[nijave]

>but in an affordable and sustainable manner

Affordable is a bit questionable. It's heavily subsidized by Starlink and government.

Not completely clear what happens to price if SpaceX doesn't keep launch demand propped up with their own business.

[zugi]

SpaceX bids on competitive government space launch contracts and wins most of them because they're more reliable and often half the price of the competitors, or less. Government is now essentially subsidizing SpaceX's space launch competitors, giving them more expensive contracts on which they often fail to deliver, only because the government doesn't want to be dependent on a single space launch contractor. So complaints government subsidies seem misdirected.

Many companies have tried to launch LEO space-based communications constellations, starting with Iridium 30 years ago. Starlink is first and only so far to succeed at scale and provide truly global internet access. Indeed having the space launch and communications business joint has helped both of them. Indeed that helped SpaceX drive down launch costs, given their reusability and economies of scale. Having two very successful business lines integrated and synergistic seems like a massive plus, so I guess don't see the concern about the Starlink part of the business "propping up" the space launch part of the business.

[nijave]

Starlink is so cheap because economies of scale ie volume of launches. They only have a large volume of launches because Starlink (123 ish of 165 ish launches in 2025)

Without Starlink, they would need to charge government launches much higher.

Starlink has really fast asset depreciation at ~5 years as well as competition from ever expanding terrestrial wireless (5G NR)