At current launch numbers it may not be worth 1.5+ trillion but valuations aren't about current, they're about discounted future cash flows.
It seems logical that there could/will be far more demand for launch if the price were lower. Prices are quite extreme currently, a standard 3U cubesat (loaf of bread size) is $300k and that's just for orbit.
There could be lots of startups that want to try robotic space mining but launch costs just make that mostly impossible currently so there are only a select few. It's like valuing the Dutch East India company based on the trade volumes in 1603. Of course people are not going to be buying much pepper or nutmeg if it costs them weeks of labor, but build lots of reusable ships, and with each voyage, more people can afford your pepper and nutmeg until it's a common household item.
discounted future cash flows is discounted by risk. There is a lot of risk on growing future revenue is the point.
>seems logical that there could/will be far more demand for launch if the price were lower.
This thesis hasn't played out much in the 10 years since Falcon landed in first 2015.
The non Starlink component of revenue has not massively grown beyond what size the market in 2015 to today. SpaceX isn't lowering launch price to induce demand beyond out being the cheapest just by enough, they would be going lower if cost was the only barrier for more revenue.
It not that businesses aren't possible there at lower launch prices. Starlink is testament that it is.
The problem is that rest of the world is not able to innovate fast enough to take advantage of it even after 10 years. The industry struggles with things like manufacturing satellites at scale or raising money for it, or executing on innovation etc.
What that means for SpaceX is that even if launch costs are cheaper than now, the launch market simply may not grow quick enough for the valuation number to make sense. They would need to enter a lot of new markets directly and be their own launch customer beyond Starlink. This comes with its own set of execution, regulatory and other risks. The data-center[1] in space play is an attempt to do this.
Either DC play or something else, they will need to find and sustain a large business to grow, maybe they will, maybe not.
It is not very clear now and that is a lot of risk so any future cash flow projection has to be discounted heavily.
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[1] I am not qualified to comment on the technical feasibility, however to analyze the company finances that is not needed, it is just one more risk factor, depending on how you feel you can assign 0 or 1 or anything in between.
> This thesis hasn't played out much in the 10 years since Falcon landed in first 2015.
It did play out: there are many more launches today, it's 5x in 20 years. The 75% of SpaceX starlink launches (which account for nearly 50% of all launches) were quietly financed by their other launch customers, exactly because the real cost to launch dropped so much.
That doesn't mean you're wrong, but you do seem to forget that SpaceX, as its own customer, knows the number of launches is going to rise exponentially. They obviously choose to manufacture for where the market _will be_, while you don't see the market before its there. Which is good for them.
It seems logical that there could/will be far more demand for launch if the price were lower. Prices are quite extreme currently, a standard 3U cubesat (loaf of bread size) is $300k and that's just for orbit.
There could be lots of startups that want to try robotic space mining but launch costs just make that mostly impossible currently so there are only a select few. It's like valuing the Dutch East India company based on the trade volumes in 1603. Of course people are not going to be buying much pepper or nutmeg if it costs them weeks of labor, but build lots of reusable ships, and with each voyage, more people can afford your pepper and nutmeg until it's a common household item.