Space X

[Dalal.Holdings]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

[rkbabang]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

 

Maybe because of Musk's assassins and saboteurs?

[Dalal.Holdings]

True, I forgot about those assassins. Q-level conspiracy right here.

 

Elon has lots of time to spare going after TSLAQ and SpaceXQ social media savants after all...

[lnofeisone]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

 

I think what SpaceX has done is exceptional. I also think BA and LMT can just sit back and wait to see how it's done and then step in and replicate with economies of scale without sinking few $Bs.

[rkbabang]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

 

I think what SpaceX has done is exceptional. I also think BA and LMT can just sit back and wait to see how it's done and then step in and replicate with economies of scale without sinking few $Bs.

 

Yes, just like GM and Ford can just replicate what Tesla has done and replicate with economies of scale without sinking few $Bs.

 

I'll believe it when I see it.  My guess is that corporate culture will make this impossible and it will never happen.

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

 

I think what SpaceX has done is exceptional. I also think BA and LMT can just sit back and wait to see how it's done and then step in and replicate with economies of scale without sinking few $Bs.

 

It took Boeing over 20 months to fix mostly software problems in its 737 Max commercial airplane that killed many people. A product that was supposedly "production ready" years ago...

 

I'm sure replicating rockets that land upright will be a cinch for them..."sit back and wait"...LOL...

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/science/boeing-starliner-launch.html

 

From the company that brought you the 737 Max...

 

The first test of Starliner, built by Boeing’s space and defense division, was postponed multiple times this year. ...

 

But somehow, the spacecraft’s clock was set to the wrong time, and a flawed thruster burn pushed the capsule into the wrong orbit.

 

“We don’t understand the root cause,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of the space and launch division of defense, space and security segment of Boeing.

 

Clearly Elon is against some stiff competition here.

 

The only thing these old school defense/space contractors are good at is bilking the government/taxpayers.

 

At least they hire better lobbyists than engineers...

[Liberty]

If what SpaceX has accomplished is so meaningless, why can’t mighty Boeing or Lockheed compete with them?

 

Why stop at these two? Whole nation-states with their national champions can't do it either.

[rkbabang]

The old guys (Boeing, Ariannespace, Nasa SLS etc.) are incredibly slow moving job programs with a forte in lobbying.

 

In a nutshell.  That is the company culture at these places and it will not change.  As long as lucrative contracts keep coming their way and the government keeps shoveling taxpayers money in their direction they have no reason to change.  Fast forward 10 or 20 years these companies, if they still exist, will still be overpromising and underdelivering while SpaceX will have its own colonies on Mars.

 

[JRM]

The smartest people I know work at Boeing.  The problem isn't the engineering talent, the problem is upper management. 

 

SpaceX also doesn't have to answer to public investors.  Not trying to take away anything from SpaceX.  They also have incredible engineering talent.

 

FWIW, my old college room mate (who works for Boeing) recently changed his opinion of Elon.  He used to be a big time Elon homer, but after hearing Elon talk about putting satellites in space he realized he didn't know what he was talking about.  I could my friend had made the realization that just because someone is a billionaire doesn't mean they are actually a genius. 

 

I would bet my house that my friend's IQ is higher than Elon's.

[rkbabang]

The smartest people I know work at Boeing.  The problem isn't the engineering talent, the problem is upper management. 

 

SpaceX also doesn't have to answer to public investors.  Not trying to take away anything from SpaceX.  They also have incredible engineering talent.

 

FWIW, my old college room mate (who works for Boeing) recently changed his opinion of Elon.  He used to be a big time Elon homer, but after hearing Elon talk about putting satellites in space he realized he didn't know what he was talking about.  I could my friend had made the realization that just because someone is a billionaire doesn't mean they are actually a genius. 

 

I would bet my house that my friend's IQ is higher than Elon's.

 

I don't doubt it.  Musk is no rocket scientist, but he doesn't have to be.  There are different types of genius.  I'm sure your incredibly smart friend couldn't run a multibillion dollar company, never mind a couple of them.

 

[JRM]

Fair enough.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Steve Jobs believed a fruit diet could cure his pancreatic cancer and put off having surgery from the thing that killed him...IQ is irrelevant. One can be a genius in their circle of competence and an idiot outside of it...

 

Plenty of geniuses work at a lot of organizations. Many geniuses are lazy. Many are held back by an organization’s culture or management.

 

The talent at SpaceX and Tesla are very intelligent, hungry, and given free reign to exercise their curiosity.

 

Places like Boeing are where you go to have a safe career...

[Liberty]

I don't doubt it.  Musk is no rocket scientist, but he doesn't have to be. 

 

Actually, I think you can say he is, at this point. Maybe an unconventional path to get there, but as lead rocket designer for SpaceX, and based on any reports I could see from people around him, he can hold his own with rocket engineers no problem. Nobody knows everything, but to pretend he doesn't know what he's doing and isn't a real rocket guy just because he didn't have some piece of paper or some job with some title at Boeing before this seems missing the forest for the trees to me. Self-education is still education, and doing is better proof of competence than diplomas.

[rkbabang]

"Yes the universe is probably a computer program..."

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/program-2

[Spekulatius]

Going after FCC subs for rural broadband - ~$900M:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/spacex-starlink-wins-nearly-900-million-in-fcc-subsidies-auction.html

[Jurgis]

Donate for St. Jude's hospital, win a seat on Space X space trip: https://www.prizeo.com/campaigns/l/inspiration4

 

I donated.

 

Maybe I shouldn't advertise this so that my chances to win would be higher, but screw it. Charity is more important.  8)

 

If you donate and win, can we has a dinner/beer/something after the trip?  8)

 

[ValueArb]

I don't doubt it.  Musk is no rocket scientist, but he doesn't have to be. 

 

Actually, I think you can say he is, at this point. Maybe an unconventional path to get there, but as lead rocket designer for SpaceX, and based on any reports I could see from people around him, he can hold his own with rocket engineers no problem. Nobody knows everything, but to pretend he doesn't know what he's doing and isn't a real rocket guy just because he didn't have some piece of paper or some job with some title at Boeing before this seems missing the forest for the trees to me. Self-education is still education, and doing is better proof of competence than diplomas.

 

Yea, if he said something stupid about satellites it's most likely because he was simplifying for an audience.

 

When the Falcon 1 reached Space it put Elon in an extremely elite group of people who'd created a privately funded orbital launch system, right now its Rocket Lab Electron, Northrop Minotaur, then you have a couple of tiny air launched vehicles form Virgin Orbit and Northrop Pegasus. Bezos has spent many billions and hasn't come close to orbit,  barely reaching 1/10th the necessary velocity with a sub-orbital toy.

 

Since then he's helped lead the design choices that created

 

1) The worlds leading launch system Falcon 9 that dramatically cut the cost of space access by ... choosing to use ten engines per launch. Yes, Falcon 9 was far cheaper than the competition before reusability  because of the decision to design with a liquid fuel engine sized for mass manufacture. It's also cheaper because he didn't make the costly mistake so many others did (Arianespace, SLS, ULA) in adding solid boosters, or using a poor fuel as hydrogen as the first stage propellant.

 

2) Only then did his team master hypersonic retropropulsion to enable first stage re-use and recovery, using both RTLS and recovery ships. It's the first time cost effective re-use has ever been done for space launch.

 

3) Then he built the worlds biggest active rocket, the Falcon Heavy.

 

4) And now they are building the world first fully re-usable launch system, Starship. If you compare the design decisions between the Space Shuttle and Starship, you'd have to conclude Elon is a genius just from those.

a) Using identical engines for both stages means they can be efficiently mass manufactured. The Shuttle SRBs were $70M each, and it's Hydrogen engines were $75M each (double that now for SLS), Raptors will cost less than $1M each.

b) No expensive solid rocket boosters

b) No heavy hydrogen tanks and engines, instead burning dense methane that fits in smaller, lighter tanks and doesn't evaporate over time  like hydrogen does.

c) No expensive fragile materials like the Shuttle heat tiles and it's aluminum frame, just super cheap stainless steel with much higher heat resistance with carefully located heat shield material on hot spots that can be easily replaced.

d) No massive single stage stack to reach the Moon or Mars, instead cheap refueling in low orbit significantly increases velocity (shortening interplanetary trips)  and allows for delivering much larger ($100 ton+) payloads.

e) The robust heat resistance allows for aerobraking into Mars, saving huge amounts of fuel and again substantially increasing tonnage of payload landed.

f) Methane can be made anywhere in the solar system, especially on Mars. This saves another massive amount of launch fuel and increases payloads yet again.

 

5) Oh, and there is Starlink. There were discussions of satellite constellations before but Musk is actually making this happen. Test results have been fantastic, as has launch cadence. Elon has literally put more satellites into space than anyone on this planet at this point, so I'm  going to guess he knows a bit about how they work even if his real focus is launch systems and manned exploration of Mars.

 

Musk may say idiotic things on a regular basis, but as a rocket designer he's neck and neck with Von Braun as the greatest in world history. The world is full of rocket engineers who've made grand plans and done nothing, and lots of them work at Boeing turning government dollars into nothing but pork.

[Morgan]

I don't doubt it.  Musk is no rocket scientist, but he doesn't have to be. 

 

Actually, I think you can say he is, at this point. Maybe an unconventional path to get there, but as lead rocket designer for SpaceX, and based on any reports I could see from people around him, he can hold his own with rocket engineers no problem. Nobody knows everything, but to pretend he doesn't know what he's doing and isn't a real rocket guy just because he didn't have some piece of paper or some job with some title at Boeing before this seems missing the forest for the trees to me. Self-education is still education, and doing is better proof of competence than diplomas.

 

Yea, if he said something stupid about satellites it's most likely because he was simplifying for an audience.

 

When the Falcon 1 reached Space it put Elon in an extremely elite group of people who'd created a privately funded orbital launch system, right now its Rocket Lab Electron, Northrop Minotaur, then you have a couple of tiny air launched vehicles form Virgin Orbit and Northrop Pegasus. Bezos has spent many billions and hasn't come close to orbit,  barely reaching 1/10th the necessary velocity with a sub-orbital toy.

 

Since then he's helped lead the design choices that created

 

1) The worlds leading launch system Falcon 9 that dramatically cut the cost of space access by ... choosing to use ten engines per launch. Yes, Falcon 9 was far cheaper than the competition before reusability  because of the decision to design with a liquid fuel engine sized for mass manufacture. It's also cheaper because he didn't make the costly mistake so many others did (Arianespace, SLS, ULA) in adding solid boosters, or using a poor fuel as hydrogen as the first stage propellant.

 

2) Only then did his team master hypersonic retropropulsion to enable first stage re-use and recovery, using both RTLS and recovery ships. It's the first time cost effective re-use has ever been done for space launch.

 

3) Then he built the worlds biggest active rocket, the Falcon Heavy.

 

4) And now they are building the world first fully re-usable launch system, Starship. If you compare the design decisions between the Space Shuttle and Starship, you'd have to conclude Elon is a genius just from those.

a) Using identical engines for both stages means they can be efficiently mass manufactured. The Shuttle SRBs were $70M each, and it's Hydrogen engines were $75M each (double that now for SLS), Raptors will cost less than $1M each.

b) No expensive solid rocket boosters

b) No heavy hydrogen tanks and engines, instead burning dense methane that fits in smaller, lighter tanks and doesn't evaporate over time  like hydrogen does.

c) No expensive fragile materials like the Shuttle heat tiles and it's aluminum frame, just super cheap stainless steel with much higher heat resistance with carefully located heat shield material on hot spots that can be easily replaced.

d) No massive single stage stack to reach the Moon or Mars, instead cheap refueling in low orbit significantly increases velocity (shortening interplanetary trips)  and allows for delivering much larger ($100 ton+) payloads.

e) The robust heat resistance allows for aerobraking into Mars, saving huge amounts of fuel and again substantially increasing tonnage of payload landed.

f) Methane can be made anywhere in the solar system, especially on Mars. This saves another massive amount of launch fuel and increases payloads yet again.

 

5) Oh, and there is Starlink. There were discussions of satellite constellations before but Musk is actually making this happen. Test results have been fantastic, as has launch cadence. Elon has literally put more satellites into space than anyone on this planet at this point, so I'm  going to guess he knows a bit about how they work even if his real focus is launch systems and manned exploration of Mars.

 

Musk may say idiotic things on a regular basis, but as a rocket designer he's neck and neck with Von Braun as the greatest in world history. The world is full of rocket engineers who've made grand plans and done nothing, and lots of them work at Boeing turning government dollars into nothing but pork.

 

I agree with everything you’ve written and will also add that Starlink is probably going to make Elon one of the wealthiest people this century. It’s going to be hugely successful. So many areas basically have a government sponsored monopoly (and terrible) ISP. It’s past time for a step change so everyone can get excellent internet for a cheap price.

[Ice77]

Rocket Labs is listing via a SPAC (VACQ) and I have a small position. It's the closest competitor to SpaceX out there and they are trying to be a fully integrated space company providing launch vehicles, space systems and space applications. The founder is a bit of a maverick (ate his own hat because of a past bet he made). They have a successful launch vehicle for LEO and have launched 97 satellites to date and are now moving to heavier launch vehicles. Lockheed Martin (LMT) is an investor. Elon Musk did take notice when the SPAC DA happened and put out a couple of tweets about them.

 

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/assets/Rocket-Lab-Investor-Presentation.pdf

 

 

[ValueArb]

Rocket Labs is listing via a SPAC (VACQ) and I have a small position. It's the closest competitor to SpaceX out there and they are trying to be a fully integrated space company providing launch vehicles, space systems and space applications. The founder is a bit of a maverick (ate his own hat because of a past bet he made). They have a successful launch vehicle for LEO and have launched 97 satellites to date and are now moving to heavier launch vehicles. Lockheed Martin (LMT) is an investor. Elon Musk did take notice when the SPAC DA was announced and put out a couple of tweets about them.

 

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/assets/Rocket-Lab-Investor-Presentation.pdf

 

I love Rocket Labs as the second most successful launch startup in history, but don't see where their path to success is. They are years away from having something that competes with Falcon 9, and in the mean-time SpaceX's huge volume of launches and ride-sharing arrangements has to be killing them. If the Neutron can successfully implement full re-use (both second and first stages) that might be enough to give them an edge over Falcon 9 but the Neutron's small size makes me skeptical that canb be done. When you only have 8 tons of payload mass, reserving a couple tons of fuel for landing comes directly out of that payload mass.

 

The future is in the direction of Starship, massive launch vehicles and second stage so the extra fuel costs of re-use don't limit payload mass significantly. Rocket Labs needs Starship to fail in it's simplest configuration, as a heavy lift cargo launch system, and they need to pull off some re-use magic that can keep their pricing competitive with Falcon 9 ride-share.

 

I don't know how many engines they plan to use for first stage, but also if they aren't using at least nine+ they won't reach the mass manufacturing edge that SpaceX has in engines.  I'd be very interested if they were going to use like 30 Rutherford engines in the first stage, then I can see how they could cut engine costs down to ridiculous levels making hundreds at at time.

 

And lastly, no one will ever fly on Neutron unless it' substantially upgraded. It only has the mass capacity for a tiny capsule and we don't use tiny capsules any more (unless they buy one from the Russians).

[Ice77]

SpaceX is an altogether different beast as its pace of fail fast/innovate/succeed cadence is insane. But I think some value has to be given for a successful launch vehicle and multiple launches and being an early success in this race. It's likely to be a big industry (TAM in trillions) and unlike internet it won't be a winner take all even in launches I think (Look at the governments for example: NASA and ESA were never the cheapest to launch...while the ones who are don't have 100% of the market either). This is literally the proverbial rocket science and not everyone can do it and few have succeeded despite pouring billions into it (look at Blue Origin or Virgin). I'm willing to have a small position to track the story and then scale as things evolve.

 

Put another way, SpaceX is worth $100b according to the last Morgan Stanley valuation exercise ($75b in private markets). If they IPO'd, the value would probably be $200b or more who knows. Here VACQ/Rocket Labs at its current EV is pricing in a 2-4% probability that someday RocketLabs can be as big as SpaceX (the P/FAAMG approach to valuation that was postulated by a blogger recently. Quoting it briefly here, "you can abstract away a lot of complexity by thinking about startup valuations as the probability that they can grow as large as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Google. The higher the valuations of the biggest tech companies, the higher the potential valuations of any startup"). It's an approximation & for a small sized bet I don't mind it.

[ValueArb]

SpaceX is an altogether different beast as its pace of fail fast/innovate/succeed cadence is insane. But I think some value has to be given for a successful launch vehicle and multiple launches and being an early success in this race. It's likely to be a big industry (TAM in trillions) and unlike internet it won't be a winner take all even in launches I think (Look at the governments for example: NASA and ESA were never the cheapest to launch...while the ones who are don't have 100% of the market either). This is literally the proverbial rocket science and not everyone can do it and few have succeeded despite pouring billions into it (look at Blue Origin or Virgin). I'm willing to have s small position to track the story and then scale as things evolve.

 

Put another way, SpaceX is worth $100b according to the last Morgan Stanley valuation exercise ($75b in private markets). If they IPO'd, the value would probably be $200b or more who knows. Here VACQ/Rocket Labs at its current EV is pricing in a 2-4% probability that someday RocketLabs can be as big as SpaceX (the P/FAAMG approach to valuation that was postulated by a blogger recently. Quoting it briefly here, "you can abstract away a lot of complexity by thinking about startup valuations as the probability that they can grow as large as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Google. The higher the valuations of the biggest tech companies, the higher the potential valuations of any startup"). It's an approximation & for a small sized bet I don't mind it.

 

So my one man startup has a 1 in 10,000 chance of being as big as Facebook, so it's worth $20M+? Yet somehow I can't interest any investors at 1/100th that price.

 

I understand the model, but I think it's a terribly one given that humans lack ability to accurately estimate the likelihood of these long tailed events.

 

Also lets understand that SpaceX isn't worth $100B or $200B, even though that may be what some less sophisticated investors are paying. It's revenues are likely under $2B a year, growing under 50% a year, and it's almost certainly losing money. Eventually the launch market may be a hundred times larger but that time isn't anywhere near close. The substantial lowering of launch costs hasn't lead to a boom in launches yet, SpaceX is on a record pace at the moment but thats almost exclusively due to Starlink, commercial launches haven't grown in any substantial manner.

 

And this is extremely frustrating to me. Cheap launch hasn't changed the preference of customers to spend years building ultra expensive satellites that cost many times what the launch does, despite my many years prediction the availability of cheap high payload mass launches would lead to a switch to making far cheaper satellites using far heavier components. But somehow we still spend 20 years building a $20B space telescope instead of launch dozens of $100M telescopes every year.

 

So the problem for Rocket Labs is that it has no path to profitability any time in the next decade without a massive change in the size of the market or developing superior technology they haven't shown they can do yet. They still have to build a whole new launch system with entirely new engines (can't use battery start) to even have a seat at the table. Stock prices today are driven by one of the most clearly defined bubbles in market history, in a couple years both Rocket Lab shares and SpaceX's are likely to be available for purchase at a fraction of todays prices, with a lot more information about their future profitiblity being known.

[Ice77]

I don’t see it that way at all. I see it as one would underwrite insurance for a possible event. Getting paid 5% premium for a 2% probability event if done with regularity is not a bad deal. We are talking of one of the only companies apart from SpaceX to have a successful launch vehicle. It’s a conditional probability event just like betting on a successful entrepreneur’s second startup. The odds of success are different than if he were on his first one.

 

That it requires lots of capital and is very difficult to do can be an evolving moat of sorts. Even Astra which is led by ex CTO of NASA and ex SpaceX engineers has failed to reach orbit. It is not easy so I’m not going to summarily dismiss someone like RocketLabs who has done it and done it many times.

[ValueArb]

I don’t see it that way at all. I see it as one would underwrite insurance for a possible event. Getting paid 5% premium for a 2% probability event if done with regularity is not a bad deal. We are talking of one of the only companies apart from SpaceX to have a successful launch vehicle. It’s a conditional probability event just like betting on a successful entrepreneur’s second startup. The odds of success are different than if he were on his first one.

 

That it requires lots of capital and is very difficult to do can be an evolving moat of sorts. Even Astra which is led by ex CTO of NASA and ex SpaceX engineers has failed to reach orbit. It is not easy so I’m not going to summarily dismiss someone like RocketLabs who has done it and done it many times.

 

Putting payloads into space quite an accomplishment. But to actually make money doing it, is a far far more difficult accomplishment. With their current platform they can't beat SpaceX ride-share on price, but they can offer delivery to custom orbits that SpaceX ride-share can't reach. So I can see a small business for them.

 

But Neutron is going up against Falcon 9 directly. SpaceX may still charge $50M+ per launch, but their costs for a reusable launch of roughly 15 tons are certainly in the $20M range now. If Starship is developed successfully their costs of putting 100 tons into orbit likely drop to $10M or so. How is Neutron going to compete with either?

 

This isn't an X Prize. Its a business, getting to orbit is just table stakes for the game.