Comment by verzali

19 hours ago

Space lift is not very profitable. The money comes from whatever you actually put in orbit with that lift capacity.

40 comments

verzali

adastra22 19 hours ago

SpaceX’s launch services have huge margins.

ben_w 19 hours ago
Huge negative margins, according to the article:
"Starting with the reusable rockets, MS expects SpaceX to eat itself. Launch costs will collapse by more than 99 per cent versus their historical average within 10 years, it says. Operating margin on launches will have jumped to about 40 per cent, from around negative 50 per cent currently, but 40 per cent of less than 1 per cent still isn’t very much."
Though as someone (probably JumpCrisscross, can't remember) pointed out a previous time this came up, as SpaceX is selling launch to Starlink, and also own Starlink, which one of the two gets to count as making a profit or a loss is just a matter of preference.
- adastra22 18 hours ago
  
  This is my industry I know it well, apparently much better than these bozos. SpaceX launch is only “unprofitable” only in the accounting sense because they reinvest their profits into Starship. Their actual profit margin for launch of F9 is 62% - 80% depending on configuration. That is a margin unheard of in aerospace.
  There is literally no competition worth speaking of, and nobody to provide downward price pressure. SpaceX started moving into their own constellations because lower prices open up new markets, and this lets them access those markets without having to lower launch prices.
  And if you think, as Morgan Stanley seems to, that the only money to be made in space is selling launch of earth orbiting satellites, you’re going to miss out on the boom that is going to make the first quadrillionaire.
  
  36 replies →
verzali 5 hours ago

Demand is low. Remove Starlink and look how often they launch. And look at how it has changed over the years. There's a reason they went so hard into Starlink.