spikels

Full paragraph quote comes from:

> While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the Moon. Once there, it will be possible to establish a permanent presence for scientific and manufacturing pursuits. Factories on the Moon can take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power. >

We also know the Twitter buyout debt was sold at near par before the merger with xAI which is inconsistent with being near bankruptcy.

Was ignored on HN but here's an article explaining:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/12/after-years-of-resisti...

You have numbers for SE Asia?

Getting 100 people in a bus is not "easy" because very rarely do 100 people all want to from/to the same place at the same time. We end up bunching people in both time and space and making multiple stops and/or connections - which all make the journey longer and less competitive with alternatives.

And even then buses are only near capacity in our very biggest cities (top 10-15) for a hundful of hours during weekday rush hours. For example, in SF while buses/railcars may occasionally get crowded they are usually empty: Muni averages only 6 passengers per vehicle, BART only 8 per traincar. On a passenger-mile basis this makes the service very expensive (Muni ~$4 and BART ~$2 including capital) and very energy inefficient (Muni(LRV) ~400Wh and BART ~600Wh). Explaining why both systems are struggling financially and require massive ongoing subsides keep operating.

Because busses/subways/trains (i.e. mass transit) require lots of passengers to make financial - or even environmental - sense they will always be a niche, if very important, part of transportation. Robotaxis are competing in the much, much larger car/light truck market (80-85% of trips and passenger-miles). Uber/Lyft (plus traditional taxis) is already much bigger than public transit (~2% vs ~1-1.5%) and still growing and with what should eventually be a much lower cost structure robotaxis should greatly expand this. In other words robotaxis like Tesla will likely be much more scalable than public transit.

Pretty much explains the satelite internet situation in Bolivia

https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/stanley-pignal/

X also reported to the investors 2024 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of about $1.25 billion and annual revenue of $2.7 billion. Investors said that was a better picture than they had expected and that X's finances hit an inflection point a few months before the November election.

In 2021, Twitter reported adjusted Ebitda of about $682 million and about $5 billion in revenue. That was the last full year before Musk took the company private.

CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate. ... We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. ... We send samples of the soil, air, and water around the pad to an independent, accredited laboratory after every use of the deluge system, which have consistently shown negligible traces of any contaminants. Importantly, while CNBC's story claims there are “very large exceedances of the mercury” as part of the wastewater discharged at the site, all samples to-date have in fact shown either no detectable levels of mercury whatsoever or found in very few cases levels significantly below the limit the EPA maintains for drinking water. ...

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862

CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate. ... We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. ... We send samples of the soil, air, and water around the pad to an independent, accredited laboratory after every use of the deluge system, which have consistently shown negligible traces of any contaminants. Importantly, while CNBC's story claims there are “very large exceedances of the mercury” as part of the wastewater discharged at the site, all samples to-date have in fact shown either no detectable levels of mercury whatsoever or found in very few cases levels significantly below the limit the EPA maintains for drinking water. ...

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862

> In addition to the upfront hardware cost, service for a Starlink Mini is effectively $150 per month — as SpaceX is offering the service for a Mini as an additional $30 per month bundle on top of a $120 per month Residential service. The “Mini Roam” service “can be used anywhere in the United States” but has a cap of 50 gigabytes of data per month, with Starlink charging $1 per gigabyte for additional data.

Second, this is early release pricing for enthusiasts. Pricing will decline to "about half the price of the standard dish to buy and monthly subscription" which imply something like $60 a month for unlimited data un the US and much lower rates in the rest of the world, say $15/mo in Zambia.

Power Consumption - Average: 25-40W

Not clear if this includes snow melting activated or not...

That's $5,125 per connection! Some phone company makes another bundle.

The “payload” is an experiment that is at most two tanks, a valve and monitoring equipment. However it is pretty clear they will use the existing LOX main and header tanks and valves already present in every Starship. This will meet the requirements of NASA’s 2020 $53 million challenge to “transfer 10 metric tons of cryogenic propellant, specifically liquid oxygen, between tanks on a Starship vehicle”[1] as the smaller header tank holds roughly 20 tons.

If you are already attempting to get into orbit it makes sense to include this experiment in case you succeed because you save the time and cost of an entire launch and might get a $53 million award while advancing a key requirement for HLS, a $2.9 billion dollar contract and the current core mission.

This experiment has been planned for years, Starship was designed to do it and it makes sense to do it now. SpaceX clearly knows what they are doing. Unfortunately HN is terrible on this subject.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/technology/2020-nasa-tipping-point-sele...

This graphic capture my understanding of what people outside SpaceX are expecting for this test. We may learn more in the coming days.

https://twitter.com/InfographicTony/status/17243188773694546...

This video gives you an idea of what it was like watching from there on the first flight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxWJvV6OxU

> Five states—Ohio, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Maine and Colorado—have selected winners at this point, and full details on sites and designs aren’t yet available. Tesla’s bids averaged around $392,000 a site compared with an average of $795,000 from others.

> In most cases, Tesla plans to install 8 chargers, and in some cases a dozen. Most companies are sticking to the minimum required by the federal government—at least four fast-charging ports at a station.

Tesla: $392k/8=$49k Others: $795/4=$199k

49/199 is roughly 1/4th

Non-paywalled version: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-leads-race-t...

SpaceX Eyes $15 Billion in Sales Next Year on Starlink Strength

By Edward Ludlow and Gillian Tan November 6, 2023 at 10:39 PM GMT+1

SpaceX is on track to book revenues of about $9 billion this year across its rocket launch and Starlink businesses, according to people familiar with the matter, with sales projected to rise to around $15 billion in 2024.

Sales for Starlink, in particular, are expected to outpace and exceed the launch business next year as the product becomes available in more regions around the world, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Starlink will then represent the majority of SpaceX revenue, the people said.

The figures represent a rare look into the finances of the Elon Musk-led company, which sells commercial space on its reusable rockets as well as internet beamed down from a constellation of satellites. It also has deals with NASA to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station and run resupply missions. A tender offer at SpaceX earlier this year valued the company at about $150 billion, Bloomberg previously reported.

SpaceX is on track to register earnings, excluding some items, of more than $3 billion, some of the people said. The Information previously reported on the projected operating profits.

Representatives for the company, formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp., did not respond to requests for comment.

Starlink offers high speed internet connection for a monthly fee and a one-time charge for the ground receiver hardware needed to connect to its satellite constellation. Musk previously said that spinning off Starlink in a public listing could be possible as its cash flows become more predictable. The company’s pledged billions of dollars to build out the constellation.

Musk has said there will be a cap to how much money the launch business will make, while Starlink could eventually reach revenues of $30 billion a year. While financial details have been sparse for the closely held company, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said earlier this year that it had already achieved a cash flow positive quarter and would make money this year. Last week, Musk posted on the X social media platform that Starlink had reached cash flow breakeven.