SpaceX Set To Win $2 Billion Pentagon Satellite Deal (yahoo.com) 33
According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is reportedly poised to secure a $2 billion Pentagon contract to develop hundreds of missile-tracking satellites for President Trump's ambitious Golden Dome defense system. The Independent reports: The planned "air moving target indicator" system in question could ultimately feature as many as 600 satellites once it is fully operational, The Wall Street Journal reports. Musk's company has also been linked to two more satellite ventures, which are concerned with relaying sensitive communications and tracing vehicles, respectively.
Golden Dome, inspired by Israel's "Iron Dome," was announced by Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the White House in May and will amount to a complex system of satellites and weaponry capable of destroying incoming missiles before they hit American targets. The president promised it would be "fully operational" before he leaves office in January 2029, capable of intercepting rockets, "even if they are launched from space," with an overall price tag of $175 billion.
Golden Dome, inspired by Israel's "Iron Dome," was announced by Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the White House in May and will amount to a complex system of satellites and weaponry capable of destroying incoming missiles before they hit American targets. The president promised it would be "fully operational" before he leaves office in January 2029, capable of intercepting rockets, "even if they are launched from space," with an overall price tag of $175 billion.
first ! (Score:1, Funny)
Re: first ! (Score:2, Troll)
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Though I agree in principal, it could never be a $1.712 billion USD return since they have not developed these satellites with magic. There will be plenty of R&D and deliverables.. and after plenty of searching I could not find either a government source or whether it was a fixed cost contract, so it remains to be seen if this will be profitable, let alone even awarded to SpaceX, since all the articles say "appears to be" or "set to win" or something that is vague and not actually done and signed.
Re: first ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: first ! (Score:4, Informative)
- Tesla is posting lower revenues than before his 'bad detour into politics' as you say. Though I would argue there is no bad detour into politics, just bad intentions, attitudes, and philosophies.
- Twitter aka X is posting lower profits than before the takeover and has seen users slowly leaving the platform.
- SpaceX is set to lose government contracts due to, as you put it, his 'bad detour into politics'.
No one is saying Musk didn't have innovative ideas in the past, but saying somehow he is a skilled businessman is somehow laughable in the year 2025. People change, their skills change, and their attitudes change. He is now a liability for any organization he is a part of.
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People change, their skills change, and their attitudes change...
There's are reasons why that's not a saying, dipshit.
Re: first ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, Tesla has clearly peaked. Even Musk realizes it. He isn't reinvesting anything into it anymore. He's paying himself more from Tesla than their annual profits, so it's clear that he knows it's gonna shrink, and he now views it as a cash cow for himself and the things he's *really" interested in. His descent into right-wing populism has pissed off at least 80% of his customer base. There are very few upper-middle-class-and-above people who worship at the feet of Trump, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Alex Jones, so they aren't gonna buy a second or third Tesla when their current one wears out. The rural and non-college-educated voters who love that stuff will buy a few Cybertrucks, but sales of those won't replace the lost revenue from losing millions of model 3 sales. Tesla is now the "cable TV" of EVs.
Twitter was never about making money. Musk wanted more control over media messaging, and he was willing to pay for it. He doesn't give a rats ass about the money he torched on the Twitter deal.
No, SpaceX is not losing NASA contracts, at least for the time being. One NASA guy grumbled about SpaceX in public and you think that means they're on the ropes? The options for getting to the moon in the next decade are a) Starship and b) there are no other options. SLS? Blue Origin? Don't make me laugh. You have no idea how slow those companies are compared to SpaceX? I'll be dead before Blue Origin or SLS lands on the moon. SpaceX put out a statement that they're going to the moon, with or without NASA, and Musk definitely has the resources to make it happen. He could write a check, twice the size of the ENTIRE NASA BUDGET, and it would barely put a dent in his wealth.
At the national level, Musk has hitched his fate to Trump. Nobody bought their little "falling out" performance. Musk is taking another massive gamble. I get it - that's what businesspeople have to do, over and over again. He's probably got the freedom to do almost anything he wants for the next 3 years. After that, the crystal ball gets fuzzy. Beyond that, I suspect his companies will start to fade. I don't care about any of his other companies, but I really hope that SpaceX avoids that fate. After Trump is gone, the Musk brand is probably gonna be pretty damn toxic, though.
Re: first ! (Score:4, Interesting)
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No. He's a common grifter who sold bullshit to idiots mostly of the Democrat persuasion for a decade a decade ago.
Without the untold billions of government cash his outfits got basically because the Democrats are idiots, he'd be long broke and forgotten.
Now, of course, that he has access to unlimited grift, this is all academic, but musk isn't a "skilled businessman", he used to be a skilled liar.
Re: first ! (Score:2)
Skilled businessman == Skilled liar
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That isn't how it works.
That $2B is gross revenue. He has to pay expenses out of that. Rate of return is figured against whatever is left over after expenses.
If it costs, for example, $1.5B to make good on whatever he is supposed to deliver, that leaves $500M left over. Rate of return is figured on that against the $288M investment. Still not bad, but a lot less than if the $2B were all profit.
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$2B is the advance payment.
Re: first ! (Score:1)
(climbs upon soapbox, gestures wildly)
Fel0n MuSK, moar liek!!!! He has taken $100,000,000,000 in cash from the American Taxpayers and his rokkets expload before they reach Venus!!! Something something self-driving cars in overhyped loops!!!!!
the punch line (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: the punch line (Score:2)
I know we're 40 years later (Score:2)
But the last guy that tried this had everyone think they were a fool.
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The poster you were replying to was talking about the overall project, not just this part. Quite frankly, since the rest of the system is clearly not even designed yet, it seems pretty likely that any system like the one described for SpaceX here would be obsolete and no longer fit for purpose by the time anything else were ready to go up. So it's not a question of whether they could do it, it's more a question of what the point is.
Also, as an aside, intended more for humor than anything else: If Musk has a
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Politically that guy would be called a woke leftist today.
Hair trigger (Score:2)
So the immune system of the human body has balance two risks.
1. It is so weak that merely any virus that can defeat it.
2. It is so "strong" that it triggers on the most benign thing (autoimmunity, allergies).
When you have everything under surveillance it's easier to make an error about something's intent. Remember in the 1983 we almost had nuclear war break out because the Russian early warning system mistook a flock of geese for an incoming missile. There was a similar narrow escape in 1962. Both incidents
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It actually happened at least a couple of times that we know of. At least one was mistaking the sun for a nuclear launch. We all have among others, Stanislav Petrov to thank for averting a nuclear war. For that he was rewarded with a reprimand, and a demotion that basically forced him into retirement. There is also Vasili Arkhipov who disobeyed an order to fire a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban missile crisis. He got away with it, though some of his crewmates were reprimanded. I think the "geese" incident
Music played by the mad man (Score:2)
This whole thing is insane. All restarting SDI is going to do is trigger a global nuclear arms race wasting huge sums of money without making anyone any safer.
Re: Music played by the mad man (Score:2)
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I mean, the US among others pretty much signaled to the world that everyone should get nuclear weapons with their relative inaction on Ukraine after pushing them to disarm with promises that they did not need their nukes to protect them. Followed up by continuously failing to take steps to protect them often explicitly because they were scared of offending a dictator and country with lots of nuclear weapons. At one point Ukraine made some noise about acquiring nuclear weapons again, but they stopped saying
SDI Round Two (Score:2)