[XorNot]

Right, but part of the reason we launch hugely expensive satellites is because launching a rocket is hugely expensive.

That calculus changes if your rocket launches start to get cheaper. It changes by a lot if your rocket launches have reasonable but predictable failure modes - which is something you get from volume.

As it is, rocket launches are relatively infrequent and expensive - which means its impossible to figure out the amortization of costs, and its not worth building a 10m satellite if your launch costs 100m (since if you can raise the latter, you can almost certainly get more for a better satellite too).

[001sky]

^^^ Yes, this is exactly the 'white space' for Space-X.