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The total addressable market (TAM) for SpaceX is finite. There are only so many nation-states and large corporations that want to launch payloads into orbit. A

• joshuastuden 3mo ago
  SpaceX also wants to put data centers in space. That's the big market for SpaceX and how it ties into AI.
  • monegator 3mo ago
    yes musk said that, but that's retarded, a statement made to fill as many bingo spaces as possible
    • jonator 3mo ago
      Energy will be the biggest bottleneck to data centers on land. Is not an issue in space. Space is the perfect env for running compute.
      • AmericanOP 3mo ago
        Perfect, minus that pesky law of thermodynamics.
      • deadbolt 3mo ago
        What about the heat?
      • andruby 3mo ago
        Space-grade photovoltaics are >10x more expensive than ground based panels. Add some (Tesla) utility scale batteries and it can run 24/7. No need for expensive radiators or rocket launches. And personnel can upgrade the hardware every time there's a new generation of GPU's. Putting datacenters in deserts around the equator is a much better idea than in Space. If you're really optimizing for cost that is. If you're optimizing for SpaceX meme-stock valuation the former wins
      • tavavex 3mo ago
        Space is an abysmal environment for running compute. It offers no real advantages over doing the same thing on Earth, and it's more expensive, too! Energy is far cheaper and more abundant here than in space. And get ready to figure out things like: - Heat dissipation - Radiation shielding - Either the most complex in-space construction ever undertaken, or the most complex distributed computing problem ever undertaken (no, Starlink satellites aren't good enough, we're orders of magnitude away from replicating the speed and reliability of connections within a single room) - Zero flexibility, zero repairability, zero upgradability. Either it's working, or you make it burn up in the atmosphere with no in-between. Add on that the rationality of sending mountains of precision-manufactured tech containing many uncommon metals only for them to be completely lost. This makes the pricing even worse, in addition to - Already high costs for designing, building and launching all that in addition to all the extra weight overhead you're taking in components that don't do computation, when the alternative is building a glorified warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a project tied up in hype and created solely so spaceflight can be hastily duct taped to the AI investment hysteria. Ask yourself why no one brought this up before or outside the context of AI, despite the lowering of space launch prices and data centers both existing before any of it.
        • jonator 3mo ago
          Assume reusable spaceflight eventually brings launch cost close to the cost of fuel. This is close to happening. The overhead of building out grid and power infrastructure on land would then exceed the installation speed and cost relative to space based deployments. Also assume the compute that does make it to space has a short shelf life anyways so lack of ability to repair is a non issue. As we scale manufacturing on land this will increasingly be the case. China has already run experiments and served models from space, so we know the heat dissipation equation is solvable. Finally you’d arrive at a similar model that’s already proven successful with Starlink but applied to serving inference. The key question is speed to scale new deployments to meet demand. If the markets demand is near infinite, they will choose to fund space based deployments over slower land deployments.
          • tavavex 3mo ago
    • slg 3mo ago
      The way people just casually use that word again now is so sad. And I don't even mean that in an "I'm offended" way, but more of "I'm embarrassed by the way you're trying to be offensive" way.
      • fcarraldo 3mo ago
        Ironically, we can thank Elon Musk for that too. edit: Gross that you're being downvoted. HN crowd needs a serious look in the mirror.
        • scottyah 3mo ago
          Bringing back and pinning the word to not derail the discussion of "mental illness", "mental handicap", "slow learner", etc or its use as an offensive? I think the main issue is that no matter which word/phrase is used, some people will use it as a slur, and changing it so often causes more issues than it solves.
      • tnel77 3mo ago
        For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to be offensive or edgy when I say that word with friends. “The grass is green and that thing (random topic) is retarded.”
        • slg 3mo ago
          You know that many people are offended by that word and yet you use it anyway when other words would get the exact same message across without the offense. The only reasons to use that specific word are either the desire to cause offense or to revel in the possibility of causing offense.
          • tnel77 3mo ago
            That is your opinion, and you are entitled to hold it.
        • monegator 3mo ago
    • jcpham2 3mo ago
      Yes but the statement is in fact a milestone to meet in order to vest Class B stock options, specifically SPCX needs to put 100 terawatts of compute [1] in outer space and beam it back to somewhere, my guess is Earth. There's even more rewards for putting a million people on Mars and reaching a market cap of 7.5T by a certain date. Oh yeah he has to stay employed too. From the SEC Form 3 filed June 12th: 1) This Form 3 does not include 1,302,072,285 shares of restricted Class B Common Stock issued to and held of record by the Reporting Person, which may be voted by the Reporting Person, and the vesting of which is subject to the satisfaction of certain performance and other conditions. 1,000,000,000 shares of restricted Class B Common Stock vest upon (i) the Issuer's achievement of specified market capitalization milestones across 15 equal tranches ranging from $500 billion to $7.5 trillion, with each milestone reflecting $500 billion in additional valuation, and (ii) the Issuer's establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants, in each case, subject to the Reporting Person's continued employment ("SpaceX CEO Award"). 302,072,285 shares of restricted Class B Common Stock vest upon (i) the Issuer's achievement of specified market capitalization milestones across 12 equal tranches ranging from $1.065 trillion to $6.565 trillion, with each milestone reflecting $500 billion in additional valuation, and (ii) the Issuer's completion of non-Earth-based data centers capable of delivering 100 terawatts of compute per year, in each case, subject to the Reporting Person's continued employment ("AI CEO Award")
    • tnel77 3mo ago
      Why is this the case? I want him to be correct, but I am also skeptical.
      • tavavex 3mo ago
        > I want him to be correct Why? If you're curious, I explained why space data centers are such an irredeemably stupid idea in my eyes a few comments up.
        • tnel77 3mo ago
          Why? Why not? Why wish failure upon someone who is trying to do something “good?” I haven’t read your other comment yet and plan to, but it seems weird to seemingly wish ill on someone’s grand plans.
    • nozzlegear 3mo ago
      There's no need to use slurs.
      • a34729t 3mo ago
        Musk himself has identified as such: “For the record, I am a fat retard.” So, that is in fact, his word.
        • Octoth0rpe 3mo ago
          If someone refers to themselves by a particular slur, that does not grant you any social leniency to call them that too. Consider that exact situation with any other particular slur.
          • monegator 3mo ago
            I have not called musk redarded, i have called the idea retarded. Same as master branch or master/slave communication idiocy. People that get this hung up really have too much free time on their hand, or have too much to gain in discussing language instead of discussing the actual problem. For example: see how many commenters here are debating words instead of debating the validity of yet another hype-inducing value-pumping statement for clueless investors and fanboys. On local fintech radio the week it was first announced they spent 3-4 days discussing the financial implication, then just one discussing the feasibility. Guess we're lucky we got one whole day of engineering discussing things for a change
        • nozzlegear 3mo ago
          Musk using a slur about himself doesn't grant permission for others to use it. Would monegator have used the n-word if Musk had used it to describe himself? Hopefully not. And let's be honest with each other: Musk says things like this for shock value, because it's not an acceptable word.
  • infinitewars 3mo ago
    [dead]
  • chorsestudios 3mo ago
    xAI could tie in just fine without Cursor in the picture.
  • scoofy 3mo ago
    I still have no idea how that would work. Imagine launching an entire data center building into space, and then imagine also launching a solar array to power it, and then also launching a gigantic radiator to cool it... and the radiator is full of some kind of liquid that can never leak even though it's in a vacuum. Like, sure, but also, that seems like a lot of work, a lot of extra cost, and a lot of risk, all just to avoid building it in Kansas.
    • scottyah 3mo ago
      That's the cool part, scoofy. You don't need to understand how it will work, you don't need to take any physics classes, round up enough investors, seek out and explain the basic ideas with the people who will make it happen, or invent anything new. Nor do you need to understand political sciences, taxation, jurisdictions, supply chains, or anything else needed to understand the question behind the Data Centers in Space solution. You aren't even being roped into it with taxes, nor do you have to buy a single share. Other than willingly reading about it on whichever news sources you choose, your observed life will not change a single bit. You can choose to seek out that info, or you can remain blissfully ignorant. But please don't join the online cacophony of people polluting the threads thinking everyone wants to understand just how ignorant they are. I get it, I really do. It's a hard task and you don't understand it. But WHY do you feel the need to share that you don't understand? Do you think it makes you look smarter? Do you feel like you fit in more now? If you seek to understand, why aren't you asking questions??
      • orsorna 3mo ago
        >You aren't even being roped into it with taxes, nor do you have to buy a single share. Because of the eventual index inclusions, and insane market cap, this affects nearly everyone with a retirement account. Unless you aren't tracking big indexes for some reason.
        • scottyah 3mo ago
          And some of our compute will run in space, the point is that it's all happening in the background. Most people have no idea how their retirement accounts work beyond knowing it's a bunch of companies pooled together. You don't need to understand how stocks get traded through Alternative Trading Systems, how the companies can decide to take profits vs paying out dividends, etc. A lot of the information is freely available, but you don't need to understand it or take any action.
  • mftrhu 3mo ago
    Do they, really? Because putting data centers in space would mean multiplying the infrastructure cost by a few orders of magnitude, while being far, far away from cheap energy - photovoltaics would work, certainly, but it will take a lot of it, and it's not like you can just slap panels on the roof - easy cooling, and people. It's a ridiculous idea, and I don't believe it's what they are really pursuing.
  • fcarraldo 3mo ago
    Which hasn't yet been proven to be either technically or economically viable, even on paper. It's a pipe dream. The cynical viewpoint is that this is Elon capitalizing on current datacenter hype to inflate SpaceX's valuation based on theoretically overcoming tremendous amounts of hard physics problems, over the next 5-10 years. As he did with FSD, Boring Company / Hyperloop, Twitter, etc.
    • inglor_cz 3mo ago
      Neither was reuse of rockets and I remember the ex-boss of Arianespace laughing at those bozos of SpaceX who try to pretend that they are a serious space business. Musk made some bad bets, but also some good ones (Falcon rockets, Starlink) and some at least promising ones (Starship, Neuralink). And Twitter bought him enormous political influence - I wouldn't consider this a failure either, from the realistically-cynical point of view. That cannot be measured by revenue alone.
      • petra 3mo ago
        For most of his sucsessful ideas he had sophisticated investors, VC's, to judge the idea and take the bet(at an early stage). Would any VC(one without a conflict of interest) invest now, for the long term, based on those visions?
      • Jtarii 3mo ago
        Twitter was a "success" for musk sure, it was also a catastrophic failure for the rest of western civilisation. Musk has been coasting on his successes from 10+ years ago. He has nothing good to offer anyone in 2026.
        • richwater 3mo ago
          > He has nothing good to offer anyone in 2026. Falcon launches cost dramatically _less_ than comparables like Ariane. In Fact, Ariane had to beg europe of subsidies to keep the program competitive. Meanwhile, Starship is well on it's way. You don't know what you're talking about.
  • AmericanOP 3mo ago
    A great business for the rocket logistics company since radiators are a thing. A less good business for the data center company.
  • notnullorvoid 3mo ago
    It's much more likely SpaceX will continue building more ground data centers and using their sat relays to make global connection faster than ground connections can allow.
• bg24 3mo ago
  Space Opportunities + Robots (Tesla merger when it happens) + Software factory (Cursor). It is a umbrella enterprise.
• dotwaffle 3mo ago
  All markets are finite. But you're thinking too finitely -- remember that there was a proposal to use Starship (BFS?) as a point-to-point method of people transport too (London to Sydney in under 50 minutes I seem to remember). You also have other services: Starlink is an obvious one they're pursuing now, but there's many other things that they could branch into with no effective competition right now, from harvesting resources such as Helium-3 to Rare Earths (ironic name), to... (thinks for several minutes) banishing people to the Phantom Zone? But you get what I mean, it's not just about rockets, it's about the things cheap and reliable rocketry enables.
  • petra 3mo ago
    Musk is a genius creating really exciting ideas. No doubt about that. But as they say,"the devil is in the details" - Can Starship transport people from London to Sydney safely economically, compared to Boom, which is working on a supersonic passenger aircraft ? -Why can the boring machine dig tunnel at much lower cost than it's competitors? Maybe it's because the everyone else tries to dig tunnels for trains, which have a much larger diameter than Musk's boring machine, which only fits his "Teslas at a tunnel" concept? And it might be a good idea. Worth a try. But be honest about it. -Sure, data centers in space probably have some great uses, and I'm happy he's trying, but will they ever be more economical than deploying servers on the ocean? On countries with very cool climate?, powered by new energy technologies?
    • richwater 3mo ago
      Boom is not a serious endeavor. They have not committed to an engine. There is no engine commercially available to buy and no engine producer has committed to creating one.
      • wasabi991011 3mo ago
        I'm not sure I understand. From a quick google search it seems like they are designing and manufacturing it themselves (with a few partners). Am I missing something, or is your information out of date?
• TiredOfLife 3mo ago
  Last week a 13 year old video of ceo of Ariane Airspace got popular on twitter. When asked about spacex and reusable rockets he said: "there are only 25 satellites launched a year, every year, and that’s not going to change" Currently a single Starlink launch is 25 satellites. And there are 100 such launches a year.
• a34729t 3mo ago
  Musk would argue infinite. They literally want to create offworld colonies, with everything that entails. Obviously it's crazy, but it beats the pants off more adtech. I'm bullish on DC in space with laser links. The whole sentient sun/railgun on the moon... hey, go big or go home. I would have probably just asked MBS for money on that one, and renamed the railgun "the line (of ketamine)".
  • kristjansson 3mo ago
    It’s insane enough to consider undertaking the risk of a moon or mars colony. But doing so with him as the sole load bearing link in your supply chain? What if mars turns out to be woke and you’re fed into a wood chipper like USAID?
• ransom1538 3mo ago
  A global centralized internet provider? I mean, just that, might be a trillion dollar company. Let alone build out datacenters? Those are not easy or cheap here on earth. You can build out datacenters at scale with minimal need for power or cooling. I think the current rate for a data center (not gpu) is 120million. Datacenters are super hip now too.
  • dakolli 3mo ago
    More like a giant military radar larping as an space based ISP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbp3kdJZ1_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbp3kdJZ1_A Elon has always been a Department of Defense/intelligence asset larping as a capitalists. You can't exactly go to congress and get a quarter of the government budget to do globe spanning surveillance from space, or convince them to let you fund, build and maintain a platform for psyopping your own civilian population (x) So you go get your illegal projects funded through capital markets with through an asset like Elon. As soon as the department of defense started focusing on subterranean warfare and how its the future of wars Elon starts a tunneling company. Elon is just Howard Hughes v2, they're running the same script again.
• chatmasta 3mo ago
  Is the TAM for airlines finite? They ship an indefinitely growing volume of cargo and people. Reusable rockets will be no different. Cargo into space, people in point-to-point orbital flights and to Mars.
• alooPotato 3mo ago
  Not a sound argument because you would have said the same thing before they did Starlink. "The TAM for launch services is finite. There are only so many countries/companies that want to launch satellites."