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by Zigurd 14 days ago
If you were looking for future upside in space, you will face the same disappointment that everyone enthusiastic about space manufacturing has had for four decades now. Space manufacturing is even in the SpaceX S-1. They're really scraping the bottom of the hype barrel.

Nobody is making a profit in space. Not even Starlink. Once you add in the costs of sustaining their constellation, it barely scrapes by into profitability by underestimating launch costs and an over optimistic projection of future costs.

Starlink can't serve more than a small fraction of an urban population because each bird has a pretty low capacity limit, and terrestrial wireless keeps chipping away at their TAM out in the countryside. Terrestrial wireless infrastructure has a track record of declining costs. The rate at which it eats up the customers Starlink is counting on accelerates.