Launch itself isn't super profitable and doesn't have a very big TAM, especially if you carefully treat the TAM as a present value and discount future cash flows. Also, at least by my personal guesswork, Starlink alone shouldn't get close to a $1 trillion valuation. It seems like the current valuation is based on people's guesses about the likelihood that space data centers pan out in a big way.
> It seems like the current valuation is based on people's guesses about the likelihood that space data centers pan out in a big way
The Starship program is one of - if not the - biggest risks here. Making starship work could bring the launch cost down far enough to derisk that whole program, and today just made it a lot less risky
[−]HarHarVeryFunny · 2026-11-15 Sun 02:28 UTC ·
link
Starlink is going to be using a lot of launches for satellite replacement. Target constellation size is 40K satellites, which with a 5 year satellite lifetime means they need to replace 8000/year (160 launches of 50 satellites each => 3 launches per week).
Launch itself isn't super profitable and doesn't have a very big TAM, especially if you carefully treat the TAM as a present value and discount future cash flows. Also, at least by my personal guesswork, Starlink alone shouldn't get close to a $1 trillion valuation. It seems like the current valuation is based on people's guesses about the likelihood that space data centers pan out in a big way.
The Starship program is one of - if not the - biggest risks here. Making starship work could bring the launch cost down far enough to derisk that whole program, and today just made it a lot less risky