"It really seems like anyone with some renders and a white paper written by someone being gassed up by an overly agreeable AI can get VC funding these days."
The $200/kg launch price target is based on 150 ton capacity. That’s a $30m launch costs target. Volume/foldability matters the most because that is the actual constraint that limits datacenter launch to a single NVL72 size.
Projected cost targets from SpaceX, especially for Starship are only losely related to reality. Weight is what determines the minimal required energy input to lift something into orbit. Independently from SpaceX number magic. Volume, like I said, can be an additional bottleneck but never undo the above.
The $200/kg launch price target is based on 150 ton capacity. That’s a $30m launch costs target. Volume/foldability matters the most because that is the actual constraint that limits datacenter launch to a single NVL72 size.
Projected cost targets from SpaceX, especially for Starship are only losely related to reality. Weight is what determines the minimal required energy input to lift something into orbit. Independently from SpaceX number magic. Volume, like I said, can be an additional bottleneck but never undo the above.