, they could do so easily - for example using directors loans. A better way to guess their expenses is to look at how many employees they have. Lets call it 15,000. Lets put average pay at $150k/year after overheads and taxes. 96 launches in 2023. That puts the salary cost per launch at $23M/launch. It's a very rough figure because obviously some rocket parts are purchased, there are other overheads, and there are other revenues and costs from starlink etc.
- FredPret 2y ago
  You really think 100% of salaries can be attributed to launch costs of one of their rocket types?
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Most people at SpaceX work on development programs and in manufacturing not launch. SpaceX manufactures many different things. Launch by now isn't even close to a majority of revenue anymore. SpaceX is not just a launch company, not even close. They are a full space company doing everything from ground infrastructure, commercial and military sats, human and cargo space flight to LEO and the moon. And they are doing development and operations of all of that. What matters is marginal cost of every other launch of Falcon 9. Most analysts put the number somewhere between 10 million $ and 25 million $. I think very few people would guess more then 20 million $, specially now as launch rate has gone up. My guess is that 15 million $ is more reasonable. SpaceX pretty consistently ramped up their money raising along with their development programs. And they were pretty transparent about all of that. Not a single company who analyses SpaceX has ever suggest that SpaceX might somehow have raised much more money. Maybe a few 10s of million. But its hard to raise billions without anybody knowing. And I'm just rather believing people who spend a lot of resources trying to understand SpaceX rather then somebody in an internet form saying 'maybe they have raised billions without anybody knowing'. Because only if its actually billions would it change anything about my argument. What is numbers actually suggest is that SpaceX Falcon 9 operation are highly profitable. They are selling launch way above cost. Numbers and information we have suggest that SpaceX bids very aggressively on their development contracts for NASA, and they are like no making a profit on those, maybe a loss. In case of Starship, a big loss. But likely they get that back with continued operation beyond the initial orders (or that has been the reality so far). Numbers suggest that SpaceX is making a killing on DoD contracts, they knew they were the only viable competitor so they bid very high on those. I think just one that stuff, SpaceX would be a highly profitable company. If this was not true, then there simply is no way they could have sustained the massive investment in Starship and Starlink. So unless somebody shows me prove or anything close to a credible source, showing that SpaceX raised multiple billion additional $, I'm just not gone believe the SpaceX is losing money on everything narrative. Frankly given how insanely expensive something like Starship is, its crazy how little money they have actually raised. Its basically a drop in the bucket to compare it to SLS.

londons_explore 2y ago

> Problem is we know how much money SpaceX raised If they wanted to raise money without it becoming public, they could do so easily - for example using directors loans. A better way to guess their expenses is to look at how many employees they have. Lets call it 15,000. Lets put average pay at $150k/year after overheads and taxes. 96 launches in 2023. That puts the salary cost per launch at $23M/launch. It's a very rough figure because obviously some rocket parts are purchased, there are other overheads, and there are other revenues and costs from starlink etc.

FredPret 2y ago
You really think 100% of salaries can be attributed to launch costs of one of their rocket types?
panick21_ 2y ago
Most people at SpaceX work on development programs and in manufacturing not launch. SpaceX manufactures many different things. Launch by now isn't even close to a majority of revenue anymore. SpaceX is not just a launch company, not even close. They are a full space company doing everything from ground infrastructure, commercial and military sats, human and cargo space flight to LEO and the moon. And they are doing development and operations of all of that. What matters is marginal cost of every other launch of Falcon 9. Most analysts put the number somewhere between 10 million $ and 25 million $. I think very few people would guess more then 20 million $, specially now as launch rate has gone up. My guess is that 15 million $ is more reasonable. SpaceX pretty consistently ramped up their money raising along with their development programs. And they were pretty transparent about all of that. Not a single company who analyses SpaceX has ever suggest that SpaceX might somehow have raised much more money. Maybe a few 10s of million. But its hard to raise billions without anybody knowing. And I'm just rather believing people who spend a lot of resources trying to understand SpaceX rather then somebody in an internet form saying 'maybe they have raised billions without anybody knowing'. Because only if its actually billions would it change anything about my argument. What is numbers actually suggest is that SpaceX Falcon 9 operation are highly profitable. They are selling launch way above cost. Numbers and information we have suggest that SpaceX bids very aggressively on their development contracts for NASA, and they are like no making a profit on those, maybe a loss. In case of Starship, a big loss. But likely they get that back with continued operation beyond the initial orders (or that has been the reality so far). Numbers suggest that SpaceX is making a killing on DoD contracts, they knew they were the only viable competitor so they bid very high on those. I think just one that stuff, SpaceX would be a highly profitable company. If this was not true, then there simply is no way they could have sustained the massive investment in Starship and Starlink. So unless somebody shows me prove or anything close to a credible source, showing that SpaceX raised multiple billion additional $, I'm just not gone believe the SpaceX is losing money on everything narrative. Frankly given how insanely expensive something like Starship is, its crazy how little money they have actually raised. Its basically a drop in the bucket to compare it to SLS.