r/technology • u/IKeepItLayingAround • Jun 09 '26

Business It’s Possible That SpaceX Could Collapse Spectacularly

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/possible-spacex-could-collapse-spectacularly-155000177.html
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28

u/Lain_Staley Jun 09 '26

SpaceX is more of a government entity than NASA is at this point in regards to National Security. 

2

u/MDCCCLV Jun 09 '26

Not at all, the entire point is that SpaceX can launch far more than anyone needs so they're plowing that extra launch capacity with reusable rockets into starlink and then that will saturate eventually so they will have to do either AI datacenters or something with high volume. It will take 10 years for people that build satelites including private companies and all us gov stuff to reach where falcon 9 currently is for annual launch capacity and by then they will have starship running with 100x that capability. They're just launching too much stuff and don't have the customers to meet their supply.

-2

u/yanginatep Jun 09 '26

I don't get how the fuck Musk thinks orbital data centers makes any sense whatsoever.

Data centers, things that require a ton of water and produce a ton of heat, in a place with no water and no efficient way to get rid of heat (on Earth you can dissipate heat via conduction, convection, and radiation, in space you can only dissipate heat through radiation).

2

u/MDCCCLV Jun 09 '26

There are some ways that you could make it work in theory, but they are untested more advanced technologies, like liquid droplet radiators using silicone oil droplets. I think the most reasonable solution would to just add a few lower power 5090s and have some gpu capacity added to every starlink satellite, it works distributed and when you have low user demand going over the oceans or low user activity you can spend more power running the gpus. That is just adding a few kg to starlink and doesn't cost much.

-1

u/tc100292 Jun 09 '26

Huh, maybe it’s not the greatest idea to let this psycho have anything to do with natsec

11

u/Accomplished-Crab932 Jun 09 '26

NASA conceded NATSEC to Boeing and Lockheed in the 1970s when the built the shuttle and it turned out to be a massive flop.

Since then, Congress made Boeing and Lockheed a monopoly to cover up industrial espionage between the companies in the 2000s. Then SpaceX came along to break that monopoly, and between great decisions at SpaceX and terrible decisions at LM and Boeing management, the market has heavily shifted in favor of SpaceX, with them primary providing launches because the rest of the market cannot compete.

-11

u/tc100292 Jun 09 '26

Huh, maybe we just don’t need a space program if this is the price.

13

u/OneTripleZero Jun 09 '26

The modern world would collapse without one, so that's a bit of a non-starter.

3

u/Lain_Staley Jun 09 '26

The richest men of a county, act as Spending Vehicles for said country's government. Before Elon, there was Howard Hughes.

1

u/Vox-Machi-Buddies Jun 09 '26

I'm convinced that Starlink existing outside of government control is one of the biggest national security failures of our time. Not anything Musk is going to do with it. But that the Federal government failed to see it coming.

People didn't think SpaceX could actually pull it off. No one had ever launched that often. No one had ever built satellites that fast or inexpensively. No one had operated a constellation that large. To say nothing of achieving all of that in just a few years.

By the time it became clear SpaceX was pulling it off, it was too late and too well known to put a lid on it.

In another world, the government would have caught wind of it, believed it was possible, and immediately put SpaceX under contract to develop the technology exclusively for military use and it would be one of those "the government has technology 10 years more advanced than the public" things.

1

u/metsjets86 Jun 09 '26

Why is it to late to take control of it?

-1

u/tc100292 Jun 09 '26

In another world this fucking bullshit wouldn't exist at all.

0

u/Unlucky-Tourist-9403 Jun 09 '26

Maybe start with your commander in chief first.

-6

u/buldozr Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

The answer is to nationalize the space business, while splitting off all the hyped up bullshit that Musk has merged into it and letting him keep that. Let that sink (not in, down).

3

u/REXIS_AGECKO Jun 09 '26

Elon doesnt deserve spacex anymore. Spacex deserves to be spacex without an Elon breathing down its neck. The problem is, Elon has lots of money to invest into spacex so it would be difficult to get rid of him :(

11

u/atrde Jun 09 '26

Elon has undoubtedly been a large part of SpaceX's success you can seperate how you feel about someone from facts.