[ac29]

Isn't space launch already demand constrained? SpaceX has flown 9 times this year, with a few dozen undated upcoming missions listed as well [0]. He's talking about being able to do tens of thousands of launches per year, but who's going to pay for it? If almost no-one is paying to put a few tons into orbit now, where is the demand for millions of tons a year going to come from?

[0] https://www.spacex.com/missions

[torpfactory]

I think you would be firmly in “creating completely new markets” territory at that point. It would be like trying to imagine what one would need 1000x as many transistors for, at the dawn of semiconductors. The world certainly wasn’t buying that many vacuum tubes, was it?

From my perspective, these are the big ones in the near term: 1) LEO satellite internet. Fixes the lag issues with GEO orbits, making space internet directly competitive for some applications. 2) Tourism: I would certainly pay a very pretty penny indeed to see the earth from space.

Longer term: 3) Global sun shade or other system for preventing global climate catastrophe. In 30 years I think we’ll be talking a lot about this. 4) Resource extraction, which otherwise doesn’t make sense with expensive rockets. 5) Self sustaining mars base. Still can’t figure out what the economic incentive is for this. It will cost a lot of money for what return exactly?

[atrilumen]

A thing being impossible or highly cost prohibitive kind of hampers demand for it, wouldn't you think?

[marktangotango]

Spacex hasn’t shown a payload capability yet; ie a starship model with clam doors, but they’re going to at some point I wager. Or an expendable second stage.