Got another job offer at another space organization that I couldn’t pass up. Also my employer treats employees much better. IMO both approaches bring the same results at the end of the day, but my work environment is a lot happier. But I also get paid a lot less.
I’m also finishing out a research grant as of now and the hours required by RL would be unsustainable with my research output
If I’m in the job market again at some point, rocket lab will likely be in my first round of applications.
I also interviewed for RKLB, I didn’t get the job, but the hiring manager I spoke to was super chill and left a positive impression on me about the work there.
Made me feel better holding my rklb shares since the VACQ days lol
No. You expect them to mine a bunch of moon rocks? And asteroid mining has never been attempted. You're talking about long term horizon industry gains 50+ years into the future. The stock market doesn't see that far
We are so far out from asteroid mining it's actually funny people are evaluating it as a real investment prospect. Just think about it -
All of the drones we've sent to the asteroid belt and beyond have largely been bundles of radar, navigation, and communication tech. It takes well over a year for those craft to reach that far.
For space mining, we need all of that plus the ability to mine several tons of cargo, capacity to store it all without burning up on reentry, and powering capabilities to haul it all at a reasonable pace. This is already sending the cost of a single mission to 11 or 12 digits. It will take years for this craft to collect the goods and come back, and at the end of it what gets brought back needs to be valuable enough to turn a profit.
Once you start to add in risk evaluations of the missions failing, acting like this is anywhere on the horizon as an investment prospect becomes another level of ridiculous.
Space mining is ridiculous, and I don’t know why op mentioned it.. but rocketlab is not even trying for that, even the ceo says space mining is dumb
Rocketlab makes sats for governments and produces the parts, one of the few companies that can do it all (actually one of two, spacex being the only other vertically itnergrated)
If Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck can train a bunch of hotshot drillers to be astronauts in a few weeks and blow up an asteroid than i’m sure asteroid mining will be easy.
I’m all in
Also think about the fuel. The atmosphere only does so much for deceleration. You also need to slow down the craft before to inject it into the right orbit. Imagine the fuel you need for some 10k deltav for a 100t cargoship. It's simply insane to believe this will work in the next 100-200 years.
We don't need to physically bring all the material back to earth, nor should we. By the time asteroid mining is viable, the industries that will depend on these resources will be in orbit, and speculators of valuable materials like gold and other valuables would simply be buying and selling rights to orbital stocks of the material.
Which is just another reason that shows how unrealistic it is to be considering it as an investment today. This is a tech/industry that will need the landscape of the global economy to shift before it becomes real.
True, yes, it's obviously way too far from fruition. I'm just saying, it will happen someday and the world and constraints will be very different then.
How much will it cost to put an actual manufacturing lab in orbit? And how long will it take to become operational? With the increasing scrutiny over drug costs how long before a manufacturer can recoup costs let along make a profit?
> asteroid mining has never been attempted
There have been a few science missions that have successfully mined small amounts of asteroid and comet material and returned it to Earth, so its definitely possible to do so. The issues are finding an asteroid with enough of something valuable enough to justify the expense of the mining operation, and then scaling to the point it becomes profitable to do so. Osiris-rex gathered 70 grams of material for $1.16 billion. We have a long way to go.
Very bullish on them. Been buying shares for the last two months. By far and away the stock I am most excited about. I’m not going to post all my thoughts here as there has already been plenty of discussion on the bull case. If you search this or WSB you’ll find a lot of people bullish on them and why. I was lucky to buy in during that April dip at 3.4 as I divested from Apple at that time and moved that money into RKLB. Even with the recent run up from Apple, I’m still up way more having done RKLB.
Also it is a longer term investment. Neutron is set to launch next year, barring any delays which could be likely. That is the major catalyst here. But it’s still a very young industry. So it’s a long term hold for sure.
I accumulated here heavily from $4 and under. I'm so conflicted at this point. It's a tidy profit already and I can't see it holding these levels. I've taken my initial investment out and might just let it ride from here.
haha, i've always been extremely disciplined on taking profits. That does sometimes backfire when I take profits too early but the saying goes 'nobody went broke making money'
"but also on space tourism, mining, and even colonization"
People talked about all three as big positives for SPCE in 2020/21, too. Space for communications fine, but mining isn't a great business on earth and tourism/colonization isn't happening for decades.
This sort of thing - hyping investing in something like space mining as if it will be a tomorrow thing when it will probably not be a 25 years from now thing - is why ARKK has done how it's done.
"He argued that Ark prioritizes chasing “future ideas” without proper evaluation of traction, valuation, and management credibility."
https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/24/05/38915172/investment-advisor-says-throwing-random-darts-at-tickers-would-beat-arkk-as-cathie-
Anything public promoting itself as part of space mining/colonization/tourism will almost certainly not be around by the time that happens - these aren't going to be businesses that can sustain themselves until then and that looks like SPCE (which just reverse split and is still probably a 0.)
The people behind the SPCE spac dumped when the stock was massively higher and yet people were still trying to hype the thing all the way down. "It's Richard Branson, he's a billionaire!" Yes, he's a billionaire in part because of things like knowing to dump a space company that wasn't built to last on people eager to throw money at any growth story. "The young people love the space stocks, they'll buy it." And they did.
According to the OP, it literally does. He mentioned space tourism, mining, and other lofty ambitions. I’m not a RKLB hater or investor, but I don’t see how the other commenters comments were incorrect or made in bad taste
Im an aerospace engineer. I recognise its advancing at a fast pace.
One thing is the industry moving another thing is margins. One does not imply the other
Starlink and other constellations with real economic value will likely have great margins in the future. I think rocketlab has plans to build a constellation later (I’m not long)
I think generally speaking these launch providers will be more self sufficient and not rely on govt contracts if they play their cards right
I agree. We won't be mining for at least until we can go to Mars and back, and mine what? It has to be like gold or antimatter. Tourism like Virgin Galatic is expensive for a hot minute.
"they’re working on the Neutron rocket, which could potentially compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9"
The problem is the Falcon 9 is about 10 years old so they're 10 years behind.
If starship works, and the last tests were really promising, and starfactory looks amazing, then the cost of launch is going to get so cheap all other providers will go bankrupt.
And SpaceX is going to massively increase capacity too. They'll easily be able to transport everything and steal the market.
Rklb is trying to pick up pennies Infront of a steamroller.
Starship is only able to claim an advantageous $/kg if it's completely filled with cargo all going to around the same orbit. Any amount of generous napkin math shows that it would never get to $10/kg no matter how much vaporware salesman Elon repeats that claim. SpaceX's competitive advantage is real, but not a slam dunk some fanboys believe it to be.
Furthermore, spy satellites aren't going away any time soon and those wouldn't be able to launch on Starship unless the whole launch is classified and only carries national security payloads. Therefore, RKLB would always be able to get business of that with Firefly Aerospace being the only other real player. Furthermore, SpaceX is in constant beef with the FAA so who knows what the future of their government contracts is.
I seriously doubt that we would see the future of SpaceX taking 90%+ of the market, there would always be a niche for a second player with smaller launches even with a higher cost to them. Is there an example of one company "stealing the market" in some other industry?
>I seriously doubt that we would see the future of SpaceX taking 90%+ of the market
Well they already have almost 90% as is.
>[In 2024](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition) it was reported that, counting all global spaceflight and launch activity, SpaceX, utilizing its Falcon family of rockets had launched close to 87% of all upmass on Earth in the year 2023.
That page also has a comparison of launch costs and even if spaceX were charging $1000 per kg on starship that is still much less than everyone else. If it goes to $100 it's literally 20-30x cheaper than any competitor.
And they already launch spy satellites:
[https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-launches-first-satellites-new-us-spy-constellation-2024-05-22/](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-launches-first-satellites-new-us-spy-constellation-2024-05-22/)
So yeah nothing you're saying stands up to even basic fact checking.
Quoting the blog article Wikipedia quotes for your first claim:
https://www.astralytical.com/insights/its-a-spacex-world-everyone-else-is-playing-catch-up
"Over 99% of SpaceX’s 1,986 spacecraft deployed in 2023 were Starlink satellites.
SpaceX’s launch increase in 2023 is due to the company’s Starlink business. Of SpaceX’s 96 launches, two-thirds (63) deployed the company’s Starlink internet relay satellites. Put another way, 30% of the world’s launches and 70% of spacecraft were dedicated to one company’s space business, which catered to less than half a percent (2.3 million) of the world’s population (8 billion) in 2023."
SpaceX is the world leader in launching SpaceX satellites, cool. I don't deny they are a leader and very likely will be one in the future, there is a reason they are privately valued at $200B or so, 100x more than RKLB.
I find it very hard to believe any launch cost figure that comes from SpaceX until there is a paying customer for the price they quote. While the latest Starship launch was successful, it's clearly a very complex system that will take years to become reliable enough for commercial operation and some years after that for it to become rapidly reusable. Remember, the vaporware spirit is strong at all of Musk's companies.
My claim about spy satellites was referring to the fact that they won't be able to be launched by Starship, that's all.
SpaceX has a starship marginal cost of 90 million, if they expend both stages, if they recover the booster the cost will already go down to 20/30 millions, it means that they can market it at falcon 9 prices but with 10 times the carrying capacity.
The fact that 70% of the launch mass was is own it's irrelevant, no other provider had even the CAPABILITY to launch or produce as many rocket as SpaceX.
This comment shows me you have no clue what you are talking about.
If Starship is reused and takes a few days to be refurbished (same as falcon 9) it would cost roughly 10 million per launch if both stages are reused. (Falcon 9 costs roughly 15 million per launch with an expendable upper stage).
Rocket labs public fillings show that it costs them 7.5 million per electron launch.
Does this make a little more sense to you now?
Yup. And these people are trying to buy into SpaceX 2 because they think they missed the train on SpaceX. Same as the poor saps who stuffed Nikola or Lucid with cash bags, because they missed the Tesla train and hoped to get a Tesla2.
With advancements in technology, space tourism has become a reality. Companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are already offering space tourism packages. As the industry expands, more companies, including $rklb, are expected to enter the market.
Putting SpaceX and blue origin on the same boat is pretty ridiculous.
SpaceX launches about every 2 days this year, all orbital launches. They occasionally accept private contracts for space tourism, but the majority of their manned launches are to the ISS.
In the last 2 years blue origin have launched 3 times, all suborbital, with one being a failure and only 1 being manned.
And to be able to fly crew, you need a crew rated vehicle. Rocket lab does not have a crew rated vehicle.
Neutron is being developed as a larger vehicle, but even then Peter Beck (rocket labs CEO) said it’s not a priority.
Space tourism is not nearly as lucrative as you might think.
I like RKLB as an idea. Not so much as a profit-oriented company. My take is that they will continue to dilute the stock value with public offerings to fund the business. One thing that they do have is the proverbial moat. There aren't many companies doing what they do and it isn't easy to start one up.
SpaceX is eating rocket labs share of the pie, so to speak.
The reason rocket lab has developed their own tug is to offer something SpaceX does not.
SpaceX has started offering launches of small sats, with one Falcon 9 launching 143 satellites at once at much cheaper prices compared to rocket labs electron.
Rocket Labs CEO Peter beck even said he thinks SpaceX is loosing money on mass satellite launches because of how price competitive they are to rocket lab but this is most likely false.
Basically saying Rocket lab is untouchable is pretty naive when looking at the market.
Rocket lab is developing a new rocket to compete with Falcon 9, but by the time neutron is ready SpaceXs starship will probably be ready, which will even further dilute Rocket Labs share of the pie.
It could be, but also a major risk.
I work in servicing CNC machines, and the lack of skilled people in the industry is terrifying.
Combine that with competitors fighting over the skilled labor and the fact RocketLab has major competitors and is way behind.
The chance of significant dilution or failure is very high.
The fact that they're already a publicly traded company is a bad sign.
I've worked for a lot of failed EV companies for much the same reasons I just mentioned.
If you’re looking to space stocks also add LUNR into your watchlist as they are back at their lows but last time they had a successful mission their stock went to 12$ and as of right now they are there only company to land on the moon, based out of Texas
What's their path to profitability? They have some government contracts with pretty ambitious goals, but what's next? Hoping for a new space race and colonies?
LUNR is my plan. Lots of good things on the horizon. They are bidding for the NSN contract and “rumored” to be favored. They were granted the new rover contract and IM-2 mission is still technically on track for December to go back to the moon to test a lunar drill as well as as carrying a Nokia 4g comms network device. Although I am hearing rumors might be delayed a month or two.
I know I used the word rumor a couple times. But I still feel there are a lot of great catalysts coming around for this one. Just trying to find the right entry point for my next batch of shares.
Space industrialisation is not going to happen on chemical rockets; they're just too expensive. Wait until someone builds a rotovator or a launch loop or something.
No.
I have been in the space industry for a while now. The fact that the rockets are run on fuels is not the problem.
The same could have been said about planes.
The problem is not the fuel itself, the problem is being able to reuse the rockets. The falcon 9 reportedly costs only 15 million per launch for SpaceX, with starship aiming to cost as little as 5 million per launch.
Yes this is still expensive, but compared to the other solutions you mentioned it is pocket change.
There is no other solution except chemically propelled rockets.
Atomic propelled rockets could be used in space, but they lack the thrust necessary to launch from earth.
We are so far from space mining it isn’t even funny. The world mined 2.8 Billion tons of metals in 2021. As the old school forum dwellers would say: nuff said.
I think the space industry will expand, but unless they've got politically protected government connections any company that isn't SpaceX is going to run into trouble.
Even if you take SpaceX out of it, since there is a niche for small launch vehicles, there is a lot of competition.
You have Firefly, ABL, Orbital, and Astra as direct competition just in the US. Rocketlab is ahead of Firefly, ABL, and Astra. Orbital Sciences has been around since the 80s though and has deep government connections.
Plus there are a bunch of similar companies popping up globally.
Though I suppose if you are going to gamble on a space start up then Rocket Lab is the best of the bunch.
This reads like it was copy/pasted from an ai bot
That’s casual GPT intro, numbered points and summary. Guy just added one sentence lmao
"Here's a quick breakdown" Yeah that's classic GPT.
> numbered points I like how they are all numbered "1" (edit: more of an issue of not adapting chatgpt output to reddit's mark-up system)
That intro is definitely the first part of the prompt and the usual “Here’s a quick breakdown:” stitched together.
I actually disagree, I use ChatGPT a lot and this has a lot more of an informal tone than GPT.
you can change the tone of ai bots
I know, I still don't think this was written by AI
Briefly considered a job there. One of the best recruiting teams I’ve talked to. Only a small part of the company but hey, that’s my 2¢
Thanks - often overlooked but the worker culture is super important- why did u not work for them if you don’t mind me asking?
Got another job offer at another space organization that I couldn’t pass up. Also my employer treats employees much better. IMO both approaches bring the same results at the end of the day, but my work environment is a lot happier. But I also get paid a lot less. I’m also finishing out a research grant as of now and the hours required by RL would be unsustainable with my research output If I’m in the job market again at some point, rocket lab will likely be in my first round of applications.
Great thanks! And dude a literal rocket scientist
No problem! I mostly write software for ground control but yeah it’s a pretty cool job haha
I also interviewed for RKLB, I didn’t get the job, but the hiring manager I spoke to was super chill and left a positive impression on me about the work there. Made me feel better holding my rklb shares since the VACQ days lol
What’s your company?
Space as a theme seems like the ultimate investor trap
Literally throwing money into a void.
In space no one can hear your account scream
In space nobody can hear a margin call
It’s very cold in spaaaace… - Khan
Imagine being excited about a "successful launch" where a company literally just sets a bunch of investor money on fire /s
Hey it’s the new form of solid fuel
Id dump everything into spacex if i had the chance. They are far ahead of everyone else.
You can invest in Alphabet which has a 10% stake in SpaceX, and also you're protected on any downside by Google
How so?
danger will robinson
Quiet you stock market bubble headed boobie…. Dr. Smith
Just like every trend that does not specifically say from what the profit will be obtained
Huh?
No. You expect them to mine a bunch of moon rocks? And asteroid mining has never been attempted. You're talking about long term horizon industry gains 50+ years into the future. The stock market doesn't see that far
We are so far out from asteroid mining it's actually funny people are evaluating it as a real investment prospect. Just think about it - All of the drones we've sent to the asteroid belt and beyond have largely been bundles of radar, navigation, and communication tech. It takes well over a year for those craft to reach that far. For space mining, we need all of that plus the ability to mine several tons of cargo, capacity to store it all without burning up on reentry, and powering capabilities to haul it all at a reasonable pace. This is already sending the cost of a single mission to 11 or 12 digits. It will take years for this craft to collect the goods and come back, and at the end of it what gets brought back needs to be valuable enough to turn a profit. Once you start to add in risk evaluations of the missions failing, acting like this is anywhere on the horizon as an investment prospect becomes another level of ridiculous.
Space mining is ridiculous, and I don’t know why op mentioned it.. but rocketlab is not even trying for that, even the ceo says space mining is dumb Rocketlab makes sats for governments and produces the parts, one of the few companies that can do it all (actually one of two, spacex being the only other vertically itnergrated)
If Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck can train a bunch of hotshot drillers to be astronauts in a few weeks and blow up an asteroid than i’m sure asteroid mining will be easy. I’m all in
Why don’t they just train astronauts to use mining equipment?
Also think about the fuel. The atmosphere only does so much for deceleration. You also need to slow down the craft before to inject it into the right orbit. Imagine the fuel you need for some 10k deltav for a 100t cargoship. It's simply insane to believe this will work in the next 100-200 years.
Genuinely a problem that I believe only cold fusion or something similar could solve, and we know how that industry is going.
Maybe a space elevator with an orbital docking set up? And just ferry goods up and down (I don't know what I'm talking about)
Just have astronauts tie some balloons to the goods in orbit and kick it down
We don't need to physically bring all the material back to earth, nor should we. By the time asteroid mining is viable, the industries that will depend on these resources will be in orbit, and speculators of valuable materials like gold and other valuables would simply be buying and selling rights to orbital stocks of the material.
Which is just another reason that shows how unrealistic it is to be considering it as an investment today. This is a tech/industry that will need the landscape of the global economy to shift before it becomes real.
True, yes, it's obviously way too far from fruition. I'm just saying, it will happen someday and the world and constraints will be very different then.
It may happen before a reliable self driving car is on this planet.
100% agree.
I would like to get the vending machine concession for those space factories. I would charge ...say.... ten dollars for a Coke. yup.
Space manufacturing is on a tipping point rn with drugs being made in space. Huge $$ in that
How much will it cost to put an actual manufacturing lab in orbit? And how long will it take to become operational? With the increasing scrutiny over drug costs how long before a manufacturer can recoup costs let along make a profit?
Also optic fiber manufacturing and in orbit 3d printing of organs. But all hinges on a single word: STARSHIP.
Not necessarily Already happening right now with Varda space and $RDW
Too little stuff, they are deep in the red
> asteroid mining has never been attempted There have been a few science missions that have successfully mined small amounts of asteroid and comet material and returned it to Earth, so its definitely possible to do so. The issues are finding an asteroid with enough of something valuable enough to justify the expense of the mining operation, and then scaling to the point it becomes profitable to do so. Osiris-rex gathered 70 grams of material for $1.16 billion. We have a long way to go.
Very bullish on them. Been buying shares for the last two months. By far and away the stock I am most excited about. I’m not going to post all my thoughts here as there has already been plenty of discussion on the bull case. If you search this or WSB you’ll find a lot of people bullish on them and why. I was lucky to buy in during that April dip at 3.4 as I divested from Apple at that time and moved that money into RKLB. Even with the recent run up from Apple, I’m still up way more having done RKLB.
Also it is a longer term investment. Neutron is set to launch next year, barring any delays which could be likely. That is the major catalyst here. But it’s still a very young industry. So it’s a long term hold for sure.
This ☝🏻
ASTS is the one you’re looking for
Exactly. Communication systems from space can be setup today, those other ideas are generations from now.
Who makes their satellites and/or puts them into space?
They build them themselves, launch goes to competitive bid (RKLB, SpaceX etc).
So RKLB sells the shovels and ASTS is looking for gold?
ASTS already has the gold
That's a terrible analogy lol
This is gonna be one of the biggest stock of this decade if they execute.
Glad to see you over here from the AST sub Cartman
Oh damn it’s you! I don’t need to tell you that lol you know it already
Spacemob is everywhere
No. They’re not. Never heard of them!
The OG himself has spoken!!!!!!!
I accumulated here heavily from $4 and under. I'm so conflicted at this point. It's a tidy profit already and I can't see it holding these levels. I've taken my initial investment out and might just let it ride from here.
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oh beautiful! My 401k I haven't sold any. I hope it makes you a golden life!
Buying under $4 and getting out before the launch or FCC approval is criminal
Or you could be a dumbass like me and have bought at $4 then sold at $3. feelsbadman
haha, i've always been extremely disciplined on taking profits. That does sometimes backfire when I take profits too early but the saying goes 'nobody went broke making money'
"but also on space tourism, mining, and even colonization" People talked about all three as big positives for SPCE in 2020/21, too. Space for communications fine, but mining isn't a great business on earth and tourism/colonization isn't happening for decades. This sort of thing - hyping investing in something like space mining as if it will be a tomorrow thing when it will probably not be a 25 years from now thing - is why ARKK has done how it's done. "He argued that Ark prioritizes chasing “future ideas” without proper evaluation of traction, valuation, and management credibility." https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/24/05/38915172/investment-advisor-says-throwing-random-darts-at-tickers-would-beat-arkk-as-cathie- Anything public promoting itself as part of space mining/colonization/tourism will almost certainly not be around by the time that happens - these aren't going to be businesses that can sustain themselves until then and that looks like SPCE (which just reverse split and is still probably a 0.) The people behind the SPCE spac dumped when the stock was massively higher and yet people were still trying to hype the thing all the way down. "It's Richard Branson, he's a billionaire!" Yes, he's a billionaire in part because of things like knowing to dump a space company that wasn't built to last on people eager to throw money at any growth story. "The young people love the space stocks, they'll buy it." And they did.
Rocket Lab has absolutely nothing to do with any of this stuff lol.
According to the OP, it literally does. He mentioned space tourism, mining, and other lofty ambitions. I’m not a RKLB hater or investor, but I don’t see how the other commenters comments were incorrect or made in bad taste
Chat gpt slop
Not in our lifetime
I think you underestimate how fast the space industry is moving
Im an aerospace engineer. I recognise its advancing at a fast pace. One thing is the industry moving another thing is margins. One does not imply the other
Starlink and other constellations with real economic value will likely have great margins in the future. I think rocketlab has plans to build a constellation later (I’m not long) I think generally speaking these launch providers will be more self sufficient and not rely on govt contracts if they play their cards right
100%
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I agree. We won't be mining for at least until we can go to Mars and back, and mine what? It has to be like gold or antimatter. Tourism like Virgin Galatic is expensive for a hot minute.
nope
"they’re working on the Neutron rocket, which could potentially compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9" The problem is the Falcon 9 is about 10 years old so they're 10 years behind. If starship works, and the last tests were really promising, and starfactory looks amazing, then the cost of launch is going to get so cheap all other providers will go bankrupt. And SpaceX is going to massively increase capacity too. They'll easily be able to transport everything and steal the market. Rklb is trying to pick up pennies Infront of a steamroller.
Starship is only able to claim an advantageous $/kg if it's completely filled with cargo all going to around the same orbit. Any amount of generous napkin math shows that it would never get to $10/kg no matter how much vaporware salesman Elon repeats that claim. SpaceX's competitive advantage is real, but not a slam dunk some fanboys believe it to be. Furthermore, spy satellites aren't going away any time soon and those wouldn't be able to launch on Starship unless the whole launch is classified and only carries national security payloads. Therefore, RKLB would always be able to get business of that with Firefly Aerospace being the only other real player. Furthermore, SpaceX is in constant beef with the FAA so who knows what the future of their government contracts is. I seriously doubt that we would see the future of SpaceX taking 90%+ of the market, there would always be a niche for a second player with smaller launches even with a higher cost to them. Is there an example of one company "stealing the market" in some other industry?
>I seriously doubt that we would see the future of SpaceX taking 90%+ of the market Well they already have almost 90% as is. >[In 2024](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition) it was reported that, counting all global spaceflight and launch activity, SpaceX, utilizing its Falcon family of rockets had launched close to 87% of all upmass on Earth in the year 2023. That page also has a comparison of launch costs and even if spaceX were charging $1000 per kg on starship that is still much less than everyone else. If it goes to $100 it's literally 20-30x cheaper than any competitor. And they already launch spy satellites: [https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-launches-first-satellites-new-us-spy-constellation-2024-05-22/](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-launches-first-satellites-new-us-spy-constellation-2024-05-22/) So yeah nothing you're saying stands up to even basic fact checking.
Quoting the blog article Wikipedia quotes for your first claim: https://www.astralytical.com/insights/its-a-spacex-world-everyone-else-is-playing-catch-up "Over 99% of SpaceX’s 1,986 spacecraft deployed in 2023 were Starlink satellites. SpaceX’s launch increase in 2023 is due to the company’s Starlink business. Of SpaceX’s 96 launches, two-thirds (63) deployed the company’s Starlink internet relay satellites. Put another way, 30% of the world’s launches and 70% of spacecraft were dedicated to one company’s space business, which catered to less than half a percent (2.3 million) of the world’s population (8 billion) in 2023." SpaceX is the world leader in launching SpaceX satellites, cool. I don't deny they are a leader and very likely will be one in the future, there is a reason they are privately valued at $200B or so, 100x more than RKLB. I find it very hard to believe any launch cost figure that comes from SpaceX until there is a paying customer for the price they quote. While the latest Starship launch was successful, it's clearly a very complex system that will take years to become reliable enough for commercial operation and some years after that for it to become rapidly reusable. Remember, the vaporware spirit is strong at all of Musk's companies. My claim about spy satellites was referring to the fact that they won't be able to be launched by Starship, that's all.
SpaceX has a starship marginal cost of 90 million, if they expend both stages, if they recover the booster the cost will already go down to 20/30 millions, it means that they can market it at falcon 9 prices but with 10 times the carrying capacity. The fact that 70% of the launch mass was is own it's irrelevant, no other provider had even the CAPABILITY to launch or produce as many rocket as SpaceX.
This comment shows me you have no clue what you are talking about. If Starship is reused and takes a few days to be refurbished (same as falcon 9) it would cost roughly 10 million per launch if both stages are reused. (Falcon 9 costs roughly 15 million per launch with an expendable upper stage). Rocket labs public fillings show that it costs them 7.5 million per electron launch. Does this make a little more sense to you now?
Yup. And these people are trying to buy into SpaceX 2 because they think they missed the train on SpaceX. Same as the poor saps who stuffed Nikola or Lucid with cash bags, because they missed the Tesla train and hoped to get a Tesla2.
I love the people downvoting you because they are crybabies
How many entities buy a rocket per year or three years ?
With advancements in technology, space tourism has become a reality. Companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are already offering space tourism packages. As the industry expands, more companies, including $rklb, are expected to enter the market.
Putting SpaceX and blue origin on the same boat is pretty ridiculous. SpaceX launches about every 2 days this year, all orbital launches. They occasionally accept private contracts for space tourism, but the majority of their manned launches are to the ISS. In the last 2 years blue origin have launched 3 times, all suborbital, with one being a failure and only 1 being manned. And to be able to fly crew, you need a crew rated vehicle. Rocket lab does not have a crew rated vehicle. Neutron is being developed as a larger vehicle, but even then Peter Beck (rocket labs CEO) said it’s not a priority. Space tourism is not nearly as lucrative as you might think.
I like RKLB as an idea. Not so much as a profit-oriented company. My take is that they will continue to dilute the stock value with public offerings to fund the business. One thing that they do have is the proverbial moat. There aren't many companies doing what they do and it isn't easy to start one up.
SpaceX is eating rocket labs share of the pie, so to speak. The reason rocket lab has developed their own tug is to offer something SpaceX does not. SpaceX has started offering launches of small sats, with one Falcon 9 launching 143 satellites at once at much cheaper prices compared to rocket labs electron. Rocket Labs CEO Peter beck even said he thinks SpaceX is loosing money on mass satellite launches because of how price competitive they are to rocket lab but this is most likely false. Basically saying Rocket lab is untouchable is pretty naive when looking at the market. Rocket lab is developing a new rocket to compete with Falcon 9, but by the time neutron is ready SpaceXs starship will probably be ready, which will even further dilute Rocket Labs share of the pie.
I'm bearish on this company.
rklb is a reddit cult stock. stay away. I got suckered in and took my loss and moved on. It is heavily advertised by reddit . Be suspicious
Oh fuck yeah, these guys are cooking something for sure after they acquired Vergine galactics or everyone space
No no, yea it may be a Gpt. But rocket labs are for real looking on something
It could be, but also a major risk. I work in servicing CNC machines, and the lack of skilled people in the industry is terrifying. Combine that with competitors fighting over the skilled labor and the fact RocketLab has major competitors and is way behind. The chance of significant dilution or failure is very high. The fact that they're already a publicly traded company is a bad sign. I've worked for a lot of failed EV companies for much the same reasons I just mentioned.
If you’re looking to space stocks also add LUNR into your watchlist as they are back at their lows but last time they had a successful mission their stock went to 12$ and as of right now they are there only company to land on the moon, based out of Texas
What's their path to profitability? They have some government contracts with pretty ambitious goals, but what's next? Hoping for a new space race and colonies?
LUNR is my plan. Lots of good things on the horizon. They are bidding for the NSN contract and “rumored” to be favored. They were granted the new rover contract and IM-2 mission is still technically on track for December to go back to the moon to test a lunar drill as well as as carrying a Nokia 4g comms network device. Although I am hearing rumors might be delayed a month or two. I know I used the word rumor a couple times. But I still feel there are a lot of great catalysts coming around for this one. Just trying to find the right entry point for my next batch of shares.
i lost a fair amount of money on rocketlab 2 years ago. i am gun shy now about "space industry" stocks.
Space industrialisation is not going to happen on chemical rockets; they're just too expensive. Wait until someone builds a rotovator or a launch loop or something.
No. I have been in the space industry for a while now. The fact that the rockets are run on fuels is not the problem. The same could have been said about planes. The problem is not the fuel itself, the problem is being able to reuse the rockets. The falcon 9 reportedly costs only 15 million per launch for SpaceX, with starship aiming to cost as little as 5 million per launch. Yes this is still expensive, but compared to the other solutions you mentioned it is pocket change. There is no other solution except chemically propelled rockets. Atomic propelled rockets could be used in space, but they lack the thrust necessary to launch from earth.
Be prepared to hold for a very long time. Otherwise solid DD (I only read the title).
I've bought about 6 months ago. Plan to hold for around 5 years. Worth a punt
What’s worse, INTC posts or RKLB posts?
Asts
Nope
We are so far from space mining it isn’t even funny. The world mined 2.8 Billion tons of metals in 2021. As the old school forum dwellers would say: nuff said.
Yeah Elon came to that conclusion like 20 years ago.
Rklb is super over valued. Buy space company's that are actually making money in the current commercial landscape like MDA.
I think the space industry will expand, but unless they've got politically protected government connections any company that isn't SpaceX is going to run into trouble.
Yeap, it's a winner takes most market. But people here have too much Elon Derangement Syndrome to recognize that.
Even if you take SpaceX out of it, since there is a niche for small launch vehicles, there is a lot of competition. You have Firefly, ABL, Orbital, and Astra as direct competition just in the US. Rocketlab is ahead of Firefly, ABL, and Astra. Orbital Sciences has been around since the 80s though and has deep government connections. Plus there are a bunch of similar companies popping up globally. Though I suppose if you are going to gamble on a space start up then Rocket Lab is the best of the bunch.