OV9

And don't forget (re payload) that their Moon/Mars plan requires that "Ship" is carrying enough fuel with it to the moon such that it can slow itself down (with no atmospheric resistance to help), land, then take off from the Moon again, fly back to earth, and STILL have enough fuel to slow itself down and land again

Not sure what that earth-side deceleration would feel like to the crew though, going from a supersonic free fall to stationary on the ground in a few seconds (while rotating from horizontal to vertical at the same time)

Aren’t they only using 10% of their current datacentre / ai potential at the moment anyway? Or something like that from a vid I saw a while back. Yet they keep banging on about space data centres being necessary for future expansion.

As time goes on the whole thing doesn’t feel any less scammy.

Then you have below defending the massive energy and resource use of ai saying we need to keep growing it so it can provide the answers to make human life sustainable.

DaveE wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2026 10:36 am And don't forget (re payload) that their Moon/Mars plan requires that "Ship" is carrying enough fuel with it to the moon such that it can slow itself down (with no atmospheric resistance to help), land, then take off from the Moon again, fly back to earth, and STILL have enough fuel to slow itself down and land again

Not sure what that earth-side deceleration would feel like to the crew though, going from a supersonic free fall to stationary on the ground in a few seconds (while rotating from horizontal to vertical at the same time)

TBH if I was a scam artist trying to bump my stock price I’d say that we’re scrapping crewed flights. Saves the space and equipment needed to keep people alive and you can just say ai is gonna do it

Beany wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 7:26 pm The SpaceX share price is one of the few objectively funny things around.

Wait till the lockup period for existing holders ends. It'll be HILARIOUS.

Simon wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2026 1:08 pm

Beany wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 7:26 pm The SpaceX share price is one of the few objectively funny things around.

Wait till the lockup period for existing holders ends. It'll be HILARIOUS.

There's also a non-zero chance it'll take the whole US economy with it, too, given SpaceX is apparently an """"AI"""" company, and it'll rattle everyone who's invested in the rest of them.

SPCX closed below $120 last night. Getting veeerry close to only 50% of it’s post-launch hype figure….

And it dropped into the $112's today. So that is now less than half of the $225.64 peak. Awesume.

(And I just noticed Tesla dropped > 20% this week too).

Tesla is cooked, because they've gone from predicting thousands of robotaxis by the first half of 2025, to just a few dozen in tests now.

This AI/robotics race is like a steam steam train falling off a cliff now


Also they’re eventually gonna have to recoup these costs. Wonder at what point it will become so expensive to subscribe to these services that it’s cheaper to hire an organic fleshy thing with blood running through it.

Simon wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2026 3:57 pm Tesla is cooked, because they've gone from predicting thousands of robotaxis by the first half of 2025, to just a few dozen in tests now.

Are they though? They’ve failed to hit their predicted markers / implementations for literally decades now, or are people finally starting to have had enough?

If you look at the facts, including those I've stated, they haven't designed a whole new car for 10 years, they've binned off half their model range, the Cybertruck is a complete flop that needed SpaceX to buy a few of just to get them off the forecourt, FSD is years behind schedule and Robotaxi demands it, their robotaxi fleet is measured in dozens, not hundreds or thousands predicted before, Trump has dismantled the carbon credit scheme that earnt them billions a couple of years ago to mere millions now (in the US) whereas in Europe they are now competing not just with better conventional competitors, such as the germans electric fleet, but now the Chinese are coming in cheaper, more innovative and arguably better made. Not forgetting the salute, the ketamine or the political interference.

So no, even the fanboys are starting to turn. That and the earnings call this week was..... bad.

There is a school of thought that says Musk wants the price to go down so it's cheaper to roll into SpaceX, although as I've said elsewhere SpaceX itself hasn't found its floor yet. If Tesla and SpaceX stock both went to their 'true' value then Musk would be significantly poorer than he is now.

Boohoo, such a shame.

What are they going to announce next to try and cause a bounce?

The lower the price of TSLA the cheaper it would be to fold it into SpaceX

Saw an amusing analysis of Musk's claim that there will be 100,000 Starlink satellites earlier

Because they’re in a degrading orbit (they’re falling back to earth) they have a finite lifespan

Based on how long they could stay in orbit, if there were 100k of them, that would mean on average, about 110 would burn up in the atmosphere every day

The absolute maximum number of Starlink v3 satellites a Starship could carry (based on weight alone, not whether it would also be able to deploy them) is about 50-60

This would mean that to maintain 100,000 satellites in orbit, you’d need two Starship launches every day

Why does no one in the mainstream media ever sanity check, or call him on any of these things?

Because he’s rich, he must know everything about everything and we have to believe every word he says because he’s so successful.

And has the means to out shout or legally threaten anyone who dares question him.

There is the alternative take. Low earth orbit is pretty limited in terms of space for communication satellites. SpaceX by requesting the right to have 100,000 satellites may cock block competition or then have the right to sell those slots to others.

Mito Man wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:40 pm There is the alternative take. Low earth orbit is pretty limited in terms of space for communication satellites. SpaceX by requesting the right to have 100,000 satellites may cock block competition or then have the right to sell those slots to others.

I'm not sure what you mean?

DaveE wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 6:37 pm

Mito Man wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:40 pm There is the alternative take. Low earth orbit is pretty limited in terms of space for communication satellites. SpaceX by requesting the right to have 100,000 satellites may cock block competition or then have the right to sell those slots to others.

I'm not sure what you mean?

As Mito says, if there’s only a finite number of licenses/space for satellites and Spack x buys up most of them with their limitless magic money tree (whether they use them or not), then a competitor would have to go via them to buy enough licenses to make a viable business. Spack X controls the market.

Well apparently the FCC have to work in the public interest but we’re talking about the US government here…
The other restricting thing even more so than airspace is that there’s only a certain frequency band that the satellites can communicate to earth with. The FCC permit comes with the frequency band and that’s the important thing. Apparently SpaceX had to buy out someone as they were running low on bands themselves (Echostar https://www.reuters.com/business/media ... 026-05-12/

Don’t be surprised if Jeff Bezos comes to Musk in a few years with hundreds of billions asking to buy some frequency bands.

Rich B wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 6:51 pm

DaveE wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 6:37 pm

Mito Man wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:40 pm There is the alternative take. Low earth orbit is pretty limited in terms of space for communication satellites. SpaceX by requesting the right to have 100,000 satellites may cock block competition or then have the right to sell those slots to others.

I'm not sure what you mean?

As Mito says, if there’s only a finite number of licenses/space for satellites and Spack x buys up most of them with their limitless magic money tree (whether they use them or not), then a competitor would have to go via them to buy enough licenses to make a viable business. Spack X controls the market.

My point wasn't really anything to do with licences, bandwidth or anything like that

It was more that to maintain a fleet of 100,000 satellites (where they're constantly falling back to earth) is pretty much impossible - as I said, it would require more than 100 new satellites to be launched every single day, continually, to replace those falling back to earth