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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26869 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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have you seen orbital launch graphs?

Yes, most of them are for themselves. If Starlink doesn't cover their costs, and there's not data to show that either way, this number doesn't mean anything. Though there's a wildcard here, where the whole Starlink thing might turn out to be a front for some Pentagon and/or CIA black-op, which would money is not an issue, but there's no way to tell with publicly available information.

launch cost graphs?

I straight-up don't believe them.

reducing costs with reusable rockets was a joke before spaceX

I think it still is.

I straight-up don't believe them.

What would it take for you to believe them?

An independent audit would be nice. Also, just time, I guess - at some point it will start looking awfully silly if they keep doing their thing, and I keep insisting it's price dumping.

I doubt they'd do an independent audit just for the sake of proving their launch costs, and I don't expect they'd have another reason to do so.

How long do they have to keep this up before you stop insisting that it's dumping?

My model for how Elon's companies work is something like:

  • Create hype for $thing
  • Investors get hyped and shower Elon with money
  • Deliver $thing
  • Thing does not bring enough profit to justify investment
  • Create hype for $new_thing
  • ...

This worked well enough until now, but there are signs things are starting to break. I don't think they'll be able to repeat the same thing past Starship, so to answer your question - if Starship becomes their workhorse, or they'll bin the program, but it won't end the company*, I'll concede.

*) Modulo the shady stuff he can potentially do with a direct line to Trump, but I don't know how to explicitly factor that into my prediction.

I think Elon runs things on a foundation of hype rather than any other core merit. But I still think hype can get real results if it brings in enough capital. Eventually you break through with brute force even if you personally are only a coordination point.

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