[Starlink] a bit more starship news

[David Lang]

On Tue, 2 May 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> I'd add that with what is probably a couple of million subscribers 
> worldwide by now at US$100/month and growing fast, it gives you a fair 
> idea as to how much you can accomplish with $200 million or so a month 
> at your disposal. I remember O3b putting its initial constellation into 
> orbit at around $1.2 billion - half a year's worth of Starlink income at 
> most - but a multi-year endeavour. You can blow up a lot of launch pads 
> and rockets for that, especially if you build them cheap.

not to mention that Falcon 9s are much cheaper than what was available at that 
point (they've successfully underbid companies listing $25M for a launch, so 
that seems like a reasonalbe figure to use for their internal costs)

David Lang

> On 2/05/2023 9:09 am, David Lang via Starlink wrote:
>> On Mon, 1 May 2023, David P. Reed via Starlink wrote:
>>
>>>> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2023 14:48:51 -0700 (PDT)
>>>
>>>> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>> ...
>>>> the V2 mini satllites do not have the same capability as the full V2 
>>>> satellites,
>>>> they are cut down in capacity as well as in size to fit them on a 
>>>> Falcon 9.
>>>>
>>>> I would not be surprised to see v2 satellites launched on Starship 
>>>> later this
>>>> year.
>>>>
>>>> Gwen Shotwell said late last year that they had a quarter of 
>>>> Starlink having
>>>> positive cash flow, and that it's expected to be profitable in 2023
>>>
>>>
>>> "Quarter of Starlink having positive cash flow" means what exactly? 
>>> I.'ve never heard a quarter of a corporation having positive cash 
>>> flow as any kind of business metric.
>>
>> that it earns more money than it spent in that 3 month period, and 
>> expected to do the same in 2023.
>>
>> SpaceX is private (so it doesn't have to impress the Wall Street 
>> clueless folks), it deosn't get 'cost plus' contracts. There is far 
>> less incentive to do creative accounting than if either of these were 
>> true.
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>