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> The SpaceX model is ideal for low Earth orbit where technology and markets are mature, I think it has trouble at Mars if not the Moon. How much of that techn

> The SpaceX model is ideal for low Earth orbit where technology and markets are mature, I think it has trouble at Mars if not the Moon. How much of that technology and market has SpaceX themselves developed over the past 15 years though? They had to invent Starlink to grow the commercial launch market past the point of saturation. And while Starship isn't particularly well designed to make round trips to and from the Moon, it can deliver an enormous amount of cargo in a one way trip, plus the ship itself can be repurposed. So if you're going to build a moon base it's a good option.

PaulHoule 1y ago
On some level Starlink was something new, but it is something new that serviced a market that everyone knew was there. It went from announcement to commercial service in 5 years.
- philwelch 1y ago
  Starlink isn’t the impressive part. The impressive part is that by solving reusability, SpaceX instantly outscaled the existing launch market and was forced to find ways to generate their own demand in order to maintain growth. Which goes to show that LEO is nowhere close to a mature market; in mature markets, companies don’t have to resort to these elaborate forms of vertical integration the way they do when they invent something that fundamentally changes the market faster than anyone else can adapt. By way of analogy, radio is a mature market. Maybe a little more than mature, to be honest, it’s well past its prime. In the early days of radios, you know who ran the radio stations? The companies that made radios! Because who’s going to buy a radio without a radio station to listen to? It took years for people to figure out the radio advertising business model but RCA wasn’t willing to wait that long so they just operated a bunch of radio stations as a cost center to encourage people to buy more radios. But then the market matured and the roles of “broadcasting” and “manufacturing home radios” diverged into different companies.
verzali 1y ago
SpaceX didn't invent Starlink, they just had the capital to get past the initial high expediture beforw the project becomes viable. Many other people attempted to build a Starlink-like constellation before SpaceX. They failed because they couldn't fund the satellite rollout phase.
- philwelch 1y ago
  They couldn’t fund the satellite rollout phase because nobody had invented a cost effective reusable rocket before SpaceX. And that’s the technology I’m talking about, not Starlink itself. My point about Starlink is that it exists mainly because SpaceX already outscaled the entire existing launch market and has to generate their own demand.
  - verzali 1y ago
    It's more that reusable rockets don't make sense unless you have a lot to launch. SpaceX had to find some a way to make cash from mass in orbit, and telecom is one of the few ways to actually do that. It's rather telling that nobody else has put significant amounts of mass in orbit since the arrival of the Falcon 9.

PaulHoule 1y ago

On some level Starlink was something new, but it is something new that serviced a market that everyone knew was there. It went from announcement to commercial service in 5 years.

philwelch 1y ago
Starlink isn’t the impressive part. The impressive part is that by solving reusability, SpaceX instantly outscaled the existing launch market and was forced to find ways to generate their own demand in order to maintain growth. Which goes to show that LEO is nowhere close to a mature market; in mature markets, companies don’t have to resort to these elaborate forms of vertical integration the way they do when they invent something that fundamentally changes the market faster than anyone else can adapt. By way of analogy, radio is a mature market. Maybe a little more than mature, to be honest, it’s well past its prime. In the early days of radios, you know who ran the radio stations? The companies that made radios! Because who’s going to buy a radio without a radio station to listen to? It took years for people to figure out the radio advertising business model but RCA wasn’t willing to wait that long so they just operated a bunch of radio stations as a cost center to encourage people to buy more radios. But then the market matured and the roles of “broadcasting” and “manufacturing home radios” diverged into different companies.

verzali 1y ago

SpaceX didn't invent Starlink, they just had the capital to get past the initial high expediture beforw the project becomes viable. Many other people attempted to build a Starlink-like constellation before SpaceX. They failed because they couldn't fund the satellite rollout phase.

philwelch 1y ago
They couldn’t fund the satellite rollout phase because nobody had invented a cost effective reusable rocket before SpaceX. And that’s the technology I’m talking about, not Starlink itself. My point about Starlink is that it exists mainly because SpaceX already outscaled the entire existing launch market and has to generate their own demand.
- verzali 1y ago
  It's more that reusable rockets don't make sense unless you have a lot to launch. SpaceX had to find some a way to make cash from mass in orbit, and telecom is one of the few ways to actually do that. It's rather telling that nobody else has put significant amounts of mass in orbit since the arrival of the Falcon 9.