[eyelovewe]

I’m personally rather bored with the hobbies and tastes of these modern tech billionaires like Jeff and Elon. A few years back, there was a total global circumnavigation of the world in a solar powered 2 person airplane based in Switzerland, I forget the project name. This thing did not have to land to charge batteries but could stay aloft indefinitely, albeit at a very floppy wing surface area to weight ratio, and the resulting vulnerability to wind and low speed. Such a project or something that presents and actual investment that only a billionaire could provide are eschewed in favor of juvenile pissing contests like Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos pursue

[908B64B197]

SpaceX is a profitable business, especially with StarLink. They essentially got rival satellite operators to buy the rockets they then re-use to launch their payloads. And they managed to underbid everyone in the space launch business for government contracts (Even factoring in R&D costs the Dragon is incredibly cheap).

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are just hobbies for the rich, but SpaceX might bring real benefits to "average joes" (just like the GPS system did).

[skissane]

> SpaceX is a profitable business, especially with StarLink.

Starlink isn't profitable yet, and won't be for several more years.

Parts of their business are definitely profitable today, for example the Falcon 9 launch business. Other parts of their business are being pursued in the hope of future profits, but those future profits are some years away.

[minikites]

>juvenile pissing contests like Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos pursue

This is really all it is, it's rich guys performing for other rich guys while the rest of us fight for scraps. It's sickening to me that so many people defend the honor of rich CEOs like Bezos, Branson, Musk, Gates, etc because they truly think that more money = better than.

[inglor_cz]

Musk might be a weirdo, but SpaceX as a whole is not smoke and mirrors. Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules are a tested, reliable technology developed for reasonable money. When in doubt, compare their development budgets, timetables and flight record to those of the Space Launch System.