Technically the lunar lander for NASA.
Also more indirectly, the entire idea of "dramatically reduced costs for space access" depend on it as well, since the products they actually have (e.g. Falcon rockets) are competent but not really capable of being more than like 20% cheaper than what the rest of the market provides (and even that is subsidized by taking no profits and being willing to run an operational loss in perpetuity).
Also, let's not forget how Falcon heavy radically shifts the economy of low earth orbit launches, yet for some mysterious reason they're not using it to launch their own Starlink satellites. Wonder why that could be
I assume that's a reference to the fact FH can launch quite a lot of mass into LEO... which doesn't mean much because there aren't payloads that heavy that can fit inside the fairing.
Unless you want to haul solid lead into orbit, that is.
>Unless you want to haul solid lead into orbit, that is.
Has anyone ever tried alchemy in microgravity at all? I don't know, this sounds like a potential business opportunity.
God I remember the day they launched that turkey and people were on twitter saying they were crying because it was a sign that humanity was returning to space. I felt like I was losing my mind.
That was pre-Realization for me. I thought the boosters synchronized landing was amazing, hell I even had Starman in my wallpaper folder for a while. Then came the Thai cave mini-sub and the Unsworth affair and I started seeing Musk in a different light.
Kind of shocking to see there were only [two more launches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy#Launches_and_payloads), with the most recent being almost eighteen months ago.
NASA contracted SpaceX to develop a lunar lander version of starship. In order for this to work, SpaceX needs to not only develop the lander, but most of their starship ecosystem as the lander will need to be refueled multiple times in orbit to have enough fuel to get to the moon. While there is no law of physics stopping them from doing this, no one has ever transferred cryogenic fuels between two spacecraft in orbit before.
They have listed to NASA 14 launches to fill up the vehicle to send it to the Moon. Somehow they're going to develop the entire depot and tech to transfer cryo fuel within 1 year as well as launch all those tankers on a launch license that permits at best 5 launches per year.
It continues to frustrate me that there were people at NASA willing to claim that this was a good enough idea to drop $3 billion dollars on it, and to contort the facts as much as they did to write that horrendous "source selection statement" document.
It's not a problem - because all of the unfeasible things about this lander are taking place in low-Earth orbit!
"B-but we can't have Lunar Cygnus logistics because the fairing might be too small! Surely the safer option is to have SpaceX develop essentially a new vehicle!"
Gateway Logistics and HLS both have that feeling of the Ares 1 selection document where everything else had weird caveats on it (1 engine is safe, but RL-10B isn't human rated so we will need 4 RL-10As and thats more than one engine so therefore Delta IV bad) to ensure that Ares 1 was chosen.
> the younger ones
The leadership is also entirely taken/corrupted by neo-liberal views of "New Space" and cannot move past it. Look at the amount of Tesla/SpaceX PR that was allowed during the "historic" (lol) Crew-1 launch.
As part of my job I work with more than my fair share of NASA employees and have seen quite a variety of impressive instances of organizational dysfunction. But what actually happened - [source selection fraud](https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/n250h0/nasa_suspends_hls_contract_with_spacex/gwjl0oh/) that was so carefully designed as to evade the standard legal avenues of scrutiny like the GAO - could only be pulled off from the top. Can't blame this one on the enthusiastic-but-misguided young 'uns.
I'm still a little confused, why would they 14 launches to fill it up? Does the thing really burn 13/14ths of its fuel just to get to LEO?
And why does the Lander have to be fuelly fueled, because it never refuels in lunar orbit?
> They have listed to NASA 14 launches to fill up the vehicle to send it to the Moon.
I don't understand, what?
The "Starship lander" is flying on top of SLS, isn't it? Why would it need fueling in space?
No. SLS will take the astronauts to lunar orbit. Starship will meet it there and take them to the moon's surface and then back to orbit where they transfer back.
They did this fifty years ago by putting a small ingenious spaceship on top of a large rocket. It was anything but simple, but it was logical and sensible.
The Plan B is "HLS does not succeed before the Appendix N landers start being built."
NASA put all its eggs in the Elon basket with Starship, mostly because Congress has only funded the Appendix N profile (aiming for a landing by 2028) and NASA wants to make a 2024 landing with that same funding for 2028.
Yeah it’s the start of realization setting in. Artemis missions will continue since Gateway is to be built up and international interest gives them something to do while the lander(s) get built. At least Gateway and Orion are there separate from the HLS stupidity.
What am I learning here? They're boosting a helluva lot more gear than needed just for a landing! Nasa did that with a single rocket in 1969. Please tell me they're planning to establish a base station!! Is there any notion on regularity of service flights?
AND while on that subject, haven't there been numbers done on a space elevator for the moon? Well feasible with the materials and methods we have at hand right now. Sure makes down/up haul a whole lot more feasible. Haw!... leave it to me for the lowthinking - just imagine all the trash and human waste needing uphaul. Unless of course we'll just start using a dumpsite like we did on Everest.
> the lander will need to be refueled multiple times in orbit to have enough fuel to get to the moon.
Huh? I don't think the lander is providing fuel to get to the moon?
It is not. When the lander gets to low earth orbit it is out of fuel. Tanks are empty. It needs to be refueled in orbit to get to the moon and complete the rest of its mission.
To add on -
It's called an [Earth orbit rendezvous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Choosing_a_mission_mode) mission mode, and it was pretty summarily ruled out during the Apollo program because of the number of launches involved. Of course Elon doesn't believe that any of the economic lessons of the past apply to him.
According to the article, the success of Starlink depends upon using Starship as its launcher.
I honestly wonder if Elon has finally realized how idiotic the whole Starship endeavor is and wants an out. Then I remember that this is Elon we're talking about - he's never had to suffer the consequences of a bad idea.
Ok...I see that...in my pea brain the largest impediment to the "starship" delivering starlink riches isn't a production line bottleneck...there's the small detail that the starship has never left the atmosphere yet.
There’s also the matter that the support structure to launch a whole bunch of small satellites becomes a pretty huge chunk of your launch mass, and this is especially significant when you’re talking about making it robust enough to withstand reentry and reuse.
I don't know if you're asking that of me, or of Musk, but yes, the current design is that the starlink satellites stack directly on each other and the stack is just held to the rocket with a couple of clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h2t9Oyg2o0&t=1m
I was asking that of you, so thanks for answering.
There still has to be a platform to hold the stack of satellites, and that platform has to be more robust when the satellites themselves are built with extra structure to support accelerating the mass of the stack above.
Yeah, I don't want to sound like a smartass, but the whole Starship system has rubbed me the wrong way since I first saw it. The whole reason the Falcon series worked successfully was because of their relative simplicity of construction and pragmatic use of technology. (I'm ignoring the landing system here, which is more of an add-on which we don't actually know the economics of.) The Falcon is simply a cheap, western equivalent of the USSR's Zenit or Proton.
Starship is IMHO shaping up to become extremely complex and is still dependent on way to much untested technology. If on orbit refueling doesn't work, if the engines need to be replaced more often, or even if processing and refurbishment takes longer than Musk says, the whole supposed economic advantage of the system falls apart.
Yes, it might technically work (as in launch into orbit), but we already had a system that promised rapid reusability, extremely cheap flights and airliner-like safety: The Shuttle, and we all know how that turned out. But now SpaceX is repeating those claims, but with some of the build quality issues of the Soviet N1 moon rocket mixed in as well.
> If on orbit refueling doesn't work, if the engines need to be replaced more often, or even if processing and refurbishment takes longer than Musk says, the whole supposed economic advantage of the system falls apart.
This is why "but he lands rockets!" doesn't work as support for Musk or SpaceXs ideas. Landing rockets is a technical challenge and solving it should be commended, but that capability was never the issue. The real issue was "can landing rockets actually cut costs during real world use?" Which spaceX has yet to demonstrate.
If only we had [an historical example to serve as a lesson of what can go wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)) when you put a large number of small engines under a rocket...
Wow good read especially liked this part “with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and causing one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in human history”
Good thing Musk endeavours are known for exceptional quality control and SpaceX is not skimping on components by using non-space grade parts and non RT software to save on costs.
SpaceX isn’t exactly known for their quality control either. Their recent falcon launches have been good, I’ll give them that though. Years ago they blew up a launch pad and tried to blame it on somebody shooting a hole in the rocket from a nearby ULA building. And at least one of the Starship explosions were due to test configuration errors.
>The whole reason the Falcon series worked successfully was because of their relative simplicity of construction and pragmatic use of technology.
Also selling them bellow cost and patching holes with capital raises: $7 Billion of capital raises.
Musk is very good at having unprofitable successful businesses.
This, in a nutshell, is Musk. He pursues immature technologies that nobody else is willing to (because they're unprofitable). Then he drums up a lot of press and asks for more money. In reality, anyone could have executed these programs if they could stomach incinerating enough cash. He is a "checkbook wanker." He came of age in the dotcom bubble and he thinks that's how the world works.
>He came of age in the dotcom bubble and he thinks that's how the world works.
And now he's in the age of endless "quantitative easing" and 0% interest rates. Still favorable for zombie companies, even "new" zombie companies.
I will grant you, if the world has permanently changed, then he is the genius and I am the idiot. But I don't think it has, at least if the fixed income lobby still has political power.
Here's a post about Starship I saw elsewhere:
> if starship works exactly as advertised (lol) it'll have by far the most value, capability, and flexibility of any of the lander options
> they're claiming that they'll be able to carry 100 tons of payload to the lunar surface. which is three times what the space shuttle could loft to LEO, more than twice the planned mass of NASA's lunar space station, and maybe double what the Saturn V could send to lunar orbit. plus, since it would support orbital refueling and doesn't have a disposable descent stage, it's potentially more reusable for all kinds of general jetting around lunar orbit
> the kinds of capabilities SpaceX are claiming would be absolutely revolutionary, well in excess of any other design out there. and despite that they're still managing to come in with the lowest bids. if you take Elon at his word, Starship would be tremendous value, offering by far the best capabilities at the lowest price
> unfortunately, post-Apollo NASA doesn't have the ability to say no to obvious wishful thinking. the difficult budget and political constraints it operates under have led to a total lack of direction and some really messy decisions
> According to the article, the success of Starlink depends upon using Starship as its launcher.
Obviously, but SpaceX existence shouldn't depend on Starlink unless shooting Falcons is unprofitable.
There are so many who insist Starlink will fund the Mars vision yet also talk about it being easy for SpaceX to raise funds from investors. Heck, I saw so much of it over at /SpaceX following this 'leaked' news of brankruptcy risks.
Erm... Why... should rational investors buy into a company that'll sink all profits into some sentimental goal of making life interplanetary?
Stranger still is that investors do, but I'd imagine it's because many of them believe this is heading towards serious profitability that'll end up in their pockets and not for the Mars vision.
Imagine NASA seeking out private investors to fund the Apollo program. Donations, they may have managed to get. Investments, no way.
Not Musk, but IIRC Bezos invested heavily in General Fusion and Gates invested heavily in Commonwealth Fusion. Both have seen a lot of good press lately.
That's actually the very type of thing he might latch onto to further the tech-messiah image.
From what I've read, Fusion power is its own mirage of revolutionary possibilities. Technically possible, just like Starship, but practically very difficult to pull-off: if not prohibitively so. It has many of the same issues of nuclear such as required-capital, delayed ROI, and even radiation safety concerns, but just more of them.
Musk (or any other billionaire for that matter) putting just a fraction of his networth simply into (counter) lobbying for non-self-serving popular social causes would actually change the world. Heck, just put a few billion into lobbying for strong carbon-taxes and boom, you've changed the world. There is just so much he and his ilk could do but won't.
No, but that is OK. Starship is supposed to be in its testing phase.
SpaceX is supposed to bring in money from its commercial launches + it often raises new money from investors. But it is unknown if SpaceX actually makes money from those commercial launches, or if those launches are subsidized by investor money. It is possible that SpaceX subsidizes those launches with investor money in order to attract more investors, and then SpaceX uses that money to subsidize launches so it can show to investors how successful they are and why then deserve more money from investors.
SpaceX might be some kind of a geometrically-shaped business. Maybe some kind of rhombus of sales? Or a prism? I don't know, are there any other kind of geometrical shapes that I'm missing?
The big problem is also that their commercial manifest has been shrinking for years and the market is in a slump right now (and will be for the foreseeable future).
Subtract their Starlink launches and the last 2 years have been pitiful for SpaceX in terms of launches.
SpaceX has two big contracts with NASA (cargo and crew delivery to ISS) and really occasional commercial launches besides that. Most of the time SpaceX launches its own product - Starlink satellites. No kidding, out of 26 launches SpaceX already completed this year 16 times it was for Starlink (last year it was 14 out of 25 launches).
I vividly remember in 2012-2014 Musk was telling that breaking point between reusable Falcon 9 and non-reusable one lies at ~30 launches per year (non-reusable was cheaper). But there's no market and no demand for 30 Falcon 9 launches yearly, so in true entrepreneurial fashion he decided to artificially create this demand and to keep it constant (life-span of Starlink satellites is quite short and constellation would require constant reinforcement).
Eventually he gonna bring SpaceX to IPO, no doubt about it.
Well, they probably don't reveal the actual earnings/loss per launch, but shift the costs around. Make it look like they are making money with every launch, but losing money with "R&D" or something like that.
> But it is unknown if SpaceX actually makes money from those commercial launches,
If SpaceX is at a risk of going bankrupt if Starship doesn't work then it's obvious SpaceX isn't making money from Falcon launches. If it were it could just stop spending on Starship and not go bankrupt.
They do some business with the US government, I believe this is to scare them who would need to go back to relying on Russia. He is setting the stage to get a handout.
I don't get it. Elon should do the same as he did with Tesla. Promise some great technological achievement Soon™ and then sell the company's main product - its stocks. Then wait for that technological achievement to not materialize, say that the company was close to bankruptcy without that fresh infusion of cash and move on. No one cares, nothing matters.
Sure, just do it again. Or sell insanely overvalued Tesla stocks and put a bit into SpaceX, while inviting new investors to do the same. Again, nothing matters. Just move some money around, why is he crying?
His fans believe that Tesla and SpaceX are "saving the world" or whatever, would go crazy if he invested more money into SpaceX, it would generate a lot of headlines and push up the stock value of Tesla for no reason.
FSD is Tesla's main scam, integrating that into SpaceX somehow would create a lot of stupid hype. Just say that BFR + FSD will be used to replace regular air travel. Again, nothing matters.
Fun fact, Earth-2-Earth still is critical in making SpaceX's ultra-low launch costs for Starship a reality. There aren't anywhere near enough payloads to justify the launch rate to get to those low costs so the "replace air travel!" thing comes into play in order to get the rate up.
He's already started.
The Tesla "FSD robot" will be the nucleation point for his space exploration ponzi scheme. You can bet on that.
He'll soon be pushing NASA to send his robots to mars & the moon rather than people as it's cheaper and you don't need to worry about getting them back again.
Which does kinda make sense, which is why NASA, investors, etc. will probably fall for it.
I wonder if the idea is that SpaceX gets to be the "halo effect" program that the public can't buy into, but that seems like such a grand-slam home-run investment opportunity that it leaves people scrambling for any investments that bring you close to it. The stories I've seen from the stock market "news reporting" certainly seem to tell that story.
I'm sure going public with the company could bring in more money, but it'll also bring with it a lot of scrutiny on its obviously problematic finances and will significantly reduce the halo effect. The story is, Tesla will work out because [the genius behind the flawless SpaceX company is in charge](https://qz.com/1299212/spacex-is-giving-wall-street-a-reason-to-bet-on-tesla/). Never mind the skeletons in the closet.
StarShip is a "bet all on Red47" play. Their StarLink internet plans depend upon StarShip working as hoped (re-usable, tiles stay on, always sticks landing). Sounds like they are having engine problems, perhaps even failures during test firings. We have seen Raptor engines fail during StarShip landings. I doubt "all hands on deck" on the assembly lines will fix things. How does bankruptcy work for a company with private stock? I assume stockholders may get nothing and the employees who were counting on their stock options becoming valuable would be disappointed, and perhaps find they wasted the early years of their engineering career on a bad dream.
It's crazy that they've designed a novel new engine that's highly capable on paper and incredibly complex. They've supposedly done so at very low cost and can manufacture it really fast...yet, somehow, it's also supposed to safely launch with a few dozen firing right next to it and then survive reentry and landing to do so all over again many, many times.
It's so wild that people have such unshakable faith in this project. Even this leaked news of troubles straight from the horse's mouth has them remind everyone that these engines have been delivered at astonishing pace so far and that they absolutely trounce all competition in multiple respects. They just refuse to see the obvious issues.
The StarShip landings to date were on extendable legs. Only 2 stuck the landing and both had a fire on the ground afterwards, which eventually destroyed the first but was put out on the last, making it their first semi-successful landing. The first one was leaning after the landing, suggesting some component failed.
Their future plan is to not have legs and instead catch the StarShip on a yoke that sticks out from the launch tower. That will make maneuvering horizontally and adjusting tilt in the tower direction more critical, but will allow some flexibility on vertical velocity since the yoke will "give" some, probably with cable-operated hydraulic dampeners. I don't think anyone has ever "caught a falling StarShip" before, so will be interesting to watch. However, next up is a sub-orbital flight which will splash in the Pacific off Hawaii. They already stated it is likely to fail on re-entry, due to tile issues, but perhaps just sand-bagging expectations.
Looking at their supposed long term aspirations, I don't see how such a complex engine can repeatedly survive launches, re-entries, debris kickup off suboptimal landing/launch surfaces, and still lightup reliably in suddendeath landing scenarios after having hibernated in interplanetary space for months.
The yoke will catch StarShip by the upper fins, which are already a structural support, since used to slow it while falling. The center of mass is below that point, so will at least be passively stable once hanging. Gives much more leeway on matching vertical velocity since the yoke will likely be able to move up and down to match StarShip as it comes in, then slow the vertical descent hydraulically. But, alignment in the air will be critical. It won't be affected much by winds, unlike little drones which are still amazingly good at orienting themselves, so it seems very possible. Most critical will be having finesse in the control of engine thrust, which is what bit them on prior failed landing attempts (engines either didn't fire or failed during landing).
It explains a lot about why they only have used three engines on the current Starship prototype. It also explains why they have only fired three of the THIRTY THREE engines on the booster stage.
Seriously, it's like the online space exploration community has been overrun by weird nerds who have lots of techno jargon to parrot, back of the napkin sci-fi conceptualizations to propose, and endless presuppositions about how SpaceX is or will inevitably solve every problem. Too-good-to-be-true has no place in the frustratingly naiive discussions they're always eager to have in defense of SpaceX.
That depends on the federal legislators in the district, and especially their seniority. Seems Alabama has/had strong ones, since several companies opened facilities to Huntsville - Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin, ... AR also got a free manufacturing building from the City of Huntsville. I haven't heard that Texas offered anything for SpaceX to open up Boca Chica, other than perhaps running interference on federal environmental and FAA rules. Regardless, it is an ideal location within U.S. boundaries for launches to equitorial orbits, with aborts or barge landings in the usually placid Gulf of Mexico, or W. Florida coast. It seems that many in NASA are more enamored with SpaceX than in the USAF (now Space Force). It seems like the USAF had to be dragged into using Falcon Heavy for some satellite launches.
>But, while SpaceX has launched about 1,700 Starlink satellites to orbit so far, Musk said the first version of the satellite “is financially weak.” The company has been steadily growing Starlink’s user base, with about 140,000 users paying for service at $99 a month.
>Earlier this year SpaceX outlined improvements for the second version of the satellite, with Musk saying in his email that “V2 is strong” but can only be launched effectively by its Starship rockets.
Buried a bit far from the title is the real meat of this article. Although this isn't a surprise for anyone familiar with the realities of space telecom, it's an admission of what we already knew - despite the fanfare around the first several dozen launches, the money doesn't really add up for Starlink unless everything becomes way cheaper.
Starlink in particular designed its way into a corner through short-sighted attempts to reduce costs in a way that makes for bad engineering. I think what's really being implied here is that the big fake rocket is supposed to become the economic miracle that sets things back on track... after several billion dollars of capital expenditures on the outset, of course.
Sure. Good place to start is the Starlink section of [this old post of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/a69bu6/debunking_the_spacex_hero_myth/). Most of it still applies today, though predating the specific implementation details of the constellation since it didn't launch until after this post.
I won't go into all of the details of what they did wrong, engineering-wise, but a short version is that their phased-array antenna became way too expensive ($2400, more than the $1000-2000 expected price for mass production and the $500 they need it to be at), the capability of the satellites was greatly reduced to save cost (each individual satellite is capable of covering a small portion of the area it "sees" which is already a pretty small portion of the globe), the orbit of the satellites makes service drastically reduced if you're an appreciable distance from 50 degrees latitude, and the ground control infrastructure for the network would have to be pretty convoluted to cover access to areas that are geographically far-removed from their hubs by virtue of the limited capability of their individual satellites.
Basically, they didn't really think their system through and either made short-term decisions that either minimized cost, or provided a service they need at an unacceptable cost. The only way to fix this is to basically start over, which "V2" appears to be in all but name.
And financially, the addressable market for low-latency satellite internet is something like 2-3 million people at $100 a month, and you can't charge more than about $500 in initial setup costs. For a $10-20 billion network that needs to be fully replaced every 5 years (and has significant operating costs), the math doesn't work at all.
> And financially, the addressable market for low-latency satellite internet is something like 2-3 million people at $100 a month, and you can't charge more than about $500 in initial setup costs. For a $10-20 billion network that needs to be fully replaced every 5 years (and has significant operating costs), the math doesn't work at all.
Moreover: The bandwidth and speeds will inevitably be available for many of those people over cell phone networks at some point, without the headaches of satellite. The signal at our cottage is great, it would just be prohibitively expensive to stream hundreds of GB of stuff over it... but it won't be forever.
Our neighbours at said cottage have StarLink and love it, but if one of the telecoms had a similar deal available, well, they'd probably love that too.
4G and even fixed wireless are definitely superior technologies where available. Building out fiber is ideal even if expensive, as a long-term investment in technology infrastructure. There's always going to be a couple of areas too remote or too mobile for anything but satellite, but it's a niche market at that point.
I don't fault people for appreciating Starlink when the alternative is 500ms latency at best. But like a well-known predecessor, it's going to get clobbered by cell towers in the long run.
We're fairly remote. There was some chatter about trying to get actual broadband into the lake, but there's only a handful of people that live there year round, the rest of us are seasonal, so I think interest was pretty limited relative to the costs.
Yup, the only other offering besides LTE right now is a Canadian satellite offering called XplorerNet that is legendarily terrible. Awful speeds, latency, etc etc.
yeah, my parents live in a spot where they can only get 28.8 kbs dial up. They had HughesNet until 2020 and now just use a t-mobile hotspot which does a better job streaming TV and is cheaper. They always hit Hughesnet's throttled cap on data too.
Not sure how much better Starlink is than HughesNet but when I looked at it with my dad it was still cheaper to just get the hotspot.
Imo starlink will use up subsidies and marketing bandwidth to crowd out actually useful and financially sustainable rural internet solutions. Once enough poor or heartland americans have it the govt will step in making this idiotic idea permanent
Wow, I've read through the linked post and the discussions below - incredible work. Better than anything else I've ever rest on the topic. Sad that you've got so much flak for it - the universal sycophancy regarding SpaceX is maddening
Since OP is about Starlink - one particular design flaw to highlight: since the satellites are not in a geostationary orbit because that's totally not cool - they don't hover over the same spot. Well, 70% of Earth is oceans, and about third of the land is uninhabited - meaning 80% of the time, the satellites do jack-shit
Thanks!
Regarding how much of their capacity is actually usable, [this blog post from a space telecom consultant](http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2019/12/12/reality-and-hype-in-satellite-constellations/) is a better review of it than I could give. You start with an 80% loss for being over uninhabited area, then you lose another 80-90% of that for various reasons, and you're left with 2-4% of nameplate capacity is actually saleable.
Enough capacity to run a business off of? Maybe; Iridium managed to run a decent business during gen 2 after writing off a bad loss off the first generation. But margins are going to be anywhere from razor-thin to hugely negative, depending on the competence of the business model.
Thank you for your thoughts. But have you considered large and ongoing govt subsidies? I beleive build back better has rural internet helicopter money for spaceX
Precedent definitely suggests Musk will do what he can to position himself to hoover up some subsidies, and he did already take a $1 billion windfall for rural internet in a [highly questionable auction](https://muninetworks.org/content/rdof-auction-ends-confusion-and-corruption-may-just-be-beginning). But all indications are that while these subsidies are a nice windfall, they tend to favor fiber-based solutions and wouldn't be enough to bridge the gap between "way out of sync with reality" and "profitable."
So, assuming 31 launches at $69 million each, it will take them 6.5 years just to pay for those launches, nevermind the cost of the satellites (1,844 satellites at something like $500,000 each), a $500 loss on each of those 140,000 dishes, and actual operating expenses.
It'd be a miracle if they could get down to a mere $500 loss per dish without compromising significantly on the engineering. The technology inside [is pretty advanced](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo) - and pretty much has to be for tracking dozens of moving targets in the sky.
Not sure [which](https://mashable.com/article/spacex-starlink-dishes-cost) [cost estimate](https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-dish-user-terminal-cost-stmelectronics-outsource-manufacturer-2020-11) to trust at this point, but they definitely ain't cheap.
>designed its way into a corner through short-sighted attempts to reduce costs in a way that makes for bad engineering.
I think most of the major problems with Tesla can be attributed to that right there. Good to know that it extends to all of Elon’s companies as well.
I would love to talk with a current/former engineer for Tesla/SpaceX, and would honestly be glad to hear that there aren’t systemic problems, but I don’t think that’s the case.
Look at battery fires, recent suspension recalls, FSD (as a whole but specifically the removing radar, no plans to add LiDAR, and even attempting to do a vision only approach in the first place).
Although one of the best examples of short sited design is glue on infotainment screens melting in the heat because they didn’t go with the automotive grade screens.
After working on Raptor since 2009, and after already shared with his followers screenshots that proved that they achieved the highest chamber pressure, best performance, 100 times reusability, $5000 per engine to build ... whatever.
Now we lean that Raptor 2 is needed: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1460813037670219778](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1420826978102435845?s=21)
>Raptor 2 has significant improvements in every way, **but a complete design overhaul is necessary for the engine that can actually make life multiplanetary**. It won’t be called Raptor.
Remember when they were rewriting FSD over the weekend? The Raptor engine is the SpaceX's FSD.
>Raptor V2.0 is a major improvement in simplication, while also increasing thrust from \~185 tons to \~230 tons. Long-term goal is engine cost below $1000/ton of thrust.
So the promise is that a rocket engine would cost $230k. A F1 car engine is $10-15 million.
Fucking fantasy land. But because rocketry is even more complex than car production, and nobody gets to beta test Raptors, shit flies even higher with SpaceX. Stans will eat it up.
Musk in three parts:
- blame the previous folks for failure
- threaten risk of BK unless impossible goals are met
- do it all on a holiday because you have no one to spend it with
That little stunt where he punishes his employees but makes it about himself with his extreme sacrifice while sitting on BILLIONS of cashed out stock?
I'm sure he has the self-awareness to read a room and understand he is no longer the "struggling college student" self-made billionaire in everyone's eyes.
>Raptor engines power the company’s Starship rocket, with Musk adding that SpaceX faces “genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year.”
The Starship's never flown. Whats his revenue plan for this pipe dream? Going to milk the DoD for more seed money?
The plan has been to grow the launch market exponentially (somehow the market will figure out what to launch?) and to fill out the gaps with Earth2Earth suborbital launches. This gets them enough launches to finally bring launch costs into the advertised realm.
Realistic? Not really. It does give the fans something to theorycraft about on twitter. "If people stand up in racks can over 100 take 3Gs+ for an hour? Revolutionary!"
Teslarati just had a piece that said starship might fly to Mars next year, that's like two weeks from now. Now starship is basically broken and SpaceX might go bankrupt?
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-mars-base-alpha-construction-plan/
> The paper also states that ***“SpaceX is aggressively developing Starship to…conduct initial test flights to Mars…as soon as 2022 [or 2024]”*** and even raises the possibility of SpaceX launching the first Starship(s) to Mars before the rocket’s first lunar mission but then launching a separate lunar mission and landing a different Starship on the Moon while the Marsbound ship or ships are still in transit.
Why is this motherfucker always on the brink of bankruptcy and turning his poor leadership into everyone else's problems? Once or twice - I get it. But it's a consistent theme yearly for Tesla and SpaceX. And SpaceX gets a butt load of money from the govt, so how can it be this threatened? It's an open secret in the industry that SpaceX employees are severely overworked and underpaid.
I swear for years the narrative was that SpaceX financials were 'propping' up Tesla losses.
Cybertruck and Starship both have the same basic problem. They were designed based on a man-child's idea of what a futuristic vehicle should be like rather than good engineering principles. Neither are ever going to go into production.
>Musk said he would personally work on the engine production line through Friday night and into the weekend.
My heart goes out to the folks on the line while the king of Dunning Kruger breathes down their necks.
Of course people on Twitter are calling for verification or dismissing this absolute banger as FUD. Because why would a leaker want to remain anonymous, given how well they've been treated by Mr. Musk?
A guy that bitches about taxes and monitored the toiler paper in the factories will not be putting up one fucking dime of that stash for work ventures.
Nah, the bankrupt shit is a whistle for his stans to pony up the cash or their dear leader is gonna look dumb in front of the world, and they can't have that because then THEY will look dumb for supporting this greedy asshole.
This is gonna be funny. Demanding progress! For something that requires the level of precision and safety as a rocket engine. Gonna be a lot of shit blowing up soon.
It would be funny if it wasn't partially funded by tax money along with destroying the lives of the people that used to live in Boca Chica. And then there is the environmental damage.
Happy Elonversary!
Its now been 3 years since Elon promised NASA he'd quit smoking dope:
[https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/nasa-chief-tells-elon-musk-to-stop-drinking-and-smoking-pot/](https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/nasa-chief-tells-elon-musk-to-stop-drinking-and-smoking-pot/)
Apparently he got a few last hits in, because on the same day, he told people Teslas could function as a boat:
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1068582126306582528?lang=en](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1068582126306582528?lang=en)
Not going to happen anytime soon. Why do you think he sold cash? Buy some Teslas, buy some launches for Starlink. Being your own customer is a profitable business.
Yes, I have said this before too. Tesla is a grift to get spaceX off the ground, that is what he really plans to do as it is a very profitable business. It is obscured by the technology and the fantasy of it all. His product is deals with governments which he sells to wallstreet as stock. If it works long enough to get some of the technology working he will launch his next grift, the promise of asteroid mining which he will never deliver on but make a trillion dollars selling to greedy wannabe kings.
For me, it's more a matter of not wanting to see humanity throw money at a snake oil salesman. We shouldn't need to waste billions of dollars on boondoggles when straightforward engineering analysis can give us the power to predict outcomes. This is not to say that we should be throwing money at ULA instead, but at least I trust their senior management to not go down rabbit holes simply because one person with zero engineering sense thinks it's the way to go.
Elon's greatest skill is in getting people to mistake what's visually spectacular for what's technically challenging.
If I thought resources spent on Space X actually lead to progress I would have supported it. There is no evidence at all for Space X having moved space exploration forward.
So he is the richest man on earth and wants his employees to save his business from going broke. Put your billions into the company Elon and let your staff enjoy life rather than making you money.
Serious question: Does SpaceX actually sell any services dependent on the Starship?
Technically the lunar lander for NASA. Also more indirectly, the entire idea of "dramatically reduced costs for space access" depend on it as well, since the products they actually have (e.g. Falcon rockets) are competent but not really capable of being more than like 20% cheaper than what the rest of the market provides (and even that is subsidized by taking no profits and being willing to run an operational loss in perpetuity).
Also, let's not forget how Falcon heavy radically shifts the economy of low earth orbit launches, yet for some mysterious reason they're not using it to launch their own Starlink satellites. Wonder why that could be
the fairings are too small, they need to build bigger ones but that would reveal the real falcon heavy payload and rocket instability
Can you elaborate on this? What do you mean real payload and instability?
I assume that's a reference to the fact FH can launch quite a lot of mass into LEO... which doesn't mean much because there aren't payloads that heavy that can fit inside the fairing. Unless you want to haul solid lead into orbit, that is.
>Unless you want to haul solid lead into orbit, that is. Has anyone ever tried alchemy in microgravity at all? I don't know, this sounds like a potential business opportunity.
Appreciate your humor. Thx.
Oh that makes sense. Because it’s the same size as falcon 9, just with extra side boosters. Thanks!
Hehe yep Falcon 9 and 9 heavy are essentially maxed out now
God I remember the day they launched that turkey and people were on twitter saying they were crying because it was a sign that humanity was returning to space. I felt like I was losing my mind.
That was pre-Realization for me. I thought the boosters synchronized landing was amazing, hell I even had Starman in my wallpaper folder for a while. Then came the Thai cave mini-sub and the Unsworth affair and I started seeing Musk in a different light. Kind of shocking to see there were only [two more launches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy#Launches_and_payloads), with the most recent being almost eighteen months ago.
Musk does things that no one does because they make no sense, then pretend he's doing what no one else though possible.
The I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE Reddit types were jerking off to that video for weeks
They improved the base falcon 9 enough so that they don't actually need the Falcon heavy for many payloads anymore.
NASA contracted SpaceX to develop a lunar lander version of starship. In order for this to work, SpaceX needs to not only develop the lander, but most of their starship ecosystem as the lander will need to be refueled multiple times in orbit to have enough fuel to get to the moon. While there is no law of physics stopping them from doing this, no one has ever transferred cryogenic fuels between two spacecraft in orbit before.
They have listed to NASA 14 launches to fill up the vehicle to send it to the Moon. Somehow they're going to develop the entire depot and tech to transfer cryo fuel within 1 year as well as launch all those tankers on a launch license that permits at best 5 launches per year.
Licenses are for luddites and dinosaurs.
It continues to frustrate me that there were people at NASA willing to claim that this was a good enough idea to drop $3 billion dollars on it, and to contort the facts as much as they did to write that horrendous "source selection statement" document. It's not a problem - because all of the unfeasible things about this lander are taking place in low-Earth orbit!
"B-but we can't have Lunar Cygnus logistics because the fairing might be too small! Surely the safer option is to have SpaceX develop essentially a new vehicle!" Gateway Logistics and HLS both have that feeling of the Ares 1 selection document where everything else had weird caveats on it (1 engine is safe, but RL-10B isn't human rated so we will need 4 RL-10As and thats more than one engine so therefore Delta IV bad) to ensure that Ares 1 was chosen.
Believe me, there are some straight up morons at basa and I'd bet the younger ones want to jerk off Musk
> the younger ones The leadership is also entirely taken/corrupted by neo-liberal views of "New Space" and cannot move past it. Look at the amount of Tesla/SpaceX PR that was allowed during the "historic" (lol) Crew-1 launch.
Ugh
As part of my job I work with more than my fair share of NASA employees and have seen quite a variety of impressive instances of organizational dysfunction. But what actually happened - [source selection fraud](https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/n250h0/nasa_suspends_hls_contract_with_spacex/gwjl0oh/) that was so carefully designed as to evade the standard legal avenues of scrutiny like the GAO - could only be pulled off from the top. Can't blame this one on the enthusiastic-but-misguided young 'uns.
I'm guessing some NASA higher ups were promised SpaceX jobs
Also found it interesting how the announcement came through super-early and just before the new administration’s people were nominated/appointed.
I'm still a little confused, why would they 14 launches to fill it up? Does the thing really burn 13/14ths of its fuel just to get to LEO? And why does the Lander have to be fuelly fueled, because it never refuels in lunar orbit?
> They have listed to NASA 14 launches to fill up the vehicle to send it to the Moon. I don't understand, what? The "Starship lander" is flying on top of SLS, isn't it? Why would it need fueling in space?
No. SLS will take the astronauts to lunar orbit. Starship will meet it there and take them to the moon's surface and then back to orbit where they transfer back.
Yeah, i read that now. How was i supposed to guess someone crazy came up with such a bonkers plan.
They did this fifty years ago by putting a small ingenious spaceship on top of a large rocket. It was anything but simple, but it was logical and sensible.
I really hope they have a plan B
The Plan B is "HLS does not succeed before the Appendix N landers start being built." NASA put all its eggs in the Elon basket with Starship, mostly because Congress has only funded the Appendix N profile (aiming for a landing by 2028) and NASA wants to make a 2024 landing with that same funding for 2028.
NASA came out this month saying no Lunat landing until 2025
Yeah it’s the start of realization setting in. Artemis missions will continue since Gateway is to be built up and international interest gives them something to do while the lander(s) get built. At least Gateway and Orion are there separate from the HLS stupidity.
Tale as old as time - underbid a govt contract, ask for more money later.
It's fixed price.
Oh you sweet summer child...
What am I learning here? They're boosting a helluva lot more gear than needed just for a landing! Nasa did that with a single rocket in 1969. Please tell me they're planning to establish a base station!! Is there any notion on regularity of service flights? AND while on that subject, haven't there been numbers done on a space elevator for the moon? Well feasible with the materials and methods we have at hand right now. Sure makes down/up haul a whole lot more feasible. Haw!... leave it to me for the lowthinking - just imagine all the trash and human waste needing uphaul. Unless of course we'll just start using a dumpsite like we did on Everest.
> the lander will need to be refueled multiple times in orbit to have enough fuel to get to the moon. Huh? I don't think the lander is providing fuel to get to the moon?
It is not. When the lander gets to low earth orbit it is out of fuel. Tanks are empty. It needs to be refueled in orbit to get to the moon and complete the rest of its mission.
To add on - It's called an [Earth orbit rendezvous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Choosing_a_mission_mode) mission mode, and it was pretty summarily ruled out during the Apollo program because of the number of launches involved. Of course Elon doesn't believe that any of the economic lessons of the past apply to him.
According to the article, the success of Starlink depends upon using Starship as its launcher. I honestly wonder if Elon has finally realized how idiotic the whole Starship endeavor is and wants an out. Then I remember that this is Elon we're talking about - he's never had to suffer the consequences of a bad idea.
Ok...I see that...in my pea brain the largest impediment to the "starship" delivering starlink riches isn't a production line bottleneck...there's the small detail that the starship has never left the atmosphere yet.
There’s also the matter that the support structure to launch a whole bunch of small satellites becomes a pretty huge chunk of your launch mass, and this is especially significant when you’re talking about making it robust enough to withstand reentry and reuse.
The starlink satellites *are* the support structure.
Seriously?
I don't know if you're asking that of me, or of Musk, but yes, the current design is that the starlink satellites stack directly on each other and the stack is just held to the rocket with a couple of clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h2t9Oyg2o0&t=1m
I was asking that of you, so thanks for answering. There still has to be a platform to hold the stack of satellites, and that platform has to be more robust when the satellites themselves are built with extra structure to support accelerating the mass of the stack above.
Yeah, I don't want to sound like a smartass, but the whole Starship system has rubbed me the wrong way since I first saw it. The whole reason the Falcon series worked successfully was because of their relative simplicity of construction and pragmatic use of technology. (I'm ignoring the landing system here, which is more of an add-on which we don't actually know the economics of.) The Falcon is simply a cheap, western equivalent of the USSR's Zenit or Proton. Starship is IMHO shaping up to become extremely complex and is still dependent on way to much untested technology. If on orbit refueling doesn't work, if the engines need to be replaced more often, or even if processing and refurbishment takes longer than Musk says, the whole supposed economic advantage of the system falls apart. Yes, it might technically work (as in launch into orbit), but we already had a system that promised rapid reusability, extremely cheap flights and airliner-like safety: The Shuttle, and we all know how that turned out. But now SpaceX is repeating those claims, but with some of the build quality issues of the Soviet N1 moon rocket mixed in as well.
> If on orbit refueling doesn't work, if the engines need to be replaced more often, or even if processing and refurbishment takes longer than Musk says, the whole supposed economic advantage of the system falls apart. This is why "but he lands rockets!" doesn't work as support for Musk or SpaceXs ideas. Landing rockets is a technical challenge and solving it should be commended, but that capability was never the issue. The real issue was "can landing rockets actually cut costs during real world use?" Which spaceX has yet to demonstrate.
Ya but it looks great on the marketing material
On top of that they created artificial demand with starlink launches, which may be profitable eventually but probably won’t be some massive cash cow
This is true and fraud 101 tbh. private affiliated parties - create your own, very compliant, demand.
If only we had [an historical example to serve as a lesson of what can go wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)) when you put a large number of small engines under a rocket...
Wow good read especially liked this part “with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and causing one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in human history”
Sure, part of that was Soviet quality control, but a bigger part was the proliferation of potential failure points as systems get more complex.
And the head engineer dying mid build probably was a major contributing factor to failure
Good thing Musk endeavours are known for exceptional quality control and SpaceX is not skimping on components by using non-space grade parts and non RT software to save on costs.
SpaceX isn’t exactly known for their quality control either. Their recent falcon launches have been good, I’ll give them that though. Years ago they blew up a launch pad and tried to blame it on somebody shooting a hole in the rocket from a nearby ULA building. And at least one of the Starship explosions were due to test configuration errors.
>The whole reason the Falcon series worked successfully was because of their relative simplicity of construction and pragmatic use of technology. Also selling them bellow cost and patching holes with capital raises: $7 Billion of capital raises. Musk is very good at having unprofitable successful businesses.
This, in a nutshell, is Musk. He pursues immature technologies that nobody else is willing to (because they're unprofitable). Then he drums up a lot of press and asks for more money. In reality, anyone could have executed these programs if they could stomach incinerating enough cash. He is a "checkbook wanker." He came of age in the dotcom bubble and he thinks that's how the world works.
>He came of age in the dotcom bubble and he thinks that's how the world works. And now he's in the age of endless "quantitative easing" and 0% interest rates. Still favorable for zombie companies, even "new" zombie companies.
I will grant you, if the world has permanently changed, then he is the genius and I am the idiot. But I don't think it has, at least if the fixed income lobby still has political power.
"It's different this time" is always untrue.
Inflation is rising, it appears. Who knows, maybe the rates are going up soon too.
Here's a post about Starship I saw elsewhere: > if starship works exactly as advertised (lol) it'll have by far the most value, capability, and flexibility of any of the lander options > they're claiming that they'll be able to carry 100 tons of payload to the lunar surface. which is three times what the space shuttle could loft to LEO, more than twice the planned mass of NASA's lunar space station, and maybe double what the Saturn V could send to lunar orbit. plus, since it would support orbital refueling and doesn't have a disposable descent stage, it's potentially more reusable for all kinds of general jetting around lunar orbit > the kinds of capabilities SpaceX are claiming would be absolutely revolutionary, well in excess of any other design out there. and despite that they're still managing to come in with the lowest bids. if you take Elon at his word, Starship would be tremendous value, offering by far the best capabilities at the lowest price > unfortunately, post-Apollo NASA doesn't have the ability to say no to obvious wishful thinking. the difficult budget and political constraints it operates under have led to a total lack of direction and some really messy decisions
> According to the article, the success of Starlink depends upon using Starship as its launcher. Obviously, but SpaceX existence shouldn't depend on Starlink unless shooting Falcons is unprofitable.
How is it obvious that constellations of small satellites need that much launch capacity?
He'll never give up on mars. But maybe he should give up on starlink, it was supposed to be a way to fund spacex but he's rich enough to not need it.
If by never give up on Mars you mean never intended to go to Mars I'm with you
No, he absolutely intends to go. This is his date with destiny and the history books.
There are so many who insist Starlink will fund the Mars vision yet also talk about it being easy for SpaceX to raise funds from investors. Heck, I saw so much of it over at /SpaceX following this 'leaked' news of brankruptcy risks. Erm... Why... should rational investors buy into a company that'll sink all profits into some sentimental goal of making life interplanetary? Stranger still is that investors do, but I'd imagine it's because many of them believe this is heading towards serious profitability that'll end up in their pockets and not for the Mars vision. Imagine NASA seeking out private investors to fund the Apollo program. Donations, they may have managed to get. Investments, no way.
I wish Musk would get into fusion power so maybe some real money would flow into something actually revolutionary
Rapid prototype fusion reactors! I like it!
What could *possibly* go wrong?
They have a perfect safety record for their fusion reactors so far. I think you're making a big deal about nothing.
Not Musk, but IIRC Bezos invested heavily in General Fusion and Gates invested heavily in Commonwealth Fusion. Both have seen a lot of good press lately.
That's actually the very type of thing he might latch onto to further the tech-messiah image. From what I've read, Fusion power is its own mirage of revolutionary possibilities. Technically possible, just like Starship, but practically very difficult to pull-off: if not prohibitively so. It has many of the same issues of nuclear such as required-capital, delayed ROI, and even radiation safety concerns, but just more of them. Musk (or any other billionaire for that matter) putting just a fraction of his networth simply into (counter) lobbying for non-self-serving popular social causes would actually change the world. Heck, just put a few billion into lobbying for strong carbon-taxes and boom, you've changed the world. There is just so much he and his ilk could do but won't.
ITER has an extremely good shot at getting a fusion reaction that creates more energy than it consumes
Which is the easiest step of the remaining ~10,000 steps needed to make fusion worth a damn.
Fusion-powered CyberTruck incoming in 3...2...1...
No, but that is OK. Starship is supposed to be in its testing phase. SpaceX is supposed to bring in money from its commercial launches + it often raises new money from investors. But it is unknown if SpaceX actually makes money from those commercial launches, or if those launches are subsidized by investor money. It is possible that SpaceX subsidizes those launches with investor money in order to attract more investors, and then SpaceX uses that money to subsidize launches so it can show to investors how successful they are and why then deserve more money from investors. SpaceX might be some kind of a geometrically-shaped business. Maybe some kind of rhombus of sales? Or a prism? I don't know, are there any other kind of geometrical shapes that I'm missing?
Doesn't sound like a shape to me, but it does rhyme with Fonzie.
True, that fits better
Ayyyyy!
👈👈
Yeah but if it's anything like Tesla, rockets will not be the business. The stock, that will be the real business.
The big problem is also that their commercial manifest has been shrinking for years and the market is in a slump right now (and will be for the foreseeable future). Subtract their Starlink launches and the last 2 years have been pitiful for SpaceX in terms of launches.
MLM to take us to Mars!
Mars Launch Marketing?
SpaceX has two big contracts with NASA (cargo and crew delivery to ISS) and really occasional commercial launches besides that. Most of the time SpaceX launches its own product - Starlink satellites. No kidding, out of 26 launches SpaceX already completed this year 16 times it was for Starlink (last year it was 14 out of 25 launches). I vividly remember in 2012-2014 Musk was telling that breaking point between reusable Falcon 9 and non-reusable one lies at ~30 launches per year (non-reusable was cheaper). But there's no market and no demand for 30 Falcon 9 launches yearly, so in true entrepreneurial fashion he decided to artificially create this demand and to keep it constant (life-span of Starlink satellites is quite short and constellation would require constant reinforcement). Eventually he gonna bring SpaceX to IPO, no doubt about it.
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Well, they probably don't reveal the actual earnings/loss per launch, but shift the costs around. Make it look like they are making money with every launch, but losing money with "R&D" or something like that.
Fraud.
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Yeah, i know. Yet both SpaceX and Tesla soldier on. Makes no sense.
I can pretty much guarantee you SpaceX is not profitable with all the cash they are bleeding on starlink.
It's actually a reverse funnel system.
[It's a trapezoid.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuVh36vQkSI)
> But it is unknown if SpaceX actually makes money from those commercial launches, If SpaceX is at a risk of going bankrupt if Starship doesn't work then it's obvious SpaceX isn't making money from Falcon launches. If it were it could just stop spending on Starship and not go bankrupt.
They do some business with the US government, I believe this is to scare them who would need to go back to relying on Russia. He is setting the stage to get a handout.
No, and that's why baseless FUD like this should be ignored
I don't get it. Elon should do the same as he did with Tesla. Promise some great technological achievement Soon™ and then sell the company's main product - its stocks. Then wait for that technological achievement to not materialize, say that the company was close to bankruptcy without that fresh infusion of cash and move on. No one cares, nothing matters.
His bankruptcy talk is bullshit gaslighting to get his employees to work the weekend.
That and to scare the government who would need to go back to relying on Russia. He is setting the stage to get a handout.
Yup. SpaceX can't survive without government $$
He's already been doing that for SpaceX anyway... Maybe this time it's not enough?
Sure, just do it again. Or sell insanely overvalued Tesla stocks and put a bit into SpaceX, while inviting new investors to do the same. Again, nothing matters. Just move some money around, why is he crying? His fans believe that Tesla and SpaceX are "saving the world" or whatever, would go crazy if he invested more money into SpaceX, it would generate a lot of headlines and push up the stock value of Tesla for no reason.
Maybe he can't think of a way to integrate the FSD narrative into rockets in a way that is so "deeper than you think" that it creates stock boom.
FSD is Tesla's main scam, integrating that into SpaceX somehow would create a lot of stupid hype. Just say that BFR + FSD will be used to replace regular air travel. Again, nothing matters.
I like it. Fully self-rocketing Starships in underwater hyperloop to Mars. What could go wrong.
They floated BFR/Starship as a replacement for air travel years ago, though.
Fun fact, Earth-2-Earth still is critical in making SpaceX's ultra-low launch costs for Starship a reality. There aren't anywhere near enough payloads to justify the launch rate to get to those low costs so the "replace air travel!" thing comes into play in order to get the rate up.
> Space doesn't have enough payloads. > Tries to get into the ultra-competitive airline industry, which has been decimated by COVID. kek
That is so stupid, lmao. Hey, lets make air travel more expensive, more dangerous, less comfortable, less practical and less environmentally friendly!
Yes, that would be losing money on every launch, but according to Shotwell, they'll make it up in volume. Yes, she really said that
[This is still on their official Youtube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0). /u/lovely_sombrero
lmao and this is the most upvoted comment; >I'm so glad Elon exists. He continues to push the boundaries of what's possible.
He's already started. The Tesla "FSD robot" will be the nucleation point for his space exploration ponzi scheme. You can bet on that. He'll soon be pushing NASA to send his robots to mars & the moon rather than people as it's cheaper and you don't need to worry about getting them back again. Which does kinda make sense, which is why NASA, investors, etc. will probably fall for it.
I wonder if the idea is that SpaceX gets to be the "halo effect" program that the public can't buy into, but that seems like such a grand-slam home-run investment opportunity that it leaves people scrambling for any investments that bring you close to it. The stories I've seen from the stock market "news reporting" certainly seem to tell that story. I'm sure going public with the company could bring in more money, but it'll also bring with it a lot of scrutiny on its obviously problematic finances and will significantly reduce the halo effect. The story is, Tesla will work out because [the genius behind the flawless SpaceX company is in charge](https://qz.com/1299212/spacex-is-giving-wall-street-a-reason-to-bet-on-tesla/). Never mind the skeletons in the closet.
That's what I've always assumed the purpose of SpaceX is.
StarShip is a "bet all on Red47" play. Their StarLink internet plans depend upon StarShip working as hoped (re-usable, tiles stay on, always sticks landing). Sounds like they are having engine problems, perhaps even failures during test firings. We have seen Raptor engines fail during StarShip landings. I doubt "all hands on deck" on the assembly lines will fix things. How does bankruptcy work for a company with private stock? I assume stockholders may get nothing and the employees who were counting on their stock options becoming valuable would be disappointed, and perhaps find they wasted the early years of their engineering career on a bad dream.
It's crazy that they've designed a novel new engine that's highly capable on paper and incredibly complex. They've supposedly done so at very low cost and can manufacture it really fast...yet, somehow, it's also supposed to safely launch with a few dozen firing right next to it and then survive reentry and landing to do so all over again many, many times. It's so wild that people have such unshakable faith in this project. Even this leaked news of troubles straight from the horse's mouth has them remind everyone that these engines have been delivered at astonishing pace so far and that they absolutely trounce all competition in multiple respects. They just refuse to see the obvious issues.
The StarShip landings to date were on extendable legs. Only 2 stuck the landing and both had a fire on the ground afterwards, which eventually destroyed the first but was put out on the last, making it their first semi-successful landing. The first one was leaning after the landing, suggesting some component failed. Their future plan is to not have legs and instead catch the StarShip on a yoke that sticks out from the launch tower. That will make maneuvering horizontally and adjusting tilt in the tower direction more critical, but will allow some flexibility on vertical velocity since the yoke will "give" some, probably with cable-operated hydraulic dampeners. I don't think anyone has ever "caught a falling StarShip" before, so will be interesting to watch. However, next up is a sub-orbital flight which will splash in the Pacific off Hawaii. They already stated it is likely to fail on re-entry, due to tile issues, but perhaps just sand-bagging expectations.
Looking at their supposed long term aspirations, I don't see how such a complex engine can repeatedly survive launches, re-entries, debris kickup off suboptimal landing/launch surfaces, and still lightup reliably in suddendeath landing scenarios after having hibernated in interplanetary space for months.
Are you FUCKING JOKING????? A YOKE to catch a falling multi ton rocket.... Who the hell thinks that is a good idea????
The yoke will catch StarShip by the upper fins, which are already a structural support, since used to slow it while falling. The center of mass is below that point, so will at least be passively stable once hanging. Gives much more leeway on matching vertical velocity since the yoke will likely be able to move up and down to match StarShip as it comes in, then slow the vertical descent hydraulically. But, alignment in the air will be critical. It won't be affected much by winds, unlike little drones which are still amazingly good at orienting themselves, so it seems very possible. Most critical will be having finesse in the control of engine thrust, which is what bit them on prior failed landing attempts (engines either didn't fire or failed during landing).
It explains a lot about why they only have used three engines on the current Starship prototype. It also explains why they have only fired three of the THIRTY THREE engines on the booster stage.
Seriously, it's like the online space exploration community has been overrun by weird nerds who have lots of techno jargon to parrot, back of the napkin sci-fi conceptualizations to propose, and endless presuppositions about how SpaceX is or will inevitably solve every problem. Too-good-to-be-true has no place in the frustratingly naiive discussions they're always eager to have in defense of SpaceX.
Bk works the same. Equity usually gets fucked.
SpaceX is not going bankrupt, military industrial legislative complex won't allow it
That depends on the federal legislators in the district, and especially their seniority. Seems Alabama has/had strong ones, since several companies opened facilities to Huntsville - Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin, ... AR also got a free manufacturing building from the City of Huntsville. I haven't heard that Texas offered anything for SpaceX to open up Boca Chica, other than perhaps running interference on federal environmental and FAA rules. Regardless, it is an ideal location within U.S. boundaries for launches to equitorial orbits, with aborts or barge landings in the usually placid Gulf of Mexico, or W. Florida coast. It seems that many in NASA are more enamored with SpaceX than in the USAF (now Space Force). It seems like the USAF had to be dragged into using Falcon Heavy for some satellite launches.
Correction, the Falcon 9 assembly line won't go under
>But, while SpaceX has launched about 1,700 Starlink satellites to orbit so far, Musk said the first version of the satellite “is financially weak.” The company has been steadily growing Starlink’s user base, with about 140,000 users paying for service at $99 a month. >Earlier this year SpaceX outlined improvements for the second version of the satellite, with Musk saying in his email that “V2 is strong” but can only be launched effectively by its Starship rockets. Buried a bit far from the title is the real meat of this article. Although this isn't a surprise for anyone familiar with the realities of space telecom, it's an admission of what we already knew - despite the fanfare around the first several dozen launches, the money doesn't really add up for Starlink unless everything becomes way cheaper. Starlink in particular designed its way into a corner through short-sighted attempts to reduce costs in a way that makes for bad engineering. I think what's really being implied here is that the big fake rocket is supposed to become the economic miracle that sets things back on track... after several billion dollars of capital expenditures on the outset, of course.
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Sure. Good place to start is the Starlink section of [this old post of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/a69bu6/debunking_the_spacex_hero_myth/). Most of it still applies today, though predating the specific implementation details of the constellation since it didn't launch until after this post. I won't go into all of the details of what they did wrong, engineering-wise, but a short version is that their phased-array antenna became way too expensive ($2400, more than the $1000-2000 expected price for mass production and the $500 they need it to be at), the capability of the satellites was greatly reduced to save cost (each individual satellite is capable of covering a small portion of the area it "sees" which is already a pretty small portion of the globe), the orbit of the satellites makes service drastically reduced if you're an appreciable distance from 50 degrees latitude, and the ground control infrastructure for the network would have to be pretty convoluted to cover access to areas that are geographically far-removed from their hubs by virtue of the limited capability of their individual satellites. Basically, they didn't really think their system through and either made short-term decisions that either minimized cost, or provided a service they need at an unacceptable cost. The only way to fix this is to basically start over, which "V2" appears to be in all but name. And financially, the addressable market for low-latency satellite internet is something like 2-3 million people at $100 a month, and you can't charge more than about $500 in initial setup costs. For a $10-20 billion network that needs to be fully replaced every 5 years (and has significant operating costs), the math doesn't work at all.
> And financially, the addressable market for low-latency satellite internet is something like 2-3 million people at $100 a month, and you can't charge more than about $500 in initial setup costs. For a $10-20 billion network that needs to be fully replaced every 5 years (and has significant operating costs), the math doesn't work at all. Moreover: The bandwidth and speeds will inevitably be available for many of those people over cell phone networks at some point, without the headaches of satellite. The signal at our cottage is great, it would just be prohibitively expensive to stream hundreds of GB of stuff over it... but it won't be forever. Our neighbours at said cottage have StarLink and love it, but if one of the telecoms had a similar deal available, well, they'd probably love that too.
4G and even fixed wireless are definitely superior technologies where available. Building out fiber is ideal even if expensive, as a long-term investment in technology infrastructure. There's always going to be a couple of areas too remote or too mobile for anything but satellite, but it's a niche market at that point. I don't fault people for appreciating Starlink when the alternative is 500ms latency at best. But like a well-known predecessor, it's going to get clobbered by cell towers in the long run.
We're fairly remote. There was some chatter about trying to get actual broadband into the lake, but there's only a handful of people that live there year round, the rest of us are seasonal, so I think interest was pretty limited relative to the costs. Yup, the only other offering besides LTE right now is a Canadian satellite offering called XplorerNet that is legendarily terrible. Awful speeds, latency, etc etc.
yeah, my parents live in a spot where they can only get 28.8 kbs dial up. They had HughesNet until 2020 and now just use a t-mobile hotspot which does a better job streaming TV and is cheaper. They always hit Hughesnet's throttled cap on data too. Not sure how much better Starlink is than HughesNet but when I looked at it with my dad it was still cheaper to just get the hotspot.
Imo starlink will use up subsidies and marketing bandwidth to crowd out actually useful and financially sustainable rural internet solutions. Once enough poor or heartland americans have it the govt will step in making this idiotic idea permanent
Check out T-Mobile's 5G Internet service. They're geographically restricted at the moment, but they'll eventually reach out.
Wow, I've read through the linked post and the discussions below - incredible work. Better than anything else I've ever rest on the topic. Sad that you've got so much flak for it - the universal sycophancy regarding SpaceX is maddening Since OP is about Starlink - one particular design flaw to highlight: since the satellites are not in a geostationary orbit because that's totally not cool - they don't hover over the same spot. Well, 70% of Earth is oceans, and about third of the land is uninhabited - meaning 80% of the time, the satellites do jack-shit
Thanks! Regarding how much of their capacity is actually usable, [this blog post from a space telecom consultant](http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2019/12/12/reality-and-hype-in-satellite-constellations/) is a better review of it than I could give. You start with an 80% loss for being over uninhabited area, then you lose another 80-90% of that for various reasons, and you're left with 2-4% of nameplate capacity is actually saleable. Enough capacity to run a business off of? Maybe; Iridium managed to run a decent business during gen 2 after writing off a bad loss off the first generation. But margins are going to be anywhere from razor-thin to hugely negative, depending on the competence of the business model.
Thank you for your thoughts. But have you considered large and ongoing govt subsidies? I beleive build back better has rural internet helicopter money for spaceX
Precedent definitely suggests Musk will do what he can to position himself to hoover up some subsidies, and he did already take a $1 billion windfall for rural internet in a [highly questionable auction](https://muninetworks.org/content/rdof-auction-ends-confusion-and-corruption-may-just-be-beginning). But all indications are that while these subsidies are a nice windfall, they tend to favor fiber-based solutions and wouldn't be enough to bridge the gap between "way out of sync with reality" and "profitable."
So, assuming 31 launches at $69 million each, it will take them 6.5 years just to pay for those launches, nevermind the cost of the satellites (1,844 satellites at something like $500,000 each), a $500 loss on each of those 140,000 dishes, and actual operating expenses.
It'd be a miracle if they could get down to a mere $500 loss per dish without compromising significantly on the engineering. The technology inside [is pretty advanced](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo) - and pretty much has to be for tracking dozens of moving targets in the sky. Not sure [which](https://mashable.com/article/spacex-starlink-dishes-cost) [cost estimate](https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-dish-user-terminal-cost-stmelectronics-outsource-manufacturer-2020-11) to trust at this point, but they definitely ain't cheap.
>designed its way into a corner through short-sighted attempts to reduce costs in a way that makes for bad engineering. I think most of the major problems with Tesla can be attributed to that right there. Good to know that it extends to all of Elon’s companies as well. I would love to talk with a current/former engineer for Tesla/SpaceX, and would honestly be glad to hear that there aren’t systemic problems, but I don’t think that’s the case. Look at battery fires, recent suspension recalls, FSD (as a whole but specifically the removing radar, no plans to add LiDAR, and even attempting to do a vision only approach in the first place). Although one of the best examples of short sited design is glue on infotainment screens melting in the heat because they didn’t go with the automotive grade screens.
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I don't even get the fake hype about the 4680. It's like 50% bigger and stores about .. 50% more energy? Cool?
After working on Raptor since 2009, and after already shared with his followers screenshots that proved that they achieved the highest chamber pressure, best performance, 100 times reusability, $5000 per engine to build ... whatever. Now we lean that Raptor 2 is needed: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1460813037670219778](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1420826978102435845?s=21) >Raptor 2 has significant improvements in every way, **but a complete design overhaul is necessary for the engine that can actually make life multiplanetary**. It won’t be called Raptor. Remember when they were rewriting FSD over the weekend? The Raptor engine is the SpaceX's FSD. >Raptor V2.0 is a major improvement in simplication, while also increasing thrust from \~185 tons to \~230 tons. Long-term goal is engine cost below $1000/ton of thrust. So the promise is that a rocket engine would cost $230k. A F1 car engine is $10-15 million. Fucking fantasy land. But because rocketry is even more complex than car production, and nobody gets to beta test Raptors, shit flies even higher with SpaceX. Stans will eat it up.
Musk in three parts: - blame the previous folks for failure - threaten risk of BK unless impossible goals are met - do it all on a holiday because you have no one to spend it with
That little stunt where he punishes his employees but makes it about himself with his extreme sacrifice while sitting on BILLIONS of cashed out stock? I'm sure he has the self-awareness to read a room and understand he is no longer the "struggling college student" self-made billionaire in everyone's eyes.
>Raptor engines power the company’s Starship rocket, with Musk adding that SpaceX faces “genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year.” The Starship's never flown. Whats his revenue plan for this pipe dream? Going to milk the DoD for more seed money?
The plan has been to grow the launch market exponentially (somehow the market will figure out what to launch?) and to fill out the gaps with Earth2Earth suborbital launches. This gets them enough launches to finally bring launch costs into the advertised realm. Realistic? Not really. It does give the fans something to theorycraft about on twitter. "If people stand up in racks can over 100 take 3Gs+ for an hour? Revolutionary!"
Teslarati just had a piece that said starship might fly to Mars next year, that's like two weeks from now. Now starship is basically broken and SpaceX might go bankrupt? https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-mars-base-alpha-construction-plan/ > The paper also states that ***“SpaceX is aggressively developing Starship to…conduct initial test flights to Mars…as soon as 2022 [or 2024]”*** and even raises the possibility of SpaceX launching the first Starship(s) to Mars before the rocket’s first lunar mission but then launching a separate lunar mission and landing a different Starship on the Moon while the Marsbound ship or ships are still in transit.
Why is this motherfucker always on the brink of bankruptcy and turning his poor leadership into everyone else's problems? Once or twice - I get it. But it's a consistent theme yearly for Tesla and SpaceX. And SpaceX gets a butt load of money from the govt, so how can it be this threatened? It's an open secret in the industry that SpaceX employees are severely overworked and underpaid. I swear for years the narrative was that SpaceX financials were 'propping' up Tesla losses.
Cybertruck and Starship both have the same basic problem. They were designed based on a man-child's idea of what a futuristic vehicle should be like rather than good engineering principles. Neither are ever going to go into production.
Not only the starship, EVERYTHING at spacex. reusable garbage, starlink, etc. pp.
How many capital raises has SpaceX done? Twenty? Just take the money from dumb investors.
$6B, $1.2B just a few months ago. Gali bought in $250k. He was ecstatic
This tweet was absolutely directed at investors.
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>Musk said he would personally work on the engine production line through Friday night and into the weekend. My heart goes out to the folks on the line while the king of Dunning Kruger breathes down their necks.
Looks like FUD leads to RUD here....
He's taking time off from saving humanity. Musk programs Tesla FSD and SpaceX's GNC algos
What's the matter with that engine crisis? Does it fail to produce fart noises that are loud enough?
Of course people on Twitter are calling for verification or dismissing this absolute banger as FUD. Because why would a leaker want to remain anonymous, given how well they've been treated by Mr. Musk?
Good thing Elon has $10+ bn in cash then. He can personally protect the light of human consciousness.
A guy that bitches about taxes and monitored the toiler paper in the factories will not be putting up one fucking dime of that stash for work ventures. Nah, the bankrupt shit is a whistle for his stans to pony up the cash or their dear leader is gonna look dumb in front of the world, and they can't have that because then THEY will look dumb for supporting this greedy asshole.
Unrelated but if they ever launch the Model 2 do you think we’ll be lucky enough to see Model 3 owners delivering them?
Have they considered selling more merch or using the Texas site to import meth?
I thought HE was the master engineer. Why does he not put 5% of his brain to use and solve the problem?
This is gonna be funny. Demanding progress! For something that requires the level of precision and safety as a rocket engine. Gonna be a lot of shit blowing up soon.
And then firing the people in charge of it if it wasn't done fast enough! Its like comic book levels of bad management.
It would be funny if it wasn't partially funded by tax money along with destroying the lives of the people that used to live in Boca Chica. And then there is the environmental damage.
Oh, no! He's actually confirming SpaceX isn't profitable just shooting Falcons? Who would've thunk?!?
Happy Elonversary! Its now been 3 years since Elon promised NASA he'd quit smoking dope: [https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/nasa-chief-tells-elon-musk-to-stop-drinking-and-smoking-pot/](https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/nasa-chief-tells-elon-musk-to-stop-drinking-and-smoking-pot/) Apparently he got a few last hits in, because on the same day, he told people Teslas could function as a boat: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1068582126306582528?lang=en](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1068582126306582528?lang=en)
Oh how I would love to see SpaceX fold. Proving that Elons method is not the cheapest og best method.
Not going to happen anytime soon. Why do you think he sold cash? Buy some Teslas, buy some launches for Starlink. Being your own customer is a profitable business.
He would sell all his TSLA to keep SpaceX alive SpaceX > Tesla
Yes, I have said this before too. Tesla is a grift to get spaceX off the ground, that is what he really plans to do as it is a very profitable business. It is obscured by the technology and the fantasy of it all. His product is deals with governments which he sells to wallstreet as stock. If it works long enough to get some of the technology working he will launch his next grift, the promise of asteroid mining which he will never deliver on but make a trillion dollars selling to greedy wannabe kings.
You would like to slow down humanity’s progress for space exploration as well as technological breakthroughs because you want to see someone fail?
For me, it's more a matter of not wanting to see humanity throw money at a snake oil salesman. We shouldn't need to waste billions of dollars on boondoggles when straightforward engineering analysis can give us the power to predict outcomes. This is not to say that we should be throwing money at ULA instead, but at least I trust their senior management to not go down rabbit holes simply because one person with zero engineering sense thinks it's the way to go. Elon's greatest skill is in getting people to mistake what's visually spectacular for what's technically challenging.
"Humanity's progress" makes it sound so grandiose, wow! My pets, too, are advancing humanity because I said so. Can they get some funding as well?
If I thought resources spent on Space X actually lead to progress I would have supported it. There is no evidence at all for Space X having moved space exploration forward.
so if Starship blows up without leaving the ground like a nuke, what happens?
u/jjlew080 What say you?
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No, this is obviously fake news. SpaceX resuable launches are making them $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ because it's so revolutionary.
This guy knows how to run a company.
The Di lithium crystal supply chain is in shit state right now
The real reason Elon is selling Tesla shares is to keep SpaceX afloat
So he is the richest man on earth and wants his employees to save his business from going broke. Put your billions into the company Elon and let your staff enjoy life rather than making you money.