Comment by themafia
14 hours ago
> they've produced the cheapest way
Were we struggling to do this before? Was the overall percentage reduction in costs? Was some other achievement held back because we couldn't accomplish this? What is now enabled?
> to get any payload into space.
A limited set of payloads into space. No vehicle can get "any payload" to space at a fixed price.
> The benefits are easy to miss,
You've listed a bunch of reasons to publish papers. What is the actual ground level change that's occurred? Are those antibiotics produced? Do they actually work just as predicted? Why is that first world problems are exclusively listed but basic problems like world hunger are never even approached?
> or wouldn't have within our lifetimes.
And your life, your actual life, benefits, how?
> Were we struggling to do this before?
We literally couldn't.
> Was the overall percentage reduction in costs?
Starship will bill NASA 1/20th what SLS does.
> What is now enabled?
LEO. Artemis. Out of all of these companies, being confused about SpaceX is super weird.
> Starship will bill NASA 1/20th what SLS does
Is that before or after the program achieves profitability?
If SpaceX was only Starlink or only Starlink and rockets it would be an horrible circumvention of the rules.
But now he's also trying to get the indexes to pay for the giant cash fire called X.ai and the far right huddle Twitter too.
I have zero interest in owning anything of either of those companies.
Granted, I only skimmed some high-line numbers, but isn't their only profitable project Starlink? SpaceX is functionally a satellite internet company that happens to make rockets.
> isn't their only profitable project Starlink? SpaceX is functionally a satellite internet company that happens to make rockets
Yes. The thing that’s going public is almost entirely an AI play.
They seems to have decent revenue leasing compute to Anthropic.
I think you missed the core of their question: What has actually gotten better in practical terms for the average American?
> What has actually gotten better in practical terms for the average American?
Starlink has made connectivity cheaper and more available. Earth imaging has made various food production processes more efficient. Weather forecasts have become more accurate.
If you’ve genuinely missed the massive economy that LEO has become, it will be a fun thing to catch up on.
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Do we apply a bar this high for any other company/job/business? Saving gov/tax money aka "billing NASA 1/20th what SLS does" doesn't count as worth it to you?
Reusing rockets reliably rather than "throwing them away" is a great achievement and I'm surprised people have to justify it on HN
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Stock prices indicate the present value of all future dividends, so it's not about what has happened but about the risk-adjusted expected value of all which is to come.
What probability you assign to arrive at that expected value and how you adjust for risk is on you.