Space X

[Dalal.Holdings]

Custom orbits seems like a good edge to have for this co as ride-sharing doesn't optimize the orbit. This company seems more focused on getting satellites up, they even have a platform to develop satellites, sell them to the customer, and launch them for them (Photon). Neutron seems like it will move the game to constellations. Unlike SpaceX, they seem to be more of a "do more with less" type of culture which I think can keep costs low and competitive. Looking at total amount of capital they've raised thus far and all that they've accomplished, I think the results speak loudly.

 

Ignoring SpaceX for a moment, I can't understand why SPCE would have a market cap of twice this thing. I think the accomplishments of this company are far beyond Virgin Galactic. And they have customers and revenue today...

 

Overall it's probably one of the most attractive SPACs I've seen (I do not think highly of SPACs)...at this price and EV of just $4.1B, it could easily be a target for a big firm or some egomaniac billionaire (there are plenty) looking for a platform to get into orbit quickly.

 

Edit: the EV of $4.1B (market cap of $4.8B - ~750M cash) is implied by a $10 price for VACQ. Adjust accordingly.

[Ice77]

It is a prized asset. I was surprised when I heard it was going to be listed this early. VCs don’t usually share the spoils of such assets this early with the public. Even the Russians rocket scientists admire it. But people expect miracles and a fully formed business model when it’s barely the 2nd innings of the private space race. But for the DA timing amid a correction, it would be trading lot higher

[ValueArb]

Custom orbits seems like a good edge to have for this co as ride-sharing doesn't optimize the orbit. This company seems more focused on getting satellites up, they even have a platform to develop satellites, sell them to the customer, and launch them for them (Photon). Neutron seems like it will move the game to constellations. Unlike SpaceX, they seem to be more of a "do more with less" type of culture which I think can keep costs low and competitive. Looking at total amount of capital they've raised thus far and all that they've accomplished, I think the results speak loudly.

 

Ignoring SpaceX for a moment, I can't understand why SPCE would have a market cap of twice this thing. I think the accomplishments of this company are far beyond Virgin Galactic. And they have customers and revenue today...

 

Overall it's probably one of the most attractive SPACs I've seen (I do not think highly of SPACs)...at this price and EV of just $4.1B, it could easily be a target for a big firm or some egomaniac billionaire (there are plenty) looking for a platform to get into orbit quickly.

 

Edit: the EV of $4.1B (market cap of $4.8B - ~750M cash) is implied by a $10 price for VACQ. Adjust accordingly.

 

Don’t get me going on Virgin Galactic. Imagine naming your space company “Galactic” when its technology could never even achieve orbit. Oops, I got going...

[Spekulatius]

I agree that Rocket Labs looks great compared to Virgin Galactic, but that’s not a high hurdle. Rocket Labs is an interesting company to watch for sure.

[scorpioncapital]

wouldn't it be more lucrative to invest in use-case space businesses , like subscription service blacksky that gets recurring revenue instead of one time launches?

[fareastwarriors]

Who's next?

 

https://www.space.com/news/live/spacex-inspiration4-updates

 

SpaceX successfully launched the first all-civilian mission to orbit Earth on Sept. 15, 2021 using a used Crew Dragon capsule and veteran Falcon 9 rocket 

[Morgan]

5 minutes ago, fareastwarriors said:

Who's next?

 

https://www.space.com/news/live/spacex-inspiration4-updates

 

SpaceX successfully launched the first all-civilian mission to orbit Earth on Sept. 15, 2021 using a used Crew Dragon capsule and veteran Falcon 9 rocket 

This is so awesome! 
 

Another amazing feat by SpaceX! 

[ValueArb]

Starship test launch #2 was amazing. The water fountain fixed their pad issues, all engines worked nominally (for a while),  they actually successfully performed hot staging (which I thought was a stupid idea to try this early in the test launch cycles), and nearly reached their target suborbital velocity.  Overall great progress.

 

What didn't work was landing the booster thought its explosion was incredible. It was able to do the flip maneuver to return and relight its engines for a few seconds before they failed and the FTS (automatic flight abort system) detected the failures, concluded the booster wasn't performing to plan so blew it apart. Watching Scott Manley's post mortem he thinks it was some kind of water hammer effect in the fuel lines that ripped them open and caused the engine failures. I  don't know if the effect was caused by the deceleration from hot staging or if they can just slow down the flip maneuver.

 

 

The Starship itself made it almost to the end of its fuel load before failing. Scott points out at the end you can see a puff on video from some gas leak, then the LOX gauge starts emptying faster than the Methane gauge, so it appears to have been a leak from the LOX tanks. Again when it ran out of propellant early the FTS detected it was off its planned velocity/course and blew it apart. I would think it's probably not caused by the hot staging blowback opening a hole because it occurred 5 minutes later, but I'm not rocket surgeon. Also they are probably going to need to upgrade the Starship FTS as long range photographs seemed to show a pretty big chunk survived the self destruct.  Outside of that looks like a cursory FAA review and next test launch within a couple months.

[Morgan]

I've been waiting for this and this was nuts. More and more progress with every launch! Pretty soon there are gonna be 1000 people on the way to Mars every week, plus supply launches and eventually developments in the solar system. This century is going absolutely incredible! 

[fareastwarriors]

Gwynne Shotwell, the woman making SpaceX’s moonshot a reality

[mcliu]

Is there a way to buy SpaceX shares?

[Gregmal]

10 minutes ago, mcliu said:

Is there a way to buy SpaceX shares?

Private placement 

[gfp]

2 hours ago, mcliu said:

Is there a way to buy SpaceX shares?

 

Don't do it through DXYZ, that's for sure!

[lnofeisone]

I threw some money on RKLB. They aren't directly competing with SpaceX (yet) and have real revenue and products. They are growing reasonably quickly, but I have a hard time assessing their TAM. At EV of 12B vs. SpaceX's 350B...worth a shot. 

[maplevalue]

On 12/13/2024 at 8:38 PM, mcliu said:

Is there a way to buy SpaceX shares?

Some Baillie Gifford investment trusts own. These are traded on the LSE. I own Scottish Mortgage and SpaceX about 5% of the fund. 

[mcliu]

Awesome thanks!
Has anyone ever used those secondary market to buy shares of private or pre-ipo companies?

Edited December 15 by mcliu

[Xerxes]

there is also Katie Wood space ETF that has Spacex In it. 
 

but why bother with Baron, Wood and the likes for a puny uncivilized 5% exposure of something that one really want but requires one to have 95% of the stuff that we either don’t want, don’t need, but convince ourselves to want for the sake of 5%

 

better to go with RocketLab suggestion above.
 

That said, I find it interesting that no comment has been made to the fact that most of the potential value of SpaceX is in Starlink. And the latter has a far likelihood of an IPO (rumours and filings over the years) than the rocket business and the holding company. 
 

In fact, the SpaceX and Starlink are like BN and BAM. 
 

 

[lnofeisone]

10 hours ago, Xerxes said:

That said, I find it interesting that no comment has been made to the fact that most of the potential value of SpaceX is in Starlink. And the latter has a far likelihood of an IPO (rumours and filings over the years) than the rocket business and the holding company. 

I've been trying to wrap my head around Starlink's ISP TAM. The limiting factors are how much data their satellites can relay and how receptive host countries will be to US satellites flying around. Rural makes it a natural fit. But I haven't had the time to back into their numbers just yet. And when backing into those numbers, who is the right comparable? Is it Comcast? Verizon? Charter? It can't be one of the legacy satellite providers. 

[mcliu]

52 minutes ago, lnofeisone said:

I've been trying to wrap my head around Starlink's ISP TAM. The limiting factors are how much data their satellites can relay and how receptive host countries will be to US satellites flying around. Rural makes it a natural fit. But I haven't had the time to back into their numbers just yet. And when backing into those numbers, who is the right comparable? Is it Comcast? Verizon? Charter? It can't be one of the legacy satellite providers. 

Aircraft, shipping, so many possible uses. Airplanes don't even have satellite tracking today, kind of insane right?

There's probably tons of applications that we have not thought of because the enabling technology never existed.

If there's data congestion, they can always put more satellites up there. There's so much space in space.. 

 

[rkbabang]

28 minutes ago, mcliu said:

Aircraft, shipping, so many possible uses. Airplanes don't even have satellite tracking today, kind of insane right?

There's probably tons of applications that we have not thought of because the enabling technology never existed.

If there's data congestion, they can always put more satellites up there. There's so much space in space.. 

 

 

And the complete lack of any real competition is astounding. The European Union's IRIS² satellite internet constellation will have less than 3% of Starlink's satellites, be more than 10X slower, cost €11B (if it stays on budget, but LOL, it won't), and not be in service until the 2030s (if it stays on schedule, but of course it won't).

[Dalal.Holdings]

30 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

 

And the complete lack of any real competition is astounding. The European Union's IRIS² satellite internet constellation will have less than 3% of Starlink's satellites, be more than 10X slower, cost €11B (if it stays on budget, but LOL, it won't), and not be in service until the 2030s (if it stays on schedule, but of course it won't).

A big IF on whether Europe’s $11B project even amounts to anything. Probably ends up like CA high-speed rail.

[rkbabang]

12 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

A big IF on whether Europe’s $11B project even amounts to anything. Probably ends up like CA high-speed rail.

Yeah, they'll spend 30B and not put anything in orbit.

[Xerxes]

2 hours ago, lnofeisone said:

I've been trying to wrap my head around Starlink's ISP TAM. The limiting factors are how much data their satellites can relay and how receptive host countries will be to US satellites flying around. Rural makes it a natural fit. But I haven't had the time to back into their numbers just yet. And when backing into those numbers, who is the right comparable? Is it Comcast? Verizon? Charter? It can't be one of the legacy satellite providers. 

definitely not the legacy satellite providers. It is a new industry in some ways. 
 

Starlink is to SpaceX, what Robotaxi is to Tesla, in term valuations of a recurring business vs. the valuation of the holding company and the capital-intensive side of the business (car making and rocket-launch, respectively). 
 

That is as far as my brain allows me to go. 

[treasurehunt]

On 12/17/2024 at 7:29 AM, rkbabang said:

 

And the complete lack of any real competition is astounding. The European Union's IRIS² satellite internet constellation will have less than 3% of Starlink's satellites, be more than 10X slower, cost €11B (if it stays on budget, but LOL, it won't), and not be in service until the 2030s (if it stays on schedule, but of course it won't).

Amazon's Kuiper might be a viable competitor although they are way behind schedule at the moment. Apparently, half the Kuiper constellation has to be in place by July 2026.

 

https://spacenews.com/beta-project-kuiper-broadband-services-pushed-to-early-2025/

[Spekulatius]

On 12/18/2024 at 6:07 PM, treasurehunt said:

Amazon's Kuiper might be a viable competitor although they are way behind schedule at the moment. Apparently, half the Kuiper constellation has to be in place by July 2026.

 

https://spacenews.com/beta-project-kuiper-broadband-services-pushed-to-early-2025/

Kuiper is the next satellite constellation and I think China will build another one.