[sph]

Does SpaceX collaborate at all with the European Space Agency? Still, I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel. It's that old "this is good for Bitcoin" meme all over again.

I reckon I'm one of the few on this forum that doesn't hold SpaceX stock.

[ThisIsTheWay]

> I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel.

I don't think the poster your replying to is saying that, nor do I think the market is headed in that direction. Currently, SpaceX has the only crew certified transport aside from Russia's Soyuz capsule for transport to ISS. That is likely to change in the next two years as Blue Origin continue their certification process and NASA's SLS gets closer to launch (whether or not SLS is a good decision is a totally separate conversation). The more options, the better.

> I reckon I'm one of the few on this forum that doesn't hold SpaceX stock.

I reckon there are only a few that do actually hold SpaceX stock, given the fact they are a private company with limited investment opportunities for the common person.

[messe]

> That is likely to change in the next two years as Blue Origin continue their certification

Do you mean Boeing? Blue Origin aren't competing for commercial crew, and haven't even managed an unmanned orbital flight.

[ThisIsTheWay]

Derp, yes I did mean Boeing. BO pulled out of commercial crew a while back. Thank you for the correction.

[xoa]

>Still, I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel.

Probably because it's a dumb strawman you've created to knock down. Strawmen do indeed tend to be hard to understand since they aren't actually real. There is no "thirst" to see a private company monopolizing space travel per se. What people are thirsty for is serious, cheap, effective, ambitious space travel in turn leading to serious space development and humanity (and life in general) moving beyond the cradle permanently. The irritation with government agencies is a matter of brutal raw fact: they have failed miserably at this, and they're getting WORSE, not better. Debacles like the SLS or Shuttle. Zero effort to drive down cost, rather the reverse with space being treated as a very shitty bit of pork. I don't even want to say "jobs program" because SpaceX and co will generate WAY more jobs via space development in the long term, but long term thinking isn't very fashionable in much of government anymore. Or at least not in this sphere.

Everyone interested in space would be delighted at more competitive players. And there are indeed a number that might manage it alongside SpaceX, eventually. Smaller players like Rocket Lab are in fact launching for real cargo to orbit, and have reasonable plans to scale up. There is certainly room for another provider or two. But NASA, ESA, Russian, and other government efforts aren't even trying to go there yet and show no potential to do so. They are stupendously wasteful cash blackholes, which is coming directly out of money that could be doing awesome stuff. Awesome good government stuff even, the kind of blue sky research and infrastructure work that governments can do to really blaze the way and help industry. The billions being sunk worthlessly into SLS could be funding a true space station/shipyard/depot [0] designed around the capabilities of Starship, helping to further accelerate smaller hungry players with the capital they need to get into the medium-lift aspect, not to mention a lot of great science.

You're confusing dislike for the gross waste and failures of old fat players and excitement with the incredible efforts and progress of young ambitious new players with some sort of silly "monopoly" thing. Try to research and think about things you don't actually know much about or follow yourself a bit more before forming an opinion perhaps?

----

0: Including helping to figure out standards so that fuel depots can be used by multiple players fairly.

[JaimeThompson]

With the highest level person at SpaceX worried about them going bankrupt it is in Europe's best interest for them to develop their own launch systems an capability.

[RealityVoid]

I am willing to bet a lot of money that SpaceX will not go bankrupt as long as it keeps up the pace of innovation, and even after that happens, for a very long time.

SpaceX can turn to private investment and there are a lot of people willing to buy what they are selling. And SpaceX is incredibly innovative and a stratetic asset for the US so they will not let it sink. Sometimes, the utility of something is much more than the immediate economic calculation.

[JaimeThompson]

I suggest that Musk sending emails containing sentences like this "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year" tends to worry people. It was a very irrational and illogical email for him to send.

[dotnet00]

Unfortunately as usual, most people only saw the clickbait about the email and not the subsequent clarification about how he meant that while it was unlikely, it wasn't impossible in the event of a severe enough global economic downturn, pointing to examples of much bigger companies which went bankrupt during downturns: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/elon-musk-warning-not-first-...

Given his net worth right now, he could very likely carry SpaceX through some economic trouble, but in the event of a big enough downturn, his net worth will probably drop hard due to it being mostly Tesla stock, thus his concern.

[JaimeThompson]

That he used his concern to guilt people to work over a holiday isn't a net positive. Good, effective leaders do not act that way.

[Iolaum]

Musk's net worth is tied to his companies. I m not sure how much he can liquidate in a severe downturn without losing control of any company.

Lots of people will be paying attention.

[emteycz]

Don't forget everything in SpaceX is built around the Mars mission. They could reorganize the business and "simply" be a profitable orbital launch provider if they wanted to.

[AniseAbyss]

Space, despite what some people want to believe, is not for commercial enterprise. SpaceX is backed by uncle Sam's deep pockets. And uncle Sam is locked into a cold war with China.

"The white bird rose up once again, laser cannon in its wings. It was a moving sight. In my heart, though, I wished it didn't have to be used in war."

[xoa]

I want to say upfront that I have no issue with the latter half of your statement, but not the way intended by who I responded to. First though what I don't think is correct:

>With the highest level person at SpaceX worried about them going bankrupt

Um, no. That statement got very, very confused in the media and retellings. The "bankruptcy" has to do with SpaceX's ultimate Mars ambitions and the rapid viability of Starlink without further investment. Very correctly, Musk and everyone else at SpaceX wants it to be able to stand on its own two feet as fast as possible, and further be able to be printing enough money to fund the enormously long term and capital intensive vision of Mars development. That is the point of it after all, and ultimately that must happen for it all to work. However, that's not the same thing at all as saying that it won't actually be getting further funding. Musk has tens of billions worth of Tesla, a bunch of which he liquidated last year. He will indeed continue to pour money into it. The number of private investors who'd be happy to add in is not exactly tiny either, nor the public for that matter though both those of course bring some challenges around control and overhead.

But that message was a rally-the-troops kind of thing, in stark contrast to Blue Origin for example. Musk doesn't want employees to think of SpaceX as a government too-big-too-fail contractor on safe cost-plus financing simply because it's backed by someone wealthy and dedicated. SpaceX's vision is too big even for him by itself. It needs to be a viable enterprise. It needs to stay hungry and fast even though it has earned the top spot in the current launch market, because they want to obsolete the current launch market entirely while expanding it by orders of magnitude. Starship (and future even bigger ships) has to work for all this, and for Starlink to work economically and help kick off the planned virtuous circle. And Musk is correct that the environment may turn hostile in unpredictable ways so who knows how many years SpaceX actually has to prove itself and really get bootstrapping.

But it's still in a stupendously better position than the ESA, which isn't aiming humanity for the stars in the first place right now with Ariane.

So all that said:

>their own launch systems an capability

This is certainly fine and yes I think it matters strategically. While I don't agree with much of what the EU has done, I also think much of it is wonderful and that fundamentally it's a great institution as well as Europe as a whole. Any entity on that scale should have a route to space in the future, just as the EU has Airbus for flight. And that will help the US as well.

But the way to go about that isn't through Arianespace. The EU, yesterday (a decade or more ago in fact), needs to get their own commercial sector going. With proven examples they can go much faster than NASA did if they want. But they need to supply the vision, big incentives, cut regulatory obstacles, and provide good government infra support and so on then let private players work out the actual implementation servicing those goals.

[JaimeThompson]

>But that message was a rally-the-troops kind of thing

I disagree. Statements like this "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year” sent of a holiday demonstrate a level on strangeness that really worries people launching very expensive space hardware.

It is hard to understand what he will say / do next and the gulf between what he says and what he does seems to be growing over the past year.

[andi999]

Yes. A CEO should always be worried about bankruptcy and do everything to avoid it, but never talk about it, except if they want to file for it soon. Even if the company is shortlz before going bankrupt, it woule just drive the value down, and prevent it from getting the needed capital.

[dotnet00]

He said that it was unlikely, but not impossible, pointing to risks like a large global economic crisis that drives away investor money before Starlink becomes self-sustaining (which requires Starship to be successful too).

I think you're seriously exaggerating the "gulf between what he says and does". He's always been the type to be extremely focused on the smallest of risks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/elon-musk-warning-not-first-...

[JaimeThompson]

>I think you're seriously exaggerating the "gulf between what he says and does".

His statements regarding subsidies being wrong / government interference in the market as contrasted to how actively Tesla searches for and applies for subsidies.

I personally have an issue with those who think that burning the bridge that helped them get where they are so others can't use it is the correct thing to do.

If he was always focused on the smallest of risks he would not have smoked a joint on camera while working to launch national security payloads for the NRO and DoD. It was just a very short sighted thing for him to do.

[mlindner]

This is a strawman. SpaceX is not worried about going bankrupt nor is Elon Musk.

[tsimionescu]

Should we take Elon Musk seriously, but not literally?

[kevin_thibedeau]

They aren't monopolizing anything. Making the cheapest product available doesn't make them the enemy. The US is funding (at a premium) two other spacecraft near completion and there are other developments ongoing for more commercial spacecraft.

[mlindner]

> Does SpaceX collaborate at all with the European Space Agency? Still, I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel. It's that old "this is good for Bitcoin" meme all over again.

You misunderstand. The "thirst" is for a private company making space travel cheaper than ever before. Also before SpaceX came along the US launch industry was basically in the position of the current European space industry. A single old decrepit launch company with overpriced rockets.

[joshvm]

Yes. I have code in space that was funded by ESA and launched on a Falcon 9. If you count the ISS then SpaceX is a launch partner and is probably our best bet in the near future for shuttling people and cargo (plus the ATV).

ESA is basically open to partnering with them, there is a statement somewhere about them looking into reusable systems. It's politically tricky because part of ESA'S remit is to contract with member states and increase capacity in Europe: you buy into ESA, ESA throws you bones in the form of tender opportunities. I believe it's also reasonably fair, so they make sure that contracts go to everyone.

That also means that most of the big ticket contracts go to companies like Airbus and Ariannespace. Airbus would lobby pretty hard if ESA started spending big money in the US. Though you can see how that worked out for Boeing. A lot of these contracts are big and multiyear, projects using specific launch partners are designed around fairing capacities and so on. We don't necessarily need roscosmos for a lot of this, plenty of launches are done using Ariane rockets from Kourou.

SpaceX isn't publicly listed so the vast majority of people here don't own any. It's not like TSLA.

Finally on monopolies - ESA already doesn't really build much itself, most of the hardware is built by private companies. NASA is the same, though they have a bit more in house capacity than ESA. Apollo and the Space Shuttle were spread out to a huge number of US contractors (people like Lockheed Martin, Rockwell and Northrop Grumman). Orion/SLS? Not built by NASA, built by boeing, rocketdyne and others.

SpaceX has had remarkable success precisely because they disrupted existing launch platforms that were failing to innovate fast enough. In a monopoly, users don't have choice which is not the case here - there's Blue Origin, ULA, Ariane, etc.

[brian_herman]

SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company. Tesla is though.

[1_player]

Never said it was. It's a private company as opposed to a government funded agency.

[gliptic]

But that means almost nobody on HN can possibly hold SpaceX stock.

[1_player]

Fair enough, I stand corrected. Still, I wanted to point out that it's a company, not a government agency. Publicly traded or private doesn't change my point.

[gameswithgo]

private companies also build esa rockets, and the space shuttle, and saturn v, in partnership with government space programs. spacex human flight is also in partnership with nasa.

[ThisIsTheWay]

It's likely a very very small group, but I am certain there are some ultra high net worth members of HN that are SpaceX investors, either directly through family offices, or indirectly through private equity funds.

[Rebelgecko]

It's also pretty easy to invest in them indirectly. There are a few Fidelity funds that include SpaceX, and you can also invest in other companies that invested in SpaceX (ulterior motives, including my employer)

[irrational]

> I reckon I'm one of the few on this forum that doesn't hold SpaceX stock.

Are there really that many people that buy individual stocks like this? I have a 401k, but I have no idea what stocks were purchased with my money.

[api]

SpaceX will launch anything you want, so sure. They're likely to see ESA launch business that Roscosmos might have otherwise handled.

Of course ESA has Ariane but it's not cost competitive.

[tablespoon]

> Still, I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel.

They have marketing that's proven to be especially effective on software engineers.

[gameswithgo]

I don’t care if its private or not, we are just excited to see better spacecraft, and most so called public space programs are also being built by private companies. The difference a matter of nuance. Russia may have been the only one that wasn’t largely private.