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Except crew dragon is half the price and has flown repeatedly. SpaceX absolutely has had lots of test failures - they've probably blown up more rockets then ma

Except crew dragon is half the price and has flown repeatedly. SpaceX absolutely has had lots of test failures - they've probably blown up more rockets then many recent players - but their cadence is super quick, and their cost per item far far lower and they seem to be able to fix stuff.

Alupis 2y ago
Do we actually know, as fact, that SpaceX is making a profit on these flights?
- asadotzler 2y ago
  The current contract charges NASA about $280 million per Crew Dragon mission. The F9 costs SpaceX about $20 million to launch, so as long as refurbishing a Dragon costs less than $260 million dollars, yes, SpaceX is making a profit on these flights.
- jtriangle 2y ago
  Somebody does, but it's a private company, so, private books, so the general public doesn't know. You can do some napkin math and guess that their flights for NASA are profitable, along with all the other commercial work they do. We don't know if SpaceX as a whole is profitable, but, I'd assume it's not given how heavily they're into R&D at this point. What is reasonably certain is that they likely will be profitable once they're not spending crazy amounts of money on development if their cost per kg is actually realized.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    Right, so the point was all this handwaviness about how bloated Boeing's costs are in this space are just wild guesses at what SpaceX's might be. For all anyone actually knows, Elon is willing to lose a ton per launch just to gain mindshare, kill the competition, and become the only game in town. You know, the Amazon playbook. For all anyone knows, the Boeing quotes are reasonable and SpaceX's are unsustainable. Nobody actually knows... yet so many are willing to confidently assert SpaceX is obviously cheaper. > What is reasonably certain is that they likely will be profitable once they're not spending crazy amounts of money on development This is a space race. The day when SpaceX no longer needs to spend "crazy amounts of money on development" may never actually come.
    - hrunt 2y ago
      What we do know is that SpaceX was able to deliver the requirements 4 years (and counting) earlier than Boeing. And they continue to deliver. Yeah, they could be losing money hand over fist, but at the very least they delivered.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      We have two facts to contradict this. 1. Being a viable sustainable business is a requirement for some of SpaceX's NASA and the Space Force's contracts. NASA & the Space Force have access to SpaceX's books and SpaceX has passed these audits. 2. SpaceX has very obviously been spending many billions to build Starlink and Starship and to pay >14,000 employess. SpaceX has not raised significant money for over 18 months, nor have previous raises been enough to cover their fairly obvious expenditures. That money is coming from somewhere, and process of elimination says "profits".
    - jtriangle 2y ago
      I only know second hand what's happening at boeing, specifically, I know someone who was in charge of their IT infra there, at one of the parts manufacturing facilities. They frequently were given a project to spec out and then implement, and the management never asked how much anything would cost and early in their time there, when it was brought up, it was handwaved off as not important. Their direct management later told them that they don't have a budget for -anything- and to not worry about it. Now, that may just have been the case for IT infra, but, their impression was that at very least their facility had a blank check and costs didn't really matter. Ironically, they left after getting a promotion while stiffing them on a raise. That, understandably, didn't sit well with them in the light of the rest of the situation.
rst 2y ago
Also, some of this is accounted for by a difference in development philosophy. The typical NASA project tests finished designs to make sure that they'll work. SpaceX frequently (currently for Starship) tests half-finished designs because they want to know how they will fail, for future revision. (Example: between starship flight tests 1 and 2, the whole staging method changed; forward fins are being relocate on Starship starting, I think launch after next to reduce heating in reentry, etc.) They do tests on production vehicles too, e.g. the static fires that precede just about every launch, but those aren't directly comparable to the stuff they deliberately blow up to see how that happens.
- teamonkey 2y ago
  In an ideal world NASA would also do this (see the Apollo program). The optics of a government program ‘failing’ are so spectacularly bad they simply cannot afford to do this.

Alupis 2y ago

Do we actually know, as fact, that SpaceX is making a profit on these flights?

asadotzler 2y ago
The current contract charges NASA about $280 million per Crew Dragon mission. The F9 costs SpaceX about $20 million to launch, so as long as refurbishing a Dragon costs less than $260 million dollars, yes, SpaceX is making a profit on these flights.
jtriangle 2y ago
Somebody does, but it's a private company, so, private books, so the general public doesn't know. You can do some napkin math and guess that their flights for NASA are profitable, along with all the other commercial work they do. We don't know if SpaceX as a whole is profitable, but, I'd assume it's not given how heavily they're into R&D at this point. What is reasonably certain is that they likely will be profitable once they're not spending crazy amounts of money on development if their cost per kg is actually realized.
- Alupis 2y ago
  Right, so the point was all this handwaviness about how bloated Boeing's costs are in this space are just wild guesses at what SpaceX's might be. For all anyone actually knows, Elon is willing to lose a ton per launch just to gain mindshare, kill the competition, and become the only game in town. You know, the Amazon playbook. For all anyone knows, the Boeing quotes are reasonable and SpaceX's are unsustainable. Nobody actually knows... yet so many are willing to confidently assert SpaceX is obviously cheaper. > What is reasonably certain is that they likely will be profitable once they're not spending crazy amounts of money on development This is a space race. The day when SpaceX no longer needs to spend "crazy amounts of money on development" may never actually come.
  - hrunt 2y ago
    What we do know is that SpaceX was able to deliver the requirements 4 years (and counting) earlier than Boeing. And they continue to deliver. Yeah, they could be losing money hand over fist, but at the very least they delivered.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    We have two facts to contradict this. 1. Being a viable sustainable business is a requirement for some of SpaceX's NASA and the Space Force's contracts. NASA & the Space Force have access to SpaceX's books and SpaceX has passed these audits. 2. SpaceX has very obviously been spending many billions to build Starlink and Starship and to pay >14,000 employess. SpaceX has not raised significant money for over 18 months, nor have previous raises been enough to cover their fairly obvious expenditures. That money is coming from somewhere, and process of elimination says "profits".
  - jtriangle 2y ago
    I only know second hand what's happening at boeing, specifically, I know someone who was in charge of their IT infra there, at one of the parts manufacturing facilities. They frequently were given a project to spec out and then implement, and the management never asked how much anything would cost and early in their time there, when it was brought up, it was handwaved off as not important. Their direct management later told them that they don't have a budget for -anything- and to not worry about it. Now, that may just have been the case for IT infra, but, their impression was that at very least their facility had a blank check and costs didn't really matter. Ironically, they left after getting a promotion while stiffing them on a raise. That, understandably, didn't sit well with them in the light of the rest of the situation.

rst 2y ago

Also, some of this is accounted for by a difference in development philosophy. The typical NASA project tests finished designs to make sure that they'll work. SpaceX frequently (currently for Starship) tests half-finished designs because they want to know how they will fail, for future revision. (Example: between starship flight tests 1 and 2, the whole staging method changed; forward fins are being relocate on Starship starting, I think launch after next to reduce heating in reentry, etc.) They do tests on production vehicles too, e.g. the static fires that precede just about every launch, but those aren't directly comparable to the stuff they deliberately blow up to see how that happens.

teamonkey 2y ago
In an ideal world NASA would also do this (see the Apollo program). The optics of a government program ‘failing’ are so spectacularly bad they simply cannot afford to do this.