Got any evidence about Starlink fully funding Mars? It's funny how often that keeps coming back up.

Well so was the A380 on a per passenger basis. But turns out there are a very limited number of routes with enough passengers to justify the sizing.

Pretty much the exact same can be said for space/LEO whether you're talking about cargo or pax.

I think the problem is that we really only have those couple quotes to go on and then everything else is just guesswork/fill in the blanks. Regardless of the sub you are in.

Regarding Starship revolutionizing space. The A380 was going to revolutionize air travel. But it turns out that bigger is not always better. Sometimes the flexibility you get from smaller is more important. I think that applies even more to space/LEO.

Most of the fanbase, regardless of sub, are convinced that somehow Starlink is going to pay for Mars. And Elon really hasn't laid out any specifics. The fact that he has been very, very specific about IPOing Starlink though should be a cautionary warning to anyone under the impression Starlink will pay for Mars.

And the launch market isn't really that big and doesn't really need a Starship (see Shotwell's comment). To some extent, Starlink is a make work project to give Starship something to do.

So, doubtful that's going to be a huge revenue source either.

It does imply a whole new set of investors and board of directors to keep happy. People usually invest in things to make money. They can't make money if all of it is getting siphoned off to pay for a Mars colony.

If the Starlink profits really were destined to go to Mars, it would be much simpler to just keep it in house at SpaceX.

Shotwell's quote is supposed to confuse you. But note that even she is unaware of the specifics of how the Mars financing is going to work. Hence her "that's a good question for Elon".

And it's a question that Elon has ducked for almost a decade now.

>Elon has clearly stated that they'll use starlink revenue to fund spacex's objectives (which is enabling the colonization of mars).

I think maybe you need to check with Elon on that. Elon himself has stated that Starlink will be sold off when it gets profitable.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/spacex-starlink-ipo-elon-musk-says-offering-is-3-or-4-years-away.html

And even if they did pump all the profit from Starlink into Mars, it would still just be a drop in the bucket.

Where Elon has very intentionally confused his biggest fanbase on the Starlink Mars connection comes from a Shotwell quote:

Shotwell said: "The total addressable market for launch, with a conservative outlook on commercial human passengers, is probably about $6 billion," she said, "but the addressable market for global broadband is $1 trillion."

She added: "If you want to help fund long-term Mars development programs, you want to go into markets and sectors that are much bigger than the one you're in, especially if there's enough connective tissue between that giant market, and what you're doing now. That's how I recall it, but that's a good question for Elon."

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-starlink-gwynne-shotwell-fund-elon-musk-mars-city-2021-5

SpaceX is the transport company. Starlink is going to get spun off/cashed out if it ever gets profitable.

And Elon's gone to great length explaining how SpaceX is not the colony company. That's some other ambiguous organization, the funding of which has never really been disclosed.

The fans love to point to how Starlink was going to pay for everything Mars related (although they've gotten much more coy about that recently). But that's never really been clearly stated. And about the only hard thing you have is an ambiguous comment by Shotwell. And even if you did transfer all the profit from Starlink over to the Mars colony, it would still be a drop in the bucket.

So the implication is that some govt at some point is going to pony up the trillions of dollars in perpetuity. Which could not be any more early 2000's type thinking as compared to the present day.

Elon has never really stated where all the Mars money is going to come from.

But the implication is that some govt is going to foot the vast, vast majority of the bill. If that is the case then it's almost assured that we won't be colonizing Mars likely for the rest of the century. We'll be lucky to get the moon landing that we were promised. But I wouldn't be surprised if even that gets usurped by current events (or delayed on an ongoing basis indefinitely).

The world has changed. It'll take some time for the reality to catch up to everyone. But suffice to say that grand space exploration plans are going to have to take a back seat to human affairs back here on Earth. Whether we like that unfortunate reality or not.

I think you can still maybe do some exploration and so forth but it will have to be the best bang for the buck type stuff. And it's probably going to be hard to find the money even for that.

Considering the situation we find ourselves in, I think you kind of have to lean on the ego end of it to want to spend all the energy and resources to get someone to Mars. Whether it's for the tourism or science.

Bang for buck-wise, remote exploration is orders of magnitude cheaper and less resource/energy intensive.

I think Mars is mostly just ego. It won't ever be a backup for humanity. That's just desperation talking.

Well luckily for the solar system and the universe as a whole, this sort of behavior tends to be self limiting. :(

Good thing that we've hamstrung all the regulatory agencies on this issue!

Starlink, etc.

He wants to capture LEO and the best way to do that is to promise Mars to his legion of followers and convince them that giving him LEO is the only way they get to Mars.