| ▲ | bookofjoe 5 days ago | |
>It may appear as if SpaceX is the only game in town, but in reality a lot of this technology is commoditized now, and space is as diversified and vibrant as ever. Really? SpaceX conducts more than half the world's rocket launches and deploys 80% of the world's satellites. | ||
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 4 days ago | parent [-] | |
And that's underselling it. Of the 550 tons of payload launched in Q1 this year, 478 of them were launched by SpaceX. More than 10x more than China's space agency. More than 5x the rest of the world's governments and corporations (including the US government and other US companies) combined. https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/bryce-briefin... Why? It's not because they somehow cheat by sending most of their mass in starlink satellites. It is the other way around -- their satellite comms business is only viable because of their advances in rocket technology: cost of mass to orbit has not really come down since the 50s, not until SpaceX which slashed it dramatically. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-e... | ||