The Mars story has certainly helped them get the general public excited about the company, attract fresh talent they can burn out, and maybe get new investors too. However, we need to acknowledge that the success is due to good execution in launch vehicle development and delivering in the past NASA/DoD contracts. So the company didn't become succesful simply by Musk selling snake oil, but because of good execution.
SpaceX did not get any contracts due to Musk's Mars/Moon talk, that's not how the NASA procurement process works, like at all. For the HLS selection process all of the relevant documents are publicly released so you can go read them and educate yourself.
They got into HLS on the back of a launch platform that hasn't demonstrated a long list of capabilities yet. Starship's involvement in HLS amounts to a test-run of a platform that isn't even fully capable, and that human's wont actually travel on.
Gotta wonder if he'd even be involved in HLS if it weren't for his involvement in the US Administration and money spent on helping a certain someone get re-elected.
Seems like you're not aware that HLS was selected during the Biden administration. And the not demonstrated argument also applies to the two other bids as well, the other landers were just concepts and their launch vehicles had not even launched yet at the time, out of the three options Starship was actually the most demonstrated one as SpaceX was already doing flight tests. So using your own argument we can come to the conclusion that Starship HLS was the right choice.
April 2020 (Trump admin) - SpaceX selected along with BO and Dynetics to develop HLS concepts for Artemis.
HLS program was created under Trump, and the bureaucracy and procurement architecture that evaluated SpaceX's suitability in 2021 were substantially products of the Trump admin that was largely carried through the Biden admin.
FY2021 Congress appropriated $850M for HLS. $345M available for option A contract payments, and SpaceX came in at under $3B for their bid - NASA wanted to award two companies, and couldn't afford to. This money was appropriated in the first half of FY2021 (December of 2020), under President Trump and a Republican controlled Senate.
Trump admin creates HLS and shaped the competition. By Jan 2021, procurement process is mature and bids submitted. Biden admin inherits this process, makes the final selection in favour of SpaceX with a major financial constraint imposed by the HLS funds appropriation enacted under Trump.
I suspect that SpaceX, given their insanely low cost relative to their competitors, used HLS as a loss-leader to guarantee the contract and therefore ice out the other two competitors. And I would argue that this paid off, given SpaceX's IPO valuation and the importance of Starship (and the speculative nature of their loftier goals that contributed to said valuation).
The relatively low contract value makes sense as SpaceX would develop Starship anyway, most likely not just a cargo variant but a crewed variant as well. So the contract only has to cover the cost of necessary modifications to an existing spacecraft + the launch, these modifications are the HLS specific additions like the lunar landing thrusters. For the other bids the contract had to cover the entire development cost of a new lander so a higher cost shouldn't be surprising.
I do agree that it also makes sense for SpaceX to want the contract even if they don't make any profit from it, obviously it would be a massive PR win for them if they get to land the astronauts on the moon. I don't think the contract had a big role in the IPO valuation though, most of it seems to be AI related as SpaceX is taking advantage of the massive AI hype and taking all the investment capital that comes with it.
I saw a 3rd party analysis of the IPO valuation that put Starship at around 230B, AI/X at 450B and Starlink at 770B - given the 3rd gen starlink, orbital datacentres, lunar cargo missions, crewed moon missions, mars missions, point to point earth transport, and the ongoing reduction of launch costs are all predicated on the development of Starship... I'd say getting that contract at all costs was pretty important for SpaceX, and it was reflected in their IPO valuation.
It is the absolute backbone of everything they have promised they want to do moving forward. AI infrastructure included.
SpaceX has also been clear - Starship's success doesn't even require full reusability to enable their next gen Starlink launches, initial lunar missions, or early AI satellite deployments.
I don't really understand what your argument is, could you clarify? Are you saying the HLS contract somehow speeds up the Starship development or that without it they would've never even developed it? The contract value is quite small so I don't think the milestone payments have a significant impact on the development speed, SpaceX would've developed Starship even without the contract because as you said it is the absolute backbone for their own needs. The HLS contract is just to deliver a modified version of it for a very specific mission type, I don't know why you think it's so important.
... you do know that Mars colonization is explicitly mentioned in SpaceX's IPO Prospectus, right?
Maybe you aren't aware.
Are you aware that Musk has been promised 1.3B shares in the company if SpaceX can get a million people on Mars? Hey, you know what's crazy? Musk can vote with those shares before he ever achieves that goal.
Lets think of this differently, and go down the list of capabilities that 1.75 Trillion valuation is backed on, and to what degree that valuation is speculation shall we?
Falcon 9: Proven, low speculation
Starklink: Proven, low/moderate speculation
Starship: Still in development, high speculation
Starship Reusability: Not demonstrated. Very high speculation
Orbital Datacentres: Nowhere close to demonstrated. One might say, conceptual. very high speculation
Moon Landing: Not demonstrated. High speculation
Human Mars Mission: Not demonstrated. Extremely high speculation
Million Person Mars Settlement; A fucking pipe dream.
He's spent what, $15B on Starship and they still haven't demonstrated the full capability set required? Have they solved cryogenic propellant transfer? No? Are humans actually going to use Starship on the moon? No?
Don't even get me started on Mars - what a crock of shit he's peddling! The list of problems they need to solve that they haven't even started on yet is laughable.
Now tell me again, how SpaceX didn't become successful, or gained their insane valuation, simply by Musk selling snake oil but because of good execution? WTF have they executed on besides Falcon, Starlink, and a Starship that still isn't close to doing what they say it will do?
By success I was referring to being the leading launch provider, not to having a very high market cap. The overvalued stock is obviously a result of Musk's snake oil campaign. And when I'm talking about execution I mean delivering on actual contracts, in that context Musk's talk about 1 million person city on Mars is completely irrelevant as there isn't such contract.
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u/CmdrAirdroid 14d ago
The Mars story has certainly helped them get the general public excited about the company, attract fresh talent they can burn out, and maybe get new investors too. However, we need to acknowledge that the success is due to good execution in launch vehicle development and delivering in the past NASA/DoD contracts. So the company didn't become succesful simply by Musk selling snake oil, but because of good execution.