totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[zolotiyeruki]

30 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Well ... you never know. One of the primary restrictions on the use of space is simply how expensive it is to get there. If you make it cheaper, then not only are the launch costs cheaper but also you start to lower the costs of what you send there. You don't have to make everything simultaneously as light as possible but also as robust as possible, because you can more easily afford a little extra weight or maybe a failed sat or two. Look at Starlink and how they seem to be willing to accept a certain failure rate for their sats because they are throwing so many of them up there so cheaply that they can afford to have a few fizzle.

Bingo.  Falcon 9 dropped launch costs by 2/3 to 3/4.  A fully-laden SS/SH could drop it by another order of magnitude.  If you're only paying $100/kg to get something into orbit, every high school in the developed world is gonna want to send up their own senior capstone project.  Some brilliant, evil marketer is going to figure out how to get a constellation of satellites to fly in formation with bright LEDs and fill the night sky with advertisements.  A gazillion satellite internet companies will spring up.  NRO is going to launch ma-hoo-ssive spy satellites.  There'll be a ton of new weather observation satellites, heck, even road-traffic-monitoring satellites.  The economics of beamed power shift dramatically.   Maybe we could even launch a pile of solar sails to shade the earth and regulate global warming. 

This is one of those "supply creates its own demand" situations IMO.  Make something cheap, and people will find a use for it.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Starship won't have LES because the Mars version can't have LES.

Crew-rated Earth version with a LES? Removed the LES for Mars? That's a change and now it's not crew-rated anymore.

As the main weight of an starship LES will probably be the detachable top cabin not the parachutes and hybrid engines you don't save that much. 
Also it might be plausible to land the escape capsule on mars. Yes it will be hard to control and yes it will only be relevant if you land close to an base or other ship. 

One benefit of an starship LES is not the accent but the decent, you aerobraked but taken damage so you can not land because an flap is stuck or you have structural damage or an engine simply fails 50 meter up. The landing is the hard part and here an LES will save you. 
A bit is that Musk tend to be over optimistic, a bit skeptical to going straight for catching superheavy, Yes its probably work but might also take out the launch site or simply that they run out of raptors. 
Same with an LES but more long term.

[tater]

1 hour ago, zolotiyeruki said:

A gazillion satellite internet companies will spring up.

To compete with Starlink? Why would SpaceX launch competing sats at lower cost than many of their own?

If I was SpaceX with operational Starship, and given the complete lack of competitors, I'd drop the price per kg for huge payloads for things like stations, etc. But specifically exclude constellations. Telecom is a much better market than sat launches—particularly at $100/kg or less. Make everyone else buy at the competitors prices.

[mikegarrison]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Why would SpaceX launch competing sats at lower cost than many of their own?

Because otherwise they would be in violation of anti-trust law?

Doing stuff like you are suggesting has gotten other companies broken apart by the courts.

Edited August 17, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Because otherwise they would be in violation of anti-trust law?

Doing stuff like you are suggesting has gotten other companies broken apart by the courts.

They can set their costs how they like. If the only competition is ULA at $80M for 40 sats of a given size, they can charge about the same. They don't have to charge some markup above their actual cost.

Charge satellite customers a good deal vs the other providers, and they launch Starlink at cost—as they do now.

The launch market is not a lot of money. There is zero reason for SpaceX to earn less per launch on sats until someone else lowers prices. They launch their own at cost, regardless.

[mikegarrison]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

They can set their costs how they like.

No, they cant. Not if it violates anti-trust law. It's, you know, A LAW. (Well, more like a collection of laws. But still.)

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/exclusive-supply-or

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/predatory-or-below-cost

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/refusal-deal

Quote

One of the most unsettled areas of antitrust law has to do with the duty of a monopolist to deal with its competitors. In general, a firm has no duty to deal with its competitors. In fact, imposing obligations on a firm to do business with its rivals is at odds with other antitrust rules that discourage agreements among competitors that may unreasonably restrict competition. But courts have, in some circumstances, found antitrust liability when a firm with market power refused to do business with a competitor. For instance, if the monopolist refuses to sell a product or service to a competitor that it makes available to others, or if the monopolist has done business with the competitor and then stops, the monopolist needs a legitimate business reason for its policies. Courts will continue to develop the law in this area.

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

1 minute ago, mikegarrison said:

No, they cant. Not if it violates anti-trust law. It's, you know, A LAW. (Well, more like a collection of laws. But still.)

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices

So SpaceX has to charge Amazon ~$28M for a Kuiper launch since that is their internal cost, even though they charge $62M for a F9 on their site?

I'm not saying single out Kuiper, et al. I'm saying if their internal cost on a SS launch is $2M, they should charge slightly less per kg than anyone else, and pocket the money.

If ULA is $6000/kg, charge $5000, whatever.

There is zero reason for price per kg to drop sans competition.

[mikegarrison]

Just now, tater said:

So SpaceX has to charge Amazon ~$28M for a Kuiper launch since that is their internal cost, even though they charge $62M for a F9 on their site?

I'm not saying single out Kuiper, et al. I'm saying if their internal cost on a SS launch is $2M, they should charge slightly less per kg than anyone else, and pocket the money.

If ULA is $6000/kg, charge $5000, whatever.

No, but they have to charge Starlink the same that they charge Kuiper. And if they don't, one of the possible remedies is that the government separates SpaceX from Starlink.

[tater]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

No, but they have to charge Starlink the same that they charge Kuiper. And if they don't, one of the possible remedies is that the government separates SpaceX from Starlink.

They already don't. Or sorry, SpaceX pays themselves $62M for a launch that actually costs $28M, lol.

Amazon owns trucks and airplanes now. They used to only use UPS/FedEx/USPS. Does Amazon cargo/delivery/whatever need to be separated?

[mikegarrison]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

They already don't. Or sorry, SpaceX pays themselves $62M for a launch that actually costs $28M, lol.

And that's the issue. "SpaceX pays themselves LOL"

If the government decides that is a monopolistic practice (and the courts agree), SpaceX can be forced to make Starlink not "themselves".

This is really basic anti-trust stuff. It's not an automatic slam-dunk, but the more market advantage a company gets by leveraging their market position and integration of different businesses, the more likely it is that the government might break them up.

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Amazon owns trucks and airplanes now. They used to only use UPS/FedEx/USPS. Does Amazon cargo/delivery/whatever need to be separated?

Possibly. Depends on whether someone sues them and wins.

There's no law against being more efficient or lower cost than your competitors. There *is* law against using your market dominance to force competitors out of the market.

For example. when Microsoft had near total dominance of the PC operating system market, that was legal. But when they used that dominance to capture the web browser market by integrating IE into the OS, that *was* deemed illegal, by multiple judicial systems.

There would be no law that would say SpaceX isn't allowed to out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the commercial launch market, but if they do and then they use that leverage to also capture the satellite internet market, that would potentially run them head-first into anti-trust laws.

Edited August 17, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

29 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

There would be no law that would say SpaceX isn't allowed to out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the commercial launch market, but if they do and then they use that leverage to also capture the satellite internet market, that would potentially run them head-first into anti-trust laws.

Not saying it is not possible, but I don't see them having to sell satellite launches at cost, either. I mean technically Blue Origin and Amazon are separate, too, but the same guy controls them, and if NG was flying, I would imagine Kuiper would ride on NG. I suppose Kuiper could make their sats 7m, then they only seek out providers with 7m fairings—looks like NG is it for now, let us know when you have a bigger fairing, ULA!

I think Shotwell said that Starlink would be spun off at some point in the future, actually.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Ironically, SpaceX just got their first check from NASA for HLS.  
 

now to see if it clears…

[tater]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Ironically, SpaceX just got their first check from NASA for HLS.  
 

now to see if it clears…

And the lead engineer from the BO HLS team left... for SpaceX. (I'm sure there's loads of back and forth)

[Space Kerbalisation Tech]

Does anyone know when SN20 will launch?

[RCgothic]

Nope. Subject to regulatory approval, which could be months.

[magnemoe]

17 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Nope. Subject to regulatory approval, which could be months.

They are also not ready, superheavy need an static fire and for this they need to get the pad ready. Still some work to do on SN20

[RCgothic]

True, but that'll be "weeks" according to Elon. Regulatory approval is definitely months.

 

 

[Shpaget]

6 hours ago, tater said:

And the lead engineer from the BO HLS team left... for SpaceX. (I'm sure there's loads of back and forth)

With the recent litigiousness of BO leadership, I would be surprized if this transfer went without BO claiming some non-compete clause.

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

With the recent litigiousness of BO leadership, I would be surprized if this transfer went without BO claiming some non-compete clause.

Believe it or not it's almost virtually impossible to get specific performance of a non-compete. There's almost nothing that you can't simply buy out.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

40 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Believe it or not it's almost virtually impossible to get specific performance of a non-compete. There's almost nothing that you can't simply buy out.

Correct - you can, perhaps, force the company and employee to have no relationship, or an unrelated to the original job's duties relationship or agree to let them buy out of the contract... But you cannot force them to return to work for you. 

[wumpus]

23 hours ago, Beccab said:

There really is, given that those 9 are unmanned tanker launches. Put crew and even a LES on it and it isn't a tanker anymore

Starship has a capacity of 100 tons (at least that's the plan).  Dragon 2 is 10 tons.  So you need 11 launches instead of 10, and you can bring along 70 people.  Somehow I can't imagine riding with 70 people to Mars inside a Starship.  Perhaps the Starship will take them to a large cycler (and park with it for decscent/return duty).

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Correct - you can, perhaps, force the company and employee to have no relationship, or an unrelated to the original job's duties relationship or agree to let them buy out of the contract... But you cannot force them to return to work for you. 

IIRC the only way to get injunctive relief from a non-compete would be if there was substantial trade secret overlap and you could make the argument that there would be irreparable harm, incalculable in damages, if your former employee and the competitor company were permitted to work together. And even then the law would favor monetary damages if there was any possibility that the trade secrets could remain protected.

[RyanRising]

18 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Starship has a capacity of 100 tons (at least that's the plan).  Dragon 2 is 10 tons.  So you need 11 launches instead of 10, and you can bring along 70 people.  Somehow I can't imagine riding with 70 people to Mars inside a Starship.  Perhaps the Starship will take them to a large cycler (and park with it for decscent/return duty).

I'm confused - why do you need to send that many people?

[cubinator]

18 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Starship has a capacity of 100 tons (at least that's the plan).  Dragon 2 is 10 tons.  So you need 11 launches instead of 10, and you can bring along 70 people.  Somehow I can't imagine riding with 70 people to Mars inside a Starship.  Perhaps the Starship will take them to a large cycler (and park with it for decscent/return duty).

That's kind of what I imagine for mass transport to Mars. Probably a crew of 12 astronauts could ride comfortably in one Starship, but for more you would need either a faster ship or a much bigger one.

4 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

I'm confused - why do you need to send that many people?

To colonize Mars, of course!

[Rakaydos]

22 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Starship has a capacity of 100 tons (at least that's the plan).  Dragon 2 is 10 tons.  So you need 11 launches instead of 10, and you can bring along 70 people.  Somehow I can't imagine riding with 70 people to Mars inside a Starship.  Perhaps the Starship will take them to a large cycler (and park with it for decscent/return duty).

Alternatively, you have a separate 11th launch with 10 dragon capsules in abort-racks. No need to mess around with the tankers.