Sure, I can acknowledge there is likely a selection bias based on public reporting. But I would push back that it skews the data by an order of magnitude as suggested. We'd likely see many, many more private launches compared to public for that to be true. Let's be super generous and say that Starlink brings in $1B in revenue; that still means govt funding accounts for 80% of their revenue.
And, yes, we can talk about different ways of accounting. But I wouldn't count the fickle or volatile ones like "potential future revenue" as better than measuring actual contracts. (This is what SpaceX is investing in with their own launches, to be fair, but that's different than actual revenue). People trying to raise capital are always talking about potential revenue and potential market share, but you'll get much more investor money if you have actual purchase orders.
Like I said, I dont disagree with your broader point, and would agree that 80+% is a reasonable estimate.
$1B income for Starlink makes sense given they have ~1M customers paying ~$100/mo, and a $4-500 hookup cost.
Lasty, you have to consider that the government contract numbers you have are cummulative going back to 2012, while the Starlink revenue is annual (2022 only). If you look at government contracts for 2021, you only get $1.6B. Using those numbers, Starlink internet would be closer to 40% of revenue, with launch contracts at 60%, which starts to paint a very different story.
I think a lot of the feedback you are getting is a kneejerk reaction based on language. E.g.
"government funding" had a very different connotation than "government sales". People think subsidies and then their minds short circut.
You're probably right; I could have phrased it better. I think we pretty much agree, given what data is available. My main point is that their business model is predicated government contracts early before they can transition to other income streams. That's not really crony capitalism and it's part of the intent of the government to spur new industries. But I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public.
I think we prettymuch agree to, but I have an obvious quibbling problem.
> I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public
I think a lot of people dont really get this nuanced distinction. Rockets and spaceships have always been never been built by the government. Most of the work was always done by publically traded companies. NASA, whomever, would put out a contract, and then be involved in high level diretion of the design process.
The difference with SpaceX is that 1) they not publically traded (who cares?) and 2) they dont take design direction from NASA for their rockets, and built what they wanted. Thats it!
The cool part is that they built somthing more ambitious buy cutting NASA out of the design process, and relied on the fact that it will be so good that NASA will want it when they saw it.
My quibble is that this is very different than the classic case of the government spuring new industires. The government was already buying rockets from established manufactures for a half centry. SpaceX just came in and ate other companies lucnhes by being more focused and more efficienct.
This isn’t new. It’s exactly how the airplane was invented over 100+ years ago.
The Army didn’t tell Orville and Wilbur how to build. They dangled the carrot of a lucrative military contract to incentivize their innovation. It’s what transitioned the effort from hobbyists to an actual industry. There was no “industry” until the govt put up money because the govt was really the only entity that could bear that kind of risk. It’s the same with the initial days of SpaceX.
I think that is where we differ, but maybe I didnt explain my stance well.
I agaree that the government contracts are a carrot, and broadly speaking supports the entire space industry. Im not debating that at all.
However, I do think there is a narrative difference between companies that that humm along doing the same thing eating eating their carrots, and a new one that beats them at their own game and steals all the carrots. The carrots have been there for decades, and then someone came along and radically shakes up the industry and it makes it jump forward. Thats exciting!
It is like when a chef tells the customer "I wont make what you ordered, But I will make something so much better you can't resist.
It is as if Lockeed were to tell the military I won't build the F-35 to your specs, but when you see it, you will want it more than what you designed.
This is exciting because it marks a transition of industry dynamics. Something changed, and it wasn't the carrots. SpaceX brought something new to the table in a 60 industry, and they deserve credit for that change. The government deserves credit too, but the dynamic is different than if it were year 1 of the space industry.
The carrot did change, though. What’s fundamentally different about this carrot is that it is the first time large service contracts for space have been leveraged. Previously it was product contracts. In the latter, the govt provides specs on the hardware and drive the design. The entire mechanism of the CCP carrot is designed around a relatively hands-off approach to the hardware design to instead just specified the purchase of a ride. It doesn’t matter if it’s sci-fi tech or a donkey, as long as it gets the job done.
I still give SpaceX credit that they did a much better job of raising the bar in response to that incentive. I have some reservations about the way they’ve gone about some of it, but at the end of the day I think they have done a much better job than the legacy aerospace companies.
And, yes, we can talk about different ways of accounting. But I wouldn't count the fickle or volatile ones like "potential future revenue" as better than measuring actual contracts. (This is what SpaceX is investing in with their own launches, to be fair, but that's different than actual revenue). People trying to raise capital are always talking about potential revenue and potential market share, but you'll get much more investor money if you have actual purchase orders.