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Comment by dismalaf | Hacker News Reader

Why should people invest in SpaceX? Because they're going to be propped up by the US government for a long time. Nations need a way to get to space. SpaceX has launched more rockets than anyone in the last few years. Including 3x more than China's space agency.

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Having a global internet service with at cost launch prices is about 3-8 trillion dollar business. That's one product line at Space X.

Only if the world doesn't regard the owner of said telecoms service as a political security risk. Tricky sell given increasing distrust of globalisation and the new trend of sovreign-shoring.

Also given, you know, the politically motivated bans from that service.

Source of that valuation? As doubt its true

People in less wealthy countries will pay a cheaper sum than wealthier countries.

Also China is accelerating its own equivalent

Bullshit

Genuinely curious about the math behind this. https://www.msci.com/indexes/index/754891 this index represents a decent chunk of the worldwide telecommunication industry. It's only worth $1.45T in total. They roll trucks and dig trenches to provide internet service - and provide other telecom services besides. My gut tells me that's cheaper than launching rockets. And these companies already provide service to most of the humans that have money.

I think SpaceX has done brilliantly in lowering the cost of rocket launches. I still don't understand or believe in the valuation.

I think it's possible that one reason that industry is only worth $1.45T is that they have to maintain all that infrastructure. It may be significantly cheaper to operate it all as satellites.

And you believe cables fail more regularly than satellites? Or that replacing them is more expensive? Any numbers for this?

Interesting - what other than cables can you think of in a ground network?

Everything else would also be needed in a satellite internet network.

Really because the entire world's economy is only about 120Tn. One internet provider is about 5% of that?

Me selling lemonade at the end of my driveway is about 300-800 million dollar business. That's just one thing I sell at the end of my driveway.

250k people in my city x $4/lemonade x 365 days per year

BS check: $8T is $1000 per person on this planet. A healthy P/E ratio of 25 would translate to earning $40/year in profit from every person on the planet. SpaceX/Starlink obviously doesn’t just walk in and get everyone as a customer though. They have roughly 10 million customers right now. Let’s be generous and say they have 20 million. That $8T works out at $400K per customer valuation which at a 50 P/E would mean $8K/year/customer profit per customer or $666/month/customer profit. Those are generous numbers. Scaling back to 10 million customers and 25 P/E would require $2666/month/customer in profit to get to $8T valuation. For Internet service?

Not that it materially changes your point, but I would not be surprised if Starlink reaches 200 million customers at some point, even with my other comment about Musk personally being increasingly seen as a political security risk, the increasing distrust of globalisation, and the new trend of sovereign-shoring.

$8T/(unreasonably high 50 P/E)/200M customers/12 months = $66.67 profit (not revenue) per customer per month.

The moment Musk's reality distortion bubble stops functioning, his brands' PE ratios are likely to revert to the 5-15 levels of comparable businesses.

I'm happy to tell you that Nations don't want to be dependent on the US government and Elon Musk.

So there is a big race to build the next SpaceX. And I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science. Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.

> And I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science.

Is this parody?

> Other companies will follow propped up by their governments.

It's cool to say but it hasn't happened. And rockets literally are, well, rocket science.

Woosh

Flying rockets is rocket science. Building rockets is engineering.

this comment is nonsensical

It does currently happen. In Germany alone there are 3 rocket companies + 1 space vehicle based on governmental programs. You can ask chatgpt for other projects.

And yes, my pun which you didn't get just says: Building rockets isn't hard.

Building large payload cheap dependable rockets capable of reaching orbit with high probability is hard.

Even leaving aside the extremes of industrial espionage or "there's only so much you can learn from SpaceX TV", you can be sure that there are absolutely huge swathes of aerospace engineering education and commercially that are using a lot of SpaceX's work as a Cliff Notes of sorts to help improve their own odds.

its not that they did not get your pun, its that they think building rockets is hard, and i tend to agree

> And yes, my pun which you didn't get just says: Building rockets isn't hard.

No I get it except it's a ridiculous take. Building rockets is objectively hard.

> In Germany alone there are 3 rocket companies + 1 space vehicle based on governmental programs.

Literally none of them have reached orbit.

>I can assure you building rockets isn't rocket science.

This is mind bogglingly wrong.

“[Rocket Science] looks hard and is harder than it looks” is the classic line. Anyone in the industry will tell you how extremely difficult rockets are.

Look at Blue Origin, all the money in the world and it still blows up on the pad. Look at ULA, largest aerospace companies in the world with institutional aerospace talent, backed by nearly unlimited government funding and is nowhere near a reusable rocket, decades behind SpaceX.

You are letting politics blind you to reality.

So what is the secret sauce SpaceX brings to the table? Obviously they have top talent, but if it's not a matter of funding or talent, what makes them stand out?

I think it’s a combination of talent and the mission. Most people who work there are true believers in the mission of making life multi-planetary. There are many examples in history of people doing extraordinary things when top talent was combined with belief in a higher calling.

This is like a pea buried under 7 mattresses of delusion. If you dont like Musk, fine, but cmon man.

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