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DoD wants a spy satellite constellation.
Your argument is invalid.
I recognize this as a valid comeback, but I think their patience has limits. Politically the blob has turned against him. so the moment they find an alternative the gets ejected. This is why I think the EscaPADE mission is potentially the mark when the tide turns for him.
I mean, you might be right on Tesla, but .. even if the company goes bankrupt, worst that could happen he'd lose Twitter. (that'd be bad) because the debt collateral are Tesla shares iirc.
I'm pretty sure SpaceX is going down as well. Admiteddly contracts for BlackOps satellites, and Jewish Space Laserss are a wildcard, but if Bezos proves he can compete, that's when I'm betting the cascade starts.
That seems unlikely. Their pace of development is anaemic. SpaceX also developed Starlink - so they're the guy who are probably best at making large amounts of satellites.
Well, again, they are scheduled to go from zero to Mars this year. How well it goes is anyone's guess, and I'll admit that if their launch goes about as good as SpaceX's that will be very humiliating for them.
But if it works, it will prove what I'm suspecting - Elon's "iterative design" and "move fast and break things" are memes, and an anemic pace can easily prove to be faster.
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State department hates him, but I highly that is true is of the rest of them (people at DoD etc).
He's not critical for the day to day running of SpaceX.
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This doesn't make sense at all. Falcon 9 can already deliver about 4000 kg to Mars, so this hardly seems like a game-changing mission. If you want to talk about LEO, which is obviously what the DOD is more interested in, SpaceX in 2023 put over 1,000 metric tons into LEO. Even without Starship, there is no other company that can hope to do anything like those numbers anytime soon. The idea that the DoD is being held up by SpaceX is ludicrous. DOD is concerned about launch cadence, but with regards to ULA, not SpaceX. The only customer that could claim to be reasonably concerned about pace would be NASA with respect to HLS, but since the entire Artemis program is already underfunded and way behind for other reasons, they have little actual grievance.
Ok, why the push for Starship then? My contention is that Starship is one of the galaxy-brained promises Elon will never deliver on, and that this will be the end of him. If Falcon 9 is more than enough for them to rake the cash in, why not just rake the cash in, instead of blowing $1 billion on every rocket that goes boom?
Why?
Because that means SpaceX and its customers will be able to orbit 100 tons to LEO at a very low cost. In addition to satellite internet everywhere, this will enable spy satellite constellations, ballistic missile defence, orbiting telescopes, relatively affordable flights to the moon and much other stuff.
Ok, so your contention is that they're already making massive profits because they revolutionized space launches, and Starship is just a way to make even more money?
Would you consider contractors not being paid on time an indication that their financial situation is not that great?
What % of contractors are they not paying ? What's the total amount they spent on contractors and the % disputed?
I think I can get you the disputed amount (the article makes it sound like that info is public) but not in percentage terms.
This is a very good question, and I'd say people should ask similar ones about positive claims about Elon. People throw (unverified) Starlink growth and revenue numbers at me, ignoring the fact that they're meaningless without the costs part of the equation.
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One argument is dimensions. The difference between Falcon9 and a Starship to launch a cubesat is just economics, but the difference between the two to launch a fuckoff big mirror, not having to fold it up into a million pieces pretty much allows an entirely different and better design philosophy.
There's also some reliability arguments in favor of Starship's liquid methane fueling approach over the Falcon9's kerosene-fueled approach, especially given recent instability in fuel markets.
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First, your premises are wrong. Each prototype Starship launch almost certainly doesn't cost $1 billion. Per SpaceX, the whole development program is expected not to exceed 10 billion dollars. Estimates of the production cost of the Raptor engine is about $250000 each, so round that up to 50 engines per flight, double and you're still at only about $25 million. The rest of the ship is made out of relatively inexpensive stainless steel coil sheet, and the thermal tiles are made in-house. $250 million would be a liberal estimate, and more conservative estimates are about $100 million per launch.
Second, there is no desire to just rake the cash in. As with Amazon, the goal of SpaceX is to rake in cash for the purpose of further development, so as to obtain a position that is not just nearly unassailable by competitors, but creates a completely new market. And of course, Musk, as the controlling owner of the company, has goals for the company that do require Starship, which is capable of orbiting more than 100 metric tons of payload per launch, such as establishing a continuous presence on Mars. This requires lots of bulk mass, which only Starship could possibly deliver. One reason it was selected for HLS despite the development work needed is because you'd be landing not just a small landing craft on every mission, but what amounts to an entire base.
SpaceX has been quite explicit that the goal with Starship is to completely cannibalize Falcon 9 launches, and to eventually discontinue Falcon 9 altogether, as they expect a fully reusable Starship launch cycle (even expending $1 million in propellant per launch) to cost less not just per kilogram but per launch than Falcon 9 which does requires a new upper stage for each launch. (Though I think Falcon 9 + Dragon will remain the preferred human launch system to LEO for longer, unless some kind of Starship transporter with more robust abort modes is developed.)
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