Quote from: Geron on 10/14/2017 02:59 amIf I were chief economic advisor to Elon, I would counsel him to maximize revenue on the Satellite internet business by keeping launch prices high, to keep out competitors such that SpaceX can offer the fastest and cheapest space based internet on the market. If successful, Mars colony money should be readily available.Would invite antitrust trouble, if not in the U.S. than certainly in Europe, given what's happened there to U.S. companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp - Ed Kyle
If I were chief economic advisor to Elon, I would counsel him to maximize revenue on the Satellite internet business by keeping launch prices high, to keep out competitors such that SpaceX can offer the fastest and cheapest space based internet on the market. If successful, Mars colony money should be readily available.
I would like to see them move the price down a bit to demonstrate to the market that lower prices are coming. It should increase launch demand at the margins.
I think after talking so much about reducing cost they should reduce their prices just a little, say below the $ 60 million threshold. No reason to go to $ 40 million or less, even if they could.
Did cutting launch prices on flight proven stages by 30% increase the number of contracts SX picked up?
Quote from: john smith 19 on 10/14/2017 05:03 pmDid cutting launch prices on flight proven stages by 30% increase the number of contracts SX picked up?I don't know that SpaceX cut the prices by 30% on flight proven stages. In fact, I seriously doubt that is true.
Quote from: RedLineTrain on 10/14/2017 07:28 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 10/14/2017 05:03 pmDid cutting launch prices on flight proven stages by 30% increase the number of contracts SX picked up?I don't know that SpaceX cut the prices by 30% on flight proven stages. In fact, I seriously doubt that is true.They didn't. The 30% number was tossed around before rebuilding LC-40 became a thing. Actual cut is of order 10% for now.
quick observation- there is no reason why, with 1 single provider with reusability in a market, the price should go much down. Assuming that the provider is led by profit maximisation and not by charity/ideology, the price will decrease enough for the more competitive provider to eat out all possible contracts, but not an inch more. it COULD decrease further, but it would make no sense for the launch provider. You need at least 2 providers with reusability (and strong anti-cartel oversight!) to ensure that costs reduction are transmitted in structural terms into the pricing. Otherwise, cost reductions only increase profit margins.market structure of reference:Bertrand-Edgeworth oligopolitstic competition model with constraints on individual firms' capacity of absorbing all market demand.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand%E2%80%93Edgeworth_model
Time is money. Previously SpaceX offered cheaper rockets (62 million) but you had to wait months if not years to launch. That negated much of the cost savings vis a vis their competition. Now you can launch immediately for 62 million or wait many months and pay more for a competitor's rocket. SpaceX is now winning on two fronts. Because of this you could legitimately argue that SpaceX should be charging even more than 62 million for this promptness and they still would be reducing costs for their customers due to earlier received revenues from faster satellite launches.
Quote from: Dante2121 on 10/21/2017 09:10 pmTime is money. Previously SpaceX offered cheaper rockets (62 million) but you had to wait months if not years to launch. That negated much of the cost savings vis a vis their competition. Now you can launch immediately for 62 million or wait many months and pay more for a competitor's rocket. SpaceX is now winning on two fronts. Because of this you could legitimately argue that SpaceX should be charging even more than 62 million for this promptness and they still would be reducing costs for their customers due to earlier received revenues from faster satellite launches.If you're talking about being able to move up the queue through accepting a pre-flown booster, that advantage is going to soon disappear. Moving up the launch queue is only an option right now because SpaceX has pre-flown boosters to use that are sitting idle. Once there is widespread adoption of reused boosters by the satellite industry, your place in the queue will just be your place in the queue. With both SES's and Iridium's adoption, plus their imminent usage on NASA's CRS launches, that day will very soon be at hand. Of course, SpaceX being able to reuse boosters is vital to their strategy of raising their launch rate. So, they'll be able to burn down their backlog much more quickly. But, very soon there won't be any line jumping because pretty much everyone will accept a reused booster.If you're talking about general lead time from contract agreement to launch, then SpaceX is still only selling launches for 2 years in the future. Though they may offer shorter lead times for government launches and/or higher prices. There's really not much demand for anything else because, except in the event of a customer swapping launchers, no customers are stockpiling satellites to launch when launchers are available.
Quite a billion posts to filter through, so apologies if already asked/answered:Any ideas when the first time attempt at a 3-time flown booster will occur?
So even if they never fly them post-5: It's an insurance policy. They can still refly those recovered cores (or part them out) in case BFR has teething problems and is delayed after they shut down the F9 booster line.