SpaceX itself isn’t even economically viable without government subsidies
I’m pretty sure that’s false. Starlink is a money printer and SpaceX dominates the commercial market.
And not only false, but completely backwards. The government has been much more favorable to SpaceX’s competitors than to SpaceX, and on an objective scale I think if SpaceX didn’t have to delay so much to get approval from FAA and Fish & Wildlife, they’d be significantly farther ahead right now.
It’s probably true that SpaceX wouldn’t have gotten off the ground early on without some help (mostly in the form of contracts) from the govt, but that’s not what you said—you said “isn’t even economically viable,” not “would have needed more VC investment to get started but would have easily paid it back by now”
As for guaranteeing rockets won’t explode on launch… SpaceX is getting there. Give them another decade & they’ll be there I think. They key, as they always say, is to do it so freaking many times that every possible way things can go wrong has in fact gone wrong in the past and been fixed. Like with commercial flights.
Starlink may be, but space flight is not. This is an important distinction because that means it will be hard to scale space flight without scaling up StarLink to cover losses in space flight first.
SpaceX got 2.3B in government funding in the last year [1] which is not an insignificant amount. (For reference, “In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported.”) If you separate space flight from StarLink revenue, the government is probably a proportionally larger source of funding.
The government is willing to take a loss on contracts to fund activities like space exploration because it’s not constrained by the need for profit. There is no good commercial reason to do these flights, so I would imagine it would be difficult to raise VC money if it would take decades to potentially recoup investments.
As for guaranteeing rockets won’t explode on launch… SpaceX is getting there. Give them another decade & they’ll be there I think. They key, as they always say, is to do it so freaking many times that every possible way things can go wrong has in fact gone wrong in the past and been fixed. Like with commercial flights.
The bar for interesting space travel is more colonization of planets that are far away. I don’t doubt we will eventually fix this problem in the future, but this is probably a lot more limited than what people are imagining or hoping.
“With commercial entities like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin set to be joined by new players in the coming years, experts in the field are predicting that affordable suborbital travel will be available to most of us within a couple of decades.” [2]
Assuming no AGI, this is the likely trajectory. Maybe in decades we can take these suborbital flights without needing to be a billionaire, but I’d imagine most people are thinking of going to Mars or somewhere farther, rather than just leaving Earth momentarily then dipping back.
I think if we wanted something like commercial flights to Mars or Europa in our lifetimes, I’d assume we would have the suborbital flights commercialized already and have semi-frequent non-commercial flights to those destinations.
“X got its start with government subsidies and contracts” is a veeeeerrry different claim from “X is not even economically viable without government subsidies.” The distinction between subsidies and contracts is important, and the distinction between getting started and long-term viability is important.
I don’t think if almost half their revenue is still coming from the government, and probably more of their space flight revenue, you can say SpaceX only got its start with government subsidies and contracts.
I also find the comparison with plane flights strange. There is a lot of value for consumers to go between countries. Business flights and tourism means many flights produce more value than they cost, giving us reasons to fund them. In comparison there aren’t many ways for a space tourist flight to produce more value than they consume.
So plane flights should not be the parallel drawn. Maybe deep-sea submarine rides are a more accurate comparison, which are still very expensive and dangerous. The primary customer of deep-sea submarine rides is still the government and government funded researchers.
I hope to drive the point home that no one should expect much progress in space tourism by default without AI advancements. We landed on the moon 53 years ago and despite the overwhelming scientific progress since, you still can’t take a flight there by choice.
Look, I’m not here to argue about the long-term trajectory of space flight with you, I’m here to object to your false and misleading claim about SpaceX. If you concede that point then I’ll go away.
I’m pretty sure that’s false. Starlink is a money printer and SpaceX dominates the commercial market.
And not only false, but completely backwards. The government has been much more favorable to SpaceX’s competitors than to SpaceX, and on an objective scale I think if SpaceX didn’t have to delay so much to get approval from FAA and Fish & Wildlife, they’d be significantly farther ahead right now.
It’s probably true that SpaceX wouldn’t have gotten off the ground early on without some help (mostly in the form of contracts) from the govt, but that’s not what you said—you said “isn’t even economically viable,” not “would have needed more VC investment to get started but would have easily paid it back by now”
As for guaranteeing rockets won’t explode on launch… SpaceX is getting there. Give them another decade & they’ll be there I think. They key, as they always say, is to do it so freaking many times that every possible way things can go wrong has in fact gone wrong in the past and been fixed. Like with commercial flights.
Starlink may be, but space flight is not. This is an important distinction because that means it will be hard to scale space flight without scaling up StarLink to cover losses in space flight first.
SpaceX got 2.3B in government funding in the last year [1] which is not an insignificant amount. (For reference, “In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported.”) If you separate space flight from StarLink revenue, the government is probably a proportionally larger source of funding.
The government is willing to take a loss on contracts to fund activities like space exploration because it’s not constrained by the need for profit. There is no good commercial reason to do these flights, so I would imagine it would be difficult to raise VC money if it would take decades to potentially recoup investments.
The bar for interesting space travel is more colonization of planets that are far away. I don’t doubt we will eventually fix this problem in the future, but this is probably a lot more limited than what people are imagining or hoping.
“With commercial entities like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin set to be joined by new players in the coming years, experts in the field are predicting that affordable suborbital travel will be available to most of us within a couple of decades.” [2]
Assuming no AGI, this is the likely trajectory. Maybe in decades we can take these suborbital flights without needing to be a billionaire, but I’d imagine most people are thinking of going to Mars or somewhere farther, rather than just leaving Earth momentarily then dipping back.
I think if we wanted something like commercial flights to Mars or Europa in our lifetimes, I’d assume we would have the suborbital flights commercialized already and have semi-frequent non-commercial flights to those destinations.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tesla-government-money-npr
https://www.space.com/not-far-out-can-games-predict-the-future-of-commercial-space-travel#:~:text=With%20commercial%20entities%20like%20Virgin,within%20a%20couple%20of%20decades.
So, you retract your claim that SpaceX is not economically viable without government subsidies?
What would SpaceX look like without government subsidies or contracts?
“X got its start with government subsidies and contracts” is a veeeeerrry different claim from “X is not even economically viable without government subsidies.” The distinction between subsidies and contracts is important, and the distinction between getting started and long-term viability is important.
I don’t think if almost half their revenue is still coming from the government, and probably more of their space flight revenue, you can say SpaceX only got its start with government subsidies and contracts.
I also find the comparison with plane flights strange. There is a lot of value for consumers to go between countries. Business flights and tourism means many flights produce more value than they cost, giving us reasons to fund them. In comparison there aren’t many ways for a space tourist flight to produce more value than they consume.
So plane flights should not be the parallel drawn. Maybe deep-sea submarine rides are a more accurate comparison, which are still very expensive and dangerous. The primary customer of deep-sea submarine rides is still the government and government funded researchers.
I hope to drive the point home that no one should expect much progress in space tourism by default without AI advancements. We landed on the moon 53 years ago and despite the overwhelming scientific progress since, you still can’t take a flight there by choice.
Look, I’m not here to argue about the long-term trajectory of space flight with you, I’m here to object to your false and misleading claim about SpaceX. If you concede that point then I’ll go away.
Spacex would exist but it would look very different.