太空探索技术公司

确实。现在正是感谢节目好朋友ServiceNow的好时机。我们曾向听众介绍过ServiceNow惊人的创业故事，以及他们如何成为过去十年表现最出色的企业之一。但有些听众询问ServiceNow实际做什么业务，今天我们就来解答这个问题。

For sure. Now is a great time to thank good friend of the show, ServiceNow. We have talked to listeners about ServiceNow's amazing origin story and how they've been one of the best performing companies the last decade, but we've gotten some questions from listeners about what ServiceNow actually does. So today, we are gonna answer that question.

首先，最近媒体经常用一句话形容ServiceNow：它是企业级『AI操作系统』。具体来说，22年前ServiceNow成立时只专注于自动化，最初是将企业IT部门的纸质流程转化为软件工作流。仅此而已。后来他们在这个平台上逐步构建了更强大复杂的任务处理能力。

Well, to start, a phrase that has been used often here recently in the press is that ServiceNow is the, quote, unquote, AI operating system for the enterprise. But to make that more concrete, ServiceNow started twenty two years ago focused simply on automation. They turned physical paperwork into software workflows initially for the IT department within enterprises. That was it. And over time, they built on this platform going to more powerful and complex tasks.

他们从仅服务于IT部门扩展到人力资源、财务、客户服务、现场运营等多个部门。在过去二十年的过程中，ServiceNow已经完成了连接企业各个角落并实现自动化所需的所有繁琐基础工作。

They were expanding from serving just IT to other departments like HR, finance, customer service, field operations, and more. And in the process over the last two decades, ServiceNow has laid all the tedious groundwork necessary to connect every corner of the enterprise and enable automation to happen.

所以当AI出现时，AI从定义上来说就是高度复杂的任务自动化。而谁已经构建了平台和与企业的连接组织来实现这种自动化？ServiceNow。因此回答ServiceNow今天做什么这个问题时，他们所说的‘连接并赋能每个部门’是认真的。

So when AI arrived well, AI kinda just by definition is massively sophisticated task automation. And who had already built the platform and the connective tissue with enterprises to enable that automation? ServiceNow. So to answer the question, what does ServiceNow do today? We mean it when they say they connect and power every department.

IT和人力资源部门用它来管理全公司的人员、设备和软件许可证。客户服务部门使用ServiceNow处理诸如检测支付失败并内部路由到正确团队或流程来解决问题。供应链组织则用它进行产能规划，整合其他部门的数据和计划以确保所有人同步。不再需要在不同应用间切换重复输入相同数据。最近ServiceNow还推出了AI代理，让任何岗位的员工都能快速部署AI代理处理繁琐事务，使人类能专注于宏观工作。

IT and HR use it to manage people, devices, software licenses across the company. Customer service uses ServiceNow for things like detecting payment failures and routing to the right team or process internally to solve it. Or the supply chain org uses it for capacity planning, integrating with data and plans from other departments to ensure that everybody's on the same page. No more swivel chairing between apps to enter the same data multiple times in different places. And just recently, ServiceNow launched AI agents so that anyone working in any job can spin up an AI agent to handle the tedious stuff, freeing up humans for bigger picture work.

ServiceNow去年入选《财富》全球最受尊敬公司榜单和《快公司》最佳创新者工作场所，正是因为这一愿景。如果你想在业务各个环节利用ServiceNow的规模和速度，请访问servicenow.com/acquired，只需告诉他们本和

ServiceNow was named to Fortune's world's most admired companies list last year and Fast Company's best workplace for innovators last year, and it's because of this vision. If you wanna take advantage of the scale and speed of ServiceNow in every corner of your business, go to servicenow.com/acquired and just tell them that Ben and

大卫推荐了你。感谢ServiceNow。那么现在是否值得谈谈他们所处的航天行业背景？

David sent you. Thanks ServiceNow. Well, is it worth talking about a little bit of context around the space industry around them at this point?

当然，请讲。

Yeah, go for it.

是的。我早些时候提到过，SpaceX主要依靠营收资金支持，其中很大部分来自NASA。有一份很棒的公开文件——NASA作为政府机构的好处就是所有信息都公开。这份2018年发布的《国际空间站商业补给服务审计报告》中有张精彩的图表，显示了流向SpaceX、波音、轨道科学公司、内华达山脉等企业的资金及其用途，包括商业载人计划或物资运输等项目。

Yeah. So I alluded earlier that, you know, Space- SpaceX has been heavily revenue funded and, you know, lots of that by NASA. There's a great, publication which is, uh- great thing about NASA is it's a government agency, so everything's public. So there's this audit, it's called Audit of Commercial Resupply Services to the International Space Station. And this was published in- in 2018 that has this great diagram of, you know, money that flowed to different companies, SpaceX, Boeing, Orbital, Sierra Nevada, others, and- and what it flowed for, all the different programs, be it commercial crew or, or shipping, people up.

SpaceX已从NASA获得77亿美元的发射合同，相比那些试图在没有每次火箭发射都有客户支持的情况下完成SpaceX所做到的事情的公司来说，这简直令人震惊，那将是极其困难的。我的意思是，那需要多得多的资金，而且会改变你的优先事项。SpaceX真正做到的，我每次观看他们的发射、为火箭上的新技术兴奋不已时都没意识到——顺便说一句，每枚火箭都有新技术——他们每次任务使用的硬件都与前一次不同，因为他们持续迭代。几乎每次发射（除约10次外），都有客户付费让他们将东西送入太空。

And SpaceX has received $7,700,000,000 in contracts from NASA for launches, which is is is astounding compared to a company that would be trying to sort of do as much as SpaceX has done without actually having a customer on the end of every rocket, it'd be it'd be impossibly hard. I mean, they would it would take so much more capital and it would change your priorities. And what SpaceX really has has done here, and I don't think I realize this, every time I'm watching one of these SpaceX launches and getting all excited about a new piece of technology, on that rocket, which by the way, there's a new piece of technology on every rocket. Every single mission they fly is- is different hardware than the previous one, because they're constantly iterating. Every time they do that, almost every time, save for 10 or so, there's a customer that's paying them money to send that thing up.

NASA为此支付了77亿美元。NASA投资的另一项非常有趣的是你提到的飞船，大卫，最终被称为龙飞船。开发猎鹰九号（我们即将讲述其故事）和龙飞船总共花费了NASA约4亿美元，SpaceX自筹约4.5亿美元。NASA曾进行内部审计，评估如果不外包给SpaceX而是像开发航天飞机那样自行建造，成本会是多少？

And so, you know, NASA's been responsible for 7,700,000,000.0 of that. The other thing that NASA has put in money for which has been really interesting is, when you mentioned the spaceship, David, which would ultimately be called the Dragon capsule. Developing the sum total, the Falcon Nine, which we're about to go into the story of, and the Dragon, that cost about $400,000,000 of NASA's money, and about $450,000,000 of SpaceX's money to- to go and develop that. And at some point, NASA did an internal audit to basically say, well, how much would that have cost us if we didn't sort of bid this out to- to SpaceX to go and do this? You know, if we had built this the way that we built the space shuttle, how much would that have cost us?

他们发现成本大约是40亿美元。哇。

And basically what they find is the number's about 4,000,000,000. Wow.

所以是十分之一。绝对是的。

So it is one tenth Absolutely. The

不管你怎么评价SpaceX拿下NASA合同这件事，他们通过垂直整合承担风险并制造更便宜的火箭，为NASA节省了巨额资金。是的。

Like say what you will about, wow, SpaceX really got in there and scored that NASA contract. But they're they're saving NASA an enormous amount of money by sort of taking on the risk to vertically integrate all of this and making much cheaper rockets. Yeah.

其实，直到录制这期节目时我才想到这点。听完我们刚才说的，有人可能会觉得这是典型的裙带关系——比如迈克最初和埃隆一起去俄罗斯，后来去了NASA，所以他们当然能拿到合同。但我认为事实并非如此。这是多方共同努力的结果：SpaceX团队、埃隆、NASA的迈克、政府和国防部的许多人共同意识到这个行业需要创新，需要改变运作方式。如果我们能做到，或许就能让人们再次为太空发射感到兴奋并录制播客。

It's actually you know, I hadn't thought about this till down the road recording the episode. I suppose you could listen to everything we just said and say, wow, what a case of cronyism. Like, you know, this dude, Mike was on the initial trip to Russia with Elon and then he's headed to NASA and, like, of course, they get the contract. I don't think that's what's going on here at all. Like, this is a combination of several people, all the spoke the folks at SpaceX and Elon, Mike at NASA, lots of other people in the government and the DOD coming together and saying like the industry needs to like innovation has died and progress has died in this industry and we need to change the way it works and if we can do that, you know, maybe we can get people excited and recording podcasts about a space launch again.

现在我们做到了。是的，并建立了一个真正的产业。

And here we are. Yeah. And build a real industry.

是的，这确实是一个双赢的绝佳例子。SpaceX现在拥有并运营着NASA并未付费的火箭和任务，可以说让一家公司能够自力更生。一方面你可能会说，嘿，这可是纳税人的钱让这家公司自主创造利润和企业价值。但这是双赢，因为纳税人完成这些任务的成本低得多。我想这是个非常有趣的案例——不知道谁会是输家？可能只有那些选区里有层层分包商的国会议员，他们原本靠着官僚体系赢得那些合同。

Yeah, mean this is an actual great example of sort of a win win, where, you know, they're able to enable a company to bootstrap itself by, you know, SpaceX now owns and operates rockets that NASA is not paying them for, and missions that NASA is not paying them for. So, you know, on the one hand you could say, Hey, come on, that's- that's, taxpayer money that's now going to allow this company to generate profits and enterprise value all on their own. Well, it's a win win, because it costs the taxpayers a lot less to get these- these missions done. And I think it's a- it's just this really interesting example where- I don't know who loses here? Probably just the- the congressman who's- who represented districts where there was a sub, sub, sub, subcontractor and they were, you know, winning, winning on sort of bureaucracy to- to be able to win those contracts.

没错，这是个蛋糕做大的典型案例。现在或许是时候谈谈SpaceX所处的行业背景了，因为NASA信任的不只是他们去发射物资。NASA也在给其他企业授予合同，那些都是行业巨头。

Yeah. Yeah, it's a- it's a great example of a growing pie. So this is probably a good time to- to give a little context on the industry around SpaceX, because they're not the only people that NASA is trusting to go and send stuff up. They're awarding contracts to other people. They're big incumbents.

那么问题来了：这家初创公司不可能直接拿下那十几亿美元的合同就让其他人都回家，事情不会这样发展。他们周围的行业现状如何？迄今为止，航天行业（至少对政府而言）的目标始终是建造极度奢华的机器来完成单一任务，几乎不计成本。因为我们要么在太空竞赛中取胜，要么将其视为国防的一部分，这就是当前所有项目的传承逻辑。

So what the heck? This startup isn't just gonna come in and win the 1 point whatever billion dollar contract, and everybody else goes home, and you know, that- that's not how this is gonna play out. So what's happening in the industry around them? Well, in the space industry to date, the- at least for governments, the goal has really been build a really extravagant machine to do one thing where price is basically no object. Because either we're trying to win the space race, or we're, you know, calling it a part of national defense, or that's the lineage of whatever we're currently working on, so that's the only thing that we know that it costs, so we're just gonna keep going.

这些项目由军方和NASA资助，为了可靠性和性能不惜一切代价。正如我们所说，这个行业高度依赖分包商。如果你是个三级分包商，即便不是任务必需，你也会让产品更可靠或性能更强来中标。因此可以把联合发射联盟这样的现存巨头看作航天界的英特尔（我们稍后会详述），而SpaceX则更像ARM。我作这个类比是因为英特尔曾为电脑制造性能更强的芯片，却在智能手机领域惨败。

You know, these things are funded by the military and NASA, and all the stops were pulled out for reliability and performance. And you know, we talked about how it's very subcontractor driven here. So the- if you were a sub sub subcontractor and you could make your thing slightly more reliable or slightly more performant, even if that's not totally necessary for that, you know, practical purpose for that mission, you know, you do it anyway to kinda win the bid. And so you can almost think of these existing space incumbents, like United Launch Alliance, who we'll go into detail on, as sort of the Intel of this world and Intel today, where SpaceX is a lot more like the ARM. And the reason I draw this comparison is, you know, Intel made much more powerful chips for- for computers, but notoriously lost in smartphones.

那些芯片发热大、体积大、价格高，在台式机时代没问题。而SpaceX就像ARM芯片，早期带着猎鹰1号这种像玩具的火箭，在完全不同的需求体系下运作，最终构建出更便宜、能快速迭代的系统——每次都能发射不同的火箭，特别是因为他们掌控了整个技术栈。

But you know, those chips were hotter, they were bigger, and they were more expensive, which is fine when we all had desktops. And SpaceX being like these ARM chips, you know, especially early on and having this, you know, sort of toy rocket with the, the, the Falcon one worked under a very different set of requirements, and it ended up building a completely different system. One that was cheaper and they could iterate on it very quickly, shipping up a different rocket every single time. Especially because they controlled the whole stack. Right, exactly.

但最初它看起来对任何事都没什么用。虽然不确定，但这感觉像是颠覆性创新的案例。看起来确实像——

But initially, it didn't seem very useful for anything. I don't know for sure, but this feels like it could be a case of disruptive innovation here. Yeah, looking like

我是说，猎鹰1号在当时很多业内人士眼里绝对像个玩具。

a I mean, the Falcon one definitely looked like a toy to a lot of people in the industry.

没错，完全正确。你不会看着猎鹰一号说，他们距离为国际空间站补给乃至送人上去就差几年时间。这根本不是人们自然而然的反应。但大卫，正如你提到的，随着小型卫星、立方体卫星和商业航天的发展，他们在此期间发射的其他许多设备的设计要求都彻底改变了。

Right. Absolutely. You don't look at the Falcon one and say, well, they're just a few years away from resupplying the ISS and probably sending people up to it too. Like, that's just not it's not your natural inclination there. But David, as you were mentioning, like the design requirements around a lot of the other stuff that they would send up in the meantime was totally changed with these small satellites, CubeSats, commercial space sort of developing.

那么回到我提到的联合发射联盟，我认为理解他们在故事背景中的角色很重要。洛克希德·马丁和波音都是长期政府承包商，他们建造过——现在仍在建造——许多了不起的东西。比如洛克希德制造了航天飞机上那个标志性的大橙色燃料箱，在我看来，航天飞机发射视频中那依然是最优雅的设计之一，某种程度上SpaceX的火箭没那么美，不像航天飞机设计那样能唤起我对太空的浪漫想象。

So, getting back to United Launch Alliance who I mentioned there, and I think they're important to understand in the context of the story. So Lockheed Martin and Boeing had both been longtime government contractors. They built, amazing things to their credit, still build amazing things. And, and a few examples, you know, Lockheed made that big orange tank on the space shuttle that we all know, and it's iconic. And I think still one of the most elegant, you know, when you see the space shuttle launch videos, that still to me is this romantic version of space that in in some ways the- the- the SpaceX rockets aren't as beautiful, and don't just sing space to me the way that shuttle design did.

他们还制造了哈勃望远镜和凤凰号火星着陆器，生产过许多传奇产品。而波音则从1971年的月球车到航天飞机轨道器本身都有涉足，都是老牌航天公司。

Th- they also made the Hubble telescope and the- the Mars lander. So, you know, the- the- the Phoenix. So lots of, really storied stuff that they manufactured. Boeing on the other hand made everything from the Lunar Rover back in 1971 to the actual space shuttle orbiter itself. So long time space companies.

时间来到2006年2月，理解波音和洛克希德的动机很关键，这样才能明白当时人们对航天产业的认知。这两家公司意识到美国政府是他们唯一的客户，但政府的业务量不足以支撑两家巨头。于是合并研发制造部门看似能更经济安全地维持现有业务——波音有德尔塔火箭，洛克希德有宇宙神火箭。这主意听起来不错，除非你听过类似的故事。

So here we are in 02/2006, Boeing and Lockheed, and I think it's important to understand their motivations because then you really get the context for what people thought the space industry was. Boeing and Lockheed had decided that the one real customer that they were both doing work for, was the US government, but the government didn't have enough business for both of them to justify their massive size. So by combining the manufacturing and research work of the two companies, this would be a cheaper and safer way to get the same stuff out the door. Boeing already had the- the Delta, Lockheed had the Atlas, you know, these existing rocket programs. It kind of sounds like a good idea unless you've heard this story before, or a story much like it.

首先，单看ULA的logo就能发现这完全是个委员会设计的产物。ULA凭借两家公司现有合同拥有巨大优势，之后五年他们继续参与航天飞机项目，对行业规则了如指掌。但他们没意识到行业正在经历巨变。

The first thing I want to tell you is you don't need to look any further than the ULA logo to discover that everything was basically designed by committee. Something where ULA had a massive advantage with all the existing contracts that the two companies had. They actively continued to work on the space shuttle program for another five years after this. They just had years of knowing how the industry worked. But what they didn't see was that the industry was undergoing this massive change.

比如，面对潜在的非美国政府客户，可能形成真正的商业航天产业。而美国在这方面已基本输给了俄罗斯、中国等发射成本更低的国家。

You know, for one, with other potential non US government customers, there could be this real commercial industry. And that was something that The US had basically lost to nations who could launch stuff cheaper like Russia, China.

俄罗斯和中国。对了我们还没谈中国。我记得万斯写的马斯克传记是2014还是2015年出版的？大概那时候。

Russia and China. Yeah. China through all we haven't talked about China. China was, you know, I think, Vance wrote the Elon Musk book in, when did it come out like 2014, '15 maybe? Somewhere there.

16年那会儿，你知道的，俄罗斯在太空领域仍占主导地位，但中国正在崛起。如今中国，比如中国和他们的长征火箭，就像当今的太空竞赛，本，如果我错了请纠正，但基本上就是SpaceX和中国之间的两强争霸。这太疯狂了。

'16. At that point in time, you know, it was the the Russians were still predominant in space, but China was making a push. Now China, like China and their long march rocket, like like space today, Ben correct me if if I'm wrong, but is is a two horse race between SpaceX and China. And, it's crazy.

确实，从很多方面来说都是。我觉得埃隆肯定也是这么看的。还有件事我之前没意识到，节目说明里链接的那个精彩演讲——格温·肖特维尔2014年给业内人员做的小型炉边谈话，在油管上观看量其实不高。

Yeah. In a lot of ways. And I think Elon certainly looks at it that way. Another thing that I didn't really realize was that, there's this great talk linked in the show notes. It's a relatively under viewed video on YouTube of, Gwen Shotwell giving a- a small fireside chat to some industry insiders in, 2014.

她指出美国在商业航天领域的竞争力大约持续到80年代，但之后基本就丧失了优势。这种情况一直持续到...直到现在商业航天产业重新燃起。简而言之，ULA在美国商业市场上完全没能立足。细想的话，这其实是他们的重大失误，因为当时有大量商业卫星开始升空——DirecTV运营着成堆的卫星，还有情报卫星、监控卫星、科研卫星，以及各种初创公司。

And she points out that The US was competitive in commercial space sort of in the- up- up till the 80s or in the 80s, but has basically lost it since then. And that- that was the case really until, you know, until this reignition of a- of a com- of a commercial space industry here. So long story short, ULA was completely unsuccessful in capturing a commercial market in The US. You know, if you- if you think about it, it's- it's actually a huge failing on their part because there were tons of commercial satellites starting to go up. You have DirecTV, who sort of owns and operates tons of satellites in order to- to, provide You their have intelligence satellites, you have surveillance, you have research concepts, you have startup companies.

大卫你提到的立方卫星。ULA基本上颗粒无收，因为他们只盯着美国政府合同。当然不能全怪ULA——90年代的《国际武器贸易条例》筑起了壁垒。但最根本的问题是波音和洛克希德·马丁根本不再竞争了。

David, you mentioned these CubeSats. Like ULA managed to capture basically zero of this because they were focused on winning contracts from the US government. And, you know, there's more to blame than ULA- ULA themselves. International traffic and arms regulations in the 90s sort of built up barriers. But the biggest problem was Boeing and Lockheed Martin just didn't compete anymore.

所以当他们合并成庞然大物后，一切都变得臃肿昂贵。你看得到这里的机会——如果你看到了，那你和埃隆、格温他们一样，发现了这个市场空白后决定：我们要用猎鹰九号打造一台赚钱机器，填补这个缺口。

And so everything got so bloated and expensive when they just combined into one- one big behemoth. And so, you know, you might see the opportunity here and, you know, if you do, then you- you are similar to, you know, Elon and Gwen and everyone else who sort of saw this gap and then decided, hey, we're gonna go build a fricking cash cow of a business in the Falcon nine and we're gonna go shoot that gap.

本你刚才提到，据我所知SpaceX至今累计获得政府拨款不到80亿美元。虽然他们是私营公司，但发射记录是公开的。按猎鹰九号标价计算——现在应该完成80多次发射了吧？

Well, Ben you mentioned a minute ago that I think over the life of SpaceX thus far, they've received what just under $8,000,000,000 from the government. Now by our calculation, SpaceX is obviously a private company but you can tell by their, you know, launches and launch manifests are public. We think based on sticker price for Falcon nine launches of which there's now been over 80, right, that they've done?

对，超过80次了。已完成86次，未来任务清单上还有55次左右。

Yeah. I think over 80. 86 launches and somewhere around 55 on the future manifest.

是的。其中大约22次发射是为政府和龙飞船计划服务的。其余的，他们可能通过其他政府发射卫星、商业卫星等各种业务，又赚了差不多80亿美元左右的商业收入。

Yep. And something like 22 of those ish are for government and the Dragon program. The rest of it, they probably made just about that same amount another $8,000,000,000 give or take in commercial revenue from other governments launching satellites, from commercial satellites, from all sorts of stuff.

对，我觉得没那么多。大概只有一半吧。不过随着积压订单逐步执行，收入结构肯定会向商业发射倾斜。你知道，他们还有一大堆已签约但未执行的发射任务。

Yeah. I don't think it's quite that much. I think it's probably about half that. But, if the revenue mix will definitely start to skew toward commercial as we sort of see them fly out their backlog. You know, there's all these committed launches- that they have that they haven't launched yet.

你说得对。我绝对不认为目前会超过美国政府业务。话说回来，这是私营公司，谁知道具体数字呢？

That, you know, you- you're right. I- I don't- I- I definitely don't think it's more than the, U. S. Government right now. By the way, private company, so who the heck knows?

但如果你按每次商业发射6000万美元的标价，乘以他们已执行的商业发射次数——大概四五十到六十次左右——来估算。没错，你说得对，确实在几十亿美元这个量级。

But if you just sort of add up the sticker price of you know, 60,000,000 times the number of uh- of commercial launches that they've sent up, which are probably, I don't know, forty-fifty-sixty, somewhere in there. Yeah, you're right. You're in the single digit billions.

是啊，这一切发展得相当快。回顾SpaceX此后取得的所有惊人技术成就，发展速度确实令人惊叹。本，你说到点子上了，拿到NASA国际空间站那个初始合同，确实是公司命运的转折点。

Yeah. So, so yeah, it all, you know, will move kind of quickly. It's funny to move quickly through all the amazing technical and engineering feats that SpaceX has accomplished since then. Totally. I think, Ben, you hit the nail on the head that, like, getting this contract, this was the moment that, like, made the company, getting that initial NASA ISS contract.

在继续之前我简单说一句

Real quick before we move on, because I

我知道刚才说了些刻薄话，但我总是希望在节目里公正评价而非单纯抨击。ULA后来更换了CEO，他们现在正与蓝色起源合作——

know I just threw a bunch of shade, I wanna I always want to make sure I like do right by someone rather than just blasting them on the show. ULA has since replaced their CEO. They're actually working with Blue Origin now-

没错。

That's right.

他们正在设计一款名为'火神'的新型火箭，并计划使用——我想他们会采用蓝色起源的发动机。实际上，蓝色起源正在商业性地向ULA出售这些发动机，这挺令人惊叹的——关于ULA我忍不住要再插一句。他们现有的发动机供应商，我记得是Atlas V火箭用的（如果记错稍后更正），但本质上这是他们对抗猎鹰九号或重型猎鹰九号的主要竞争对手。

And designing a new rocket called the Vulcan, and hoping to use, or I think they are going to use Blue Origin engines on there. And so Blue is actually commercially selling, those engines to, to ULA, which is kind of amazing to take- one more digression on ULA here, I can't help but do this. They the supplier that they have for the engines on I think it's the Atlas V. I'll correct myself later if I'm wrong. But their their main they're basically their competitor to the Falcon, either Falcon nine or Falcon nine Heavy.

它用的是俄罗斯发动机。

It uses Russian engines.

哦，有意思。

Oh, interesting.

而这是美国政府发射情报卫星等任务的主要承包商。当前使用的火箭型号配备的是俄罗斯发动机，但俄罗斯已决定停止向美国供应这些发动机。现在美国国内ULA能用的这类发动机存量可能只有个位数或十几台。我记得那款发动机叫RD-180，搭载在Atlas V火箭上。

And the this is the main US government contractor for sending up things like intelligence satellites. And the current iteration of that uses Russian engines, of which the Russians have decided for The US, we don't wanna keep supplying you with those. So they've stopped. Like there's only something like there there's some number in the single digits or teens of those engines in country in The US that like, ULA can use. And so like, I think it's called the RD-one 180 is the it's the Atlas V is the rocket.

ULA现在可谓四面楚歌——能用于发射的发动机即将耗尽，SpaceX在价格上对他们形成碾压优势（这点我们稍后会讨论），而他们的主要客户也开始质疑'你们到底优势在哪？'。所以他们正试图在'房子烧毁前逃出来'，通过与蓝色起源合作推进新的'火神'计划。

Like ULA is in this position where the world is closing in on them from every direction. They're running out of the engines that they can use for these launches. SpaceX is massively undercutting them on price, which we'll talk about here in a moment. And like, the clock is just ticking with their basically their one customer looking to them and going, wait, I'm sorry, in what ways are you better? And so, know, they're gonna try and run out of the house before it burns down with the the new Vulcan program and partnering with Blue.

不过要知道，他们仍是行业巨头，短期内还会继续赢得合同。但毫无疑问，他们是SpaceX的头号劲敌。

But, you know, they're a powerhouse and will continue to win contracts for a while. But, you know, they are certainly SpaceX's number one enemy.

是的，确实如此。要知道，这是发射市场迎来的颠覆性创新。没错，太空运输市场。

Yeah. Indeed. Well, you know, it's, disruptive innovation coming to the launch market. Yeah. The space shipping market.

2008年SpaceX获得NASA国际空间站补给合同时。短短18个月内，他们就成功试飞了猎鹰九号——其实他们早就在研发这款火箭了。那是2010年6月。仅仅六个月后的2010年12月，他们又成功试飞了猎鹰九号与龙飞船的组合体，这艘飞船是他们从零开始在SpaceX内部自主研发的。之后又经过一段时间，2012年5月22日，第一艘真正的龙飞船任务抵达国际空间站。

So it was 2008 when SpaceX gets the contract from NASA for the ISS resupply. Pretty quickly within eighteen months, they have a successful test flight of the Falcon nine, which again they'd already been working on. And then, so that was June 2010. And then only six months after that in December 2010, they have a successful test flight of the Falcon nine plus the Dragon capsule, which they've engineered from scratch, you know, in house at SpaceX. And it takes a little while longer after that, but on 05/22/2012, the first real Dragon mission reaches the ISS.

他们完成了12次补给任务中的首次，这简直不可思议。我记得当时的情景：一家私营企业不仅造出了火箭，还打造了整个航天器并成功将其送入空间站。就像马斯克在首次猎鹰一号成功发射时说的，这本该是国家才能做到的事，而非企业。但SpaceX就是做到了。

They do the first of the 12 resupply missions and this is just incredible. I mean, I remember this happening. A private company has made a not just a rocket, but an entire spacecraft and operated it and sent it to the ISS. You know, again, like Elon said, with the first, with the first successful Falcon one launch, like, this is the stuff that countries do, not companies. And here's SpaceX, you know, doing it.

这简直太疯狂了。

It's just, just crazy.

没错。补充个细节：之所以命名为'龙飞船'，是因为马斯克借用了Peter, Paul and Mary乐队《神奇龙帕夫》这首歌名，本质上是对所有质疑者的嘲讽——你们说我不可能成功？看，我不仅追到了这条龙，还把它造出来了。

Yeah. And and to layer onto that, the reason it's called Dragon is, Elon named it after, the Peter Paul and Mary song Puff the Magic Dragon, where basically it was to to give the finger to everyone who said he could never do it. And you know, you're you're sort of chasing the dragon, and saying, look, here it is. I did it.

是的。我记得国际空间站人员在回收龙飞船时说了句'休斯顿，我们抓到一条龙'之类的话，比如'我们拽住了龙的尾巴'。次年2013年，正如我们之前讨论的关于将政府项目技术转商用的话题——2013年9月，首次商业版猎鹰九号发射成功。

Yeah. And I think the I think the ISS as they were they were pulling in the dragon said something like, Houston, we've caught ourselves a dragon here, something like that. We've got a dragon by the tail. Then the next year in 2013 to what we were talking about, about using these, all the technology they built for the government in the commercial sector. In September 2013, the first commercial Falcon nine launch takes place.

约一年后他们将几颗加拿大卫星送入轨道。2014年完成了6次猎鹰九号发射，2015年完成7次，包括与NASA合作的载人龙飞船首次成功测试——这周三即将上演的壮举，其第一步其实始于2015年。而2015年底还有件大事要重点说说。

They launched several Canadian satellites up into orbit, you know, just about a year later. And then in 2014, so they complete six Falcon nine launches, in 2014. In 2015, they complete seven Falcon nine launches, including the first successful test of a new program with NASA for the Crew Dragon, which is what's gonna happen on Wednesday. The first step towards what's gonna happen here, takes place in 2015. And then at the very end of 2015, this is the other big, big thing we wanna talk about.

还有一件事，他们成功让火箭着陆了。你还记得吗，就在这个

The one more thing, they land a rocket. Do you remember when Just this

一个神圣、神圣的上帝时刻。我只是，我——它——它——是如此不自然。我记得当时发生时就那么想。那就像科幻小说的一刻。是的，我当时在旅行，因为正值假期。

a holy, holy God moment. I just, I- it- it- is it- so unnatural. I remember thinking that when it was happening. It was like this moment of sci fi. Yeah, I was traveling, because was over the holidays.

那大概是2015年。

It was like 2015.

是的，就在我们开始Acquired之后不久。

Yeah, It was right after we started Acquired.

没错。而且是在无人船上。

Yeah. And it was on the drone ship.

所以不，第一次是在陆地上。无人船没有——第一次是

And so No, was first was on land. The drone ship didn't First was

在陆地上？

on land?

第一次是在陆地上。没错。

First was on land. Yep.

所以他们必须进行助推器返回燃烧

So they had to do the boost back burn

已经尝试过好几次了。事情是这样的。早在2011年，埃隆和团队就开始考虑这个问题。就是我们之前讨论过的那个类比。建造这些极其昂贵的东西然后丢弃简直太疯狂了。那个类比

had done several attempts. So here's how it goes down. So all the way back in 2011, Elon and the team had started thinking about this. And it was the analogy we talked about earlier. Like it's crazy that you would build these massively expensive things and then drop The analogy the

就像每次你乘坐747从纽约飞往伦敦后就直接把它扔掉。想象一下如果那样的话机票会有多贵。

is every time you fly a seven forty seven from New York to London, just throw it away afterwards. Imagine how expensive airline tickets would be if that were the case.

于是他们在2011年开始研发这项技术，要让火箭着陆，当时人们认为这不可能。就像物理定律不允许似的。他们把这个项目叫做'蚱蜢'。然后在2013年3月，他们建造这些小型火箭发射上去，不是进入太空或接近太空，只是尝试着陆。2013年他们首次成功着陆了蚱蜢火箭，到了2014年，你可能记得在某次猎鹰九号发射中，他们很快就将这项技术投入实际应用了。

So they started working on the technology in 2011, to land rockets and people think this is impossible. Like the laws of physics, people think won't allow it. And, so they called the program Grasshopper. And then in March 2013, then Grasshopper, they're they're just sending these building these short rockets, shooting them up not into space or anywhere near space and they're just trying to land them. They've land their first Grasshopper in 2013 and then Ben, what you might be thinking of in 2014 in one of those Falcon nine launches, they're, like, they're pretty quickly getting this tech into production.

2014年4月他们尝试让猎鹰九号火箭在无人船上着陆，结果火箭翻倒了。

They try and land in April 2014 a Falcon nine rocket on a on a drone ship, and it falls over.

那次直接炸了。

That one blew up.

那爆炸了。它

That blew up. It got

不过真的很接近。

really close though.

非常接近。是的。然后第二次尝试，2015年1月，失败了。第三次尝试也失败了。就像第一次发射猎鹰一号那样，最终第四次尝试是在陆地上进行的，因为在海上操作要困难得多。

Got really close. Yeah. Then the second attempt, January 2015, that fails. The third attempt fails. It's just like the first getting that first Falcon one up and then finally the fourth attempt was, was on land because it's it's much easier to do it on on the ocean.

你知道，在海上。船上下颠簸、四处移动。2015年12月，他们首次在陆地上成功着陆。之后在海上又失败了两次。直到2016年4月，他们才在无人船上成功着陆第二十三次猎鹰九号发射，紧接着第二次成功着陆。

Like the, you know, it's on the ocean. Like the ship is bobbing up and down and moving around. They successfully land the first the first time on on land in December 2015. Then they have two more fails in the ocean. And then in April 2016, they successfully land the twenty third Falcon nine launch on the drone ship, followed by a second successful landing.

当然，我依然爱你的无人船。对。没错。那次是在陆地上。

The of course, I still love you, drone ship. Yep. Yeah. This is that's right. It was on land.

思考这个很有意思，因为SpaceX的着陆方式看起来非常不自然。我记得很清楚，观看蓝色起源的第一枚火箭进入太空后成功返回地球着陆——他们实际上比SpaceX更早实现。SpaceX先做了蚱蜢试验，但蓝色起源发射的火箭虽未入轨，却飞到了地球100公里以上，也就是卡门线，那是太空的正式定义边界。

It's it's interesting thinking about this because the way that SpaceX lands these look looks really unnatural. Like if you I I remember a lot, watching, the first Blue Origin rocket that went to space and came down and successfully landed back on Earth, which they actually beat SpaceX to. So SpaceX was doing the Grasshopper stuff first, but Blue Origin flew a rocket, not to orbit, but above 100 kilometers above the Earth. I mean, that- that's a- it's the formal definition of space, I think it's the Ka- Ka Carmen Line. Don't know exactly how But to pronounce yeah.

而SpaceX后来率先实现了进入轨道再返回着陆的重大里程碑。但如果你看蓝色起源的火箭着陆过程，感觉更自然些——它们减速后轻柔落地。SpaceX在业内采用的方式被戏称为'悬停猛砸'，或者更直白地说，'自杀式燃烧'：他们只点燃九台发动机中的一台进行最后制动。

And, you know, SpaceX sort of was the first then to beat them to that big milestone of- of getting to orbit and then landing back down. But if you watch like, Blue Origin's rocket do this, it- it's sort of seems more natural. They sort of decelerate, and then it lands kind of gently. And the way that it works for SpaceX in the industry, the way they sort of refer to it is as the hover slam, or in a much less delicate way of referring to it, people call it a suicide burn. Where basically what they do is, they put just one of the nine engines that you know, they turn one of those nine engines on.

即便九台发动机中仅以最小推力工作，只要保持燃烧状态，就能让火箭减速并反向飞行。这些猛禽发动机简直太强大了。而且值得一提的是，今天飞行的猛禽发动机推力是最初猎鹰九号所用版本的两倍。我认为这是他们迭代的成果

And even at the minimum thrust from one of those nine, if you just leave it burning, it will decelerate the rocket, and then it will go back the other direction. Like these are Oh, wow. Just those Raptors are so crazy powerful. The and I should mention too, the Raptors are flying today have twice the thrust of the Raptors they started with, in the original Falcon nine. So like the their iteration I think it's

我想那还是梅林发动机。猛禽发动机是...哦对

the I think it's still the Merlins. The Raptors are Oh, right. The

发动机是...好吧，我搞错对象了。没错，梅林发动机的性能已经翻倍。总之他们在减速时只启动一台梅林发动机。之所以叫它悬停急刹，是因为它高速接近后能在精确时机

engines for the Okay, cool. I was referring to the wrong thing. Yes, the Merlins have gotten, twice as as performance. So anyway, they- they turn just one of the Merlin engines on as it's sort of decelerating. And the reason they call it the hover slam is it comes in so fast, and then just at the exact right time.

这枚火箭配备了不可思议的传感器系统。它们能在最后一刻以最小推力点火，让火箭完全减速至零英里/小时（零米/秒）精准着陆。每次成功着陆都像魔术表演，全靠那些惊人精密的传感器和推力控制

Like they have unbelievable sensors on this rocket. They can, fire it at minimum, you know, the minimum amount of thrust just in time for it to decelerate and and hit basically, know, zero miles per hour, zero meters per second, right as it's setting down. And so it's this like magic trick every time they pull it off of, unbelievable sensors and unbelievable precision over when they're firing that engine at minimum thrust.

太不可思议了。当然这一切的核心在于火箭可重复使用。2017年3月他们首次成功复用猎鹰九号，那年简直是SpaceX的巅峰年——18次发射全部成功，除少数达到使用寿命的火箭外全部实现回收

Yeah, Incredible. So now, of course, the point of all of this, right, is that you're gonna reuse the rockets. So in 2017, they have the first successful Falcon nine reuse in March 2017. And 2017 was just a banner year for SpaceX. 18 successful launches, no failures, and they landed every single one of them except the few that they were that was end of the useful life of the rocket where they were planning not to land Yeah.

自2015年起，这家公司就全面开挂。商业上完美契合市场需求，研发迭代神速，积压订单以惊人速度消化。整个运作效率令人叹服

Coming out coming out of 2015, this is a company that is firing on all cylinders. Like perfect product market fit on the business side, iterating super fast, launching all their R and D stuff actually into production super fast. Like they're flying out their backlog at remarkable pace. Like it's just impressive.

确实。2018年他们完成第50次猎鹰九号成功发射，全年共21次发射，包括猎鹰重型火箭——虽然大家可能看过视频，但三枚猎鹰九号并联27台发动机同时工作的场景依然震撼。最绝的是三枚火箭都能自主返回着陆

Totally. The next year in 2018, they hit their fiftieth successful Falcon nine launch. They have 21 total launches in 2018, including the Falcon Heavy, which, is an adapted I mean, folks have probably seen this and watched videos, but, like, it is amazing. So this is three Falcon Nine rockets wired together for 27 total engines burning that can bring up an incredible amount of payload. These guys and what they do is all three rockets go up and then they all land.

说实话，这就像在看魔术表演一样。

It's honestly like watching a magic trick. Like

就像一场芭蕾舞。

It's like a ballet.

任何看过SpaceX用猎鹰重型火箭将埃隆·马斯克的特斯拉跑车和星际人送入太空的人都知道，当时两个助推器就像芭蕾舞演员般同时降落，并排着陆在发射台上。而第三个主助推器则降落在无人船上——实际上那次它最后倾覆了。

Anyone that watched SpaceX fly Elon's Tesla Roadster up with the Starman in it, like this was on a Falcon Heavy. Then exactly, that ballet of the two come down simultaneously, land next to each other on pads on land. The third sort of main booster then goes and lands on the drone ship, which, actually that one ended up, tipping over.

是的，那个难度要大得多。因为那个助推器经过特别加固，要能支撑住另外两个助推器。

Yeah, that one's a lot harder to do. Because that one's especially reinforced to be able to hold on to the other two boosters.

没错。在最新的Block 5版本——我认为是猎鹰九号的最终版——他们实际上已经找到了解决这个问题的方法，应该能更轻松地在无人船上回收它了。

Right. Yeah. Which apparently in the Block five, which is the most recent and I think final version of Falcon nine. Yeah. They've actually figured out a way to sort of fix that problem and they're gonna be able to, I suppose, catch them much more easily out in the drone ship.

是的。这就说到现在了。有几件事我们节目里没讨论但可能在结尾会提到——不到48小时后，计划就有一枚搭载载人龙飞船的猎鹰九号火箭，将把宇航员送上国际空间站。说来有趣，我用'我们'这个词，好像是我们亲自参与似的。

Yeah. So that brings us to now. There there are couple of things we're we're not talking about here that we might mention, at the end of the episode. But, in less than, forty eight hours now, the plan is, one of these Falcon nines is gonna have a manned crew capsule Dragon on it, and we're gonna be sending astronauts up to the International Space Station. So funny, I'm saying we like it's, you know, like it's us.

这确实意义重大。虽然我们节目有点美国中心主义，但天啊，一家美国公司要把美国宇航员送上国际空间站——这太吸引人了，太酷了。

It's a very big Yeah. Like I know space we're a bit of a US centric show, like, my gosh, for a US company to fly, you know, US astronauts up to the ISS you know, it's compelling. It's cool.

是的，确实如此。这要追溯到2014年9月，NASA为此招标了一份价值26亿美元的合同。这是格里芬工作的核心目标，即重组NASA与供应商的合作模式，让私营公司将人类送上国际空间站，最终SpaceX赢得了合同。去年2019年，关键性的一步是他们首次完成了无人驾驶的龙飞船与国际空间站的自主对接，这是一艘载人飞船。

Yeah, it is. So this goes back to in September 2014, NASA bid out a $2,600,000,000 contract to do this. This was the point of, you know, all of Griffin's work to rearchitect how NASA operated with their suppliers for a private company to fly humans to the ISS and SpaceX wins it. So they last year in 2019, a big key step in this is they completed the first autonomous, ISS docking with a drag Dragon capsule. So it was a crew capsule.

上面没有载人，只装载了货物。

There were no people on it. It was just cargo in it.

我记得里面好像有个小毛绒玩具，后来宇航员进去后对着镜头展示、挥手，还举起了那个毛绒玩具

Was like a little stuffed animal I think that that then astronauts went in there and showed and waved to the camera and held up the stuffed animal

太不可思议了。

That's amazing.

想象一下，在地球仪上。

On a globe, think.

而5月27日星期三，按计划将把美国宇航员鲍勃·本肯和道格·赫利上校送往国际空间站。

And on Wednesday, May 27, scheduled to bring US astronauts Bob Behnken and Colonel Doug Hurley up to the ISS.

是啊，简直酷毙了。我是说，能活在这个时代真是太棒了。

Yeah. It's astoundingly cool. I mean, it's just what a time to be alive.

是的。关于SpaceX，人们可能会想到但我们这里没有深入探讨的项目——虽然可能会稍微提及，但显然有很多内容可谈——显然包括星链（Starlink），他们正在开发的自主小型卫星通信宽带互联网网络。还有星际飞船（Starship），这是未来发展方向，本你提到了这点，他们将逐步淘汰猎鹰系列和龙飞船计划，将所有功能整合到一艘巨型飞船——最终将前往火星的星际飞船上。

Yeah. So the items that people might think about in SpaceX that we haven't dove into here because we we might talk about a little bit but there's so much to talk about obviously, are obviously Starlink, their own small satellite communications, broadband communications internet network that they're developing. The Starship which is the future, Ben you alluded to this, they're gonna be retiring the Falcon program and the Dragon program and merging everything into one giant spacecraft, the Starship which will eventually go to Mars.

某种火箭之类的东西。宇宙飞船还是这个——对，星际飞船。

This thing rocket of some sort. The spaceship or this yes, the Starship.

星际飞船。

The Starship.

没错。我多希望它还叫BFR（大猎鹰火箭）。

Yep. Which I wish was still called the BFR.

我知道。超酷的。他们已经成功完成了发动机测试，所以相关工作进展顺利。另外还有家叫The Boring Company的小公司。

I know. So cool. They've had a successful engine test for that, so that work is well underway on that. And, and then there's the little thing called The Boring Company.

对。我记得它后来独立出去了，SpaceX和埃隆共同持有少数股权。

Yeah. Which, I think is something like like it ended up spinning out and SpaceX is a minority investor along with Elon.

是的。埃隆拥有公司约90%股份，可能稍少些。SpaceX占6%，其余是员工期权。

Yep. So Elon owns about 90% of the company, believe, maybe a little less. SpaceX owns 6%. And then there's the employee option.

哦，员工是另一个少数群体。没错。

Oh, employees are the other minority. Yeah.

是啊。哇哦。所以我们知道了。截至2020年5月25日的SpaceX。

Yeah. Wow. So there we have it. SpaceX as of 05/25/2020.

是的。在结束历史事实部分前——因为周三发生的事件算是给这段历史画上句号——我觉得有必要谈谈这份特殊合同。因为怀疑论者可能会说，SpaceX有很多有趣的质疑点，但其中一个质疑可能是：他们做的事有什么了不起？其他国家早就把宇航员送上国际空间站了。别摆出一副高高在上的样子，冷静点。

Yep. Well, I do think before moving out of history and facts here, because we're sort of ending history and facts with the events that are happening Wednesday, it is worth talking about this particular contract. Because you a skeptic could say something like, there's there's lots of interesting skeptics of of SpaceX, but one skepticism could be, why is it so impressive what they're doing? Like, other countries have been flying people up to the ISS forever. Like, you know, get- get- get off your high horse and get less excited.

所以呢，不过是私营企业而非政府机构罢了。所以呢，他们可能少花了点钱。虽然这事不容易，但能做的人多了去了。要知道NASA从不搞单一供应商采购，这类项目难度极高，NASA总是会签多个合同。

So what, it's a private company instead of a government. So what, they maybe spend a little bit less money. Like, not that this is easy to do, but like there's plenty of other people that could do it. Well, NASA doesn't sole source crap. Like NASA always awards multiple contracts because like, this stuff is super hard.

获得同类型合同的另一家公司是波音。波音造了个相当于他们版'龙飞船'的'星际客机'。但去年12月试飞对接空间站时偏离轨道，虽最终返航但任务被迫中止。为此波音上季度计提了4.1亿美元亏损，因为NASA可能要求他们重新进行全套测试发射。

And the second person or the second company that that got this same contract was Boeing. And Boeing has built a thing, to produce, you know, the it's basically their version of the Dragon called the Starliner. But in December, it launched a test to dock with the ISS, and it ended up veering off course. And they did manage to get it home, but basically scrubbed the mission in order to do it. And, and Boeing took a $410,000,000 write down on earnings last quarter, as they prepare for NASA to potentially ask them to run another full test, do another full launch of the exact same thing.

这很能说明问题：对波音是4亿美元支出，而SpaceX只需6000万到1亿美元。当然这不完全公平，毕竟复用技术不同。但重点在于：本周本可能是波音创造历史，但最终是SpaceX。

You know, which is actually quite telling that for Boeing that's a $400,000,000 expense because for- for SpaceX that would be somewhere between a 60,000,000 and a $100,000,000 expense. Yeah. But well, maybe that's not fair because there's more reusability. Anyway, the- the- the point that I want to make there is like, this could be Boeing, you know, later this week, but it's not. It's SpaceX.

他们确实做到了——更好、更便宜、更快、更安全可靠。祈祷一切顺利吧。你可以用任何方式嘲讽马斯克或这家公司，但结果无可辩驳。

And they- they managed to do it, you know, better- Better, cheaper. Cheaper, faster, safer, more reliable. Yeah. And so fingers crossed everything goes well. But it's, you can throw shade at Elon in whatever way that you want or at this company in whatever way that you want, but you can't argue with results.

是啊。

Yeah.

我们应该讨论一下叙事角度吗？

Should we talk about narratives?

好啊，来吧。我觉得至少可以从三个维度来分析这里的看涨和看跌观点。首先是围绕埃隆本人——有人视他为救世主，也有人认为他是个压榨员工的偏执狂（有些词我们节目里不便说）。大卫，关于埃隆的叙事你还有什么要补充的吗？

Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Well, I think there's at least three vectors that I can think of around bull and bear here. One is around Elon himself by people, you know, the- you could call him the savior, or you can call him, an egomaniacal sort of work you to the bone, words we can't say on this show. So David, any any sort of like color that you wanna add to narratives on Elon?

还能补充什么呢？不过有意思的是，直到录制这期节目我才意识到，SpaceX和特斯拉的处境截然不同。但埃隆在SpaceX的不可预测性远低于特斯拉，一方面因为有格温坐镇，另一方面特斯拉现在虽然状况不错，但半年前可不像SpaceX这么稳定。尽管SpaceX在政治上更敏感，但个人能搞砸的空间反而更小。

I mean, what else could we add? It is interesting though, like, again, until really until doing recording this episode now, I hadn't I'd obviously thought, you know, SpaceX and Tesla are at very different situations, but but I think the Elon factor the Elon randomness factor in SpaceX is just so much less than in Tesla, you know. Probably one because he has Gwen, but then also two because the company at least Tesla, think, in a very good place now, but, you know, six months ago, Tesla was not in a very good place, as SpaceX is. So there's just kinda less, even though SpaceX is in many ways in a more, politically sensitive position, than than Tesla, like, there's just kinda less for one person to mess up right

没错。而且SpaceX是私营公司，这很好——如果能屏蔽特斯拉股价的噪音只关注本质，相关叙事至少会减少90%。

now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's also a private company, which is nice because if you if you could tune out all the noise around Tesla stock and only focus on the more intrinsic stuff, like I think there'd be a lot less narratives, period. 90% less narrative around Tesla.

SpaceX确实具备这个优势。他们还享有与政府机构的长期合作协议，现金流始终有保障。只要能够持续交付，收入就是稳定可预测的。唯一不可预测的，就是什么时候一级火箭会撞上回收船，导致数千万甚至上亿美元的损失。但这就是有保障收入伴随的硬性成本。

And, you know, SpaceX has that. And they also have the benefit of, you know, long, long term commitments with agencies and- and governments that can always come through on that cash. And so to the extent that they can deliver, you know, they have guaranteed stable, predictable revenue. The only thing that's not predictable is when are you gonna crash a stage one into a drone ship and have to take a multi dozen if not $100,000,000 write off. But that's the hard part that comes with the guaranteed contractual revenue.

另一个值得强调的叙事是关于可重用性的。外界都在讨论埃隆这个因素，而业内更常争论的是复用技术。很多看空SpaceX的人会说复用完全是骗局，就算能复用也根本谈不上成本效益。

The other narrative that I think is important to highlight. So that one, the Elon one is one that everyone outside of aerospace talks about. The one that's more internally debated is around reusability. And so a lot of the SpaceX bears will tell you, that's total BS that those things are reusable. It's total BS that even if they are reusable, that it's cost efficient.

事实上，这些人中包括竞争对手公司的CEO们，当有人指出SpaceX之所以能以更低成本做到这点，是因为他们实现了火箭重复使用这一工程奇迹时，他们会说：你根本不清楚他们的成本结构，你不知道实际上是否真的更便宜。历史上确实存在类似案例，比如航天飞机两侧的白色固体火箭助推器——它们坠入海洋后经过翻修就能再次发射。理论上这类情况确实发生过，但关键区别在于成本量级——那种翻修方式可能要贵上一个数量级，基本上需要更换所有部件、彻底清洁后才能重新使用。

In fact, of these people include CEOs of competing companies who when someone flags the point, well SpaceX is able to do this cheaper because they've done this- performed this miracle of engineering of reusing the rockets. They'll say things like, well you don't know their cost structure, you don't know that it's actually cheaper. And examples exist in the past of the solid rocket boosters for example on the space shuttle, those white ones on either side of the big red tank, those would fall back down to the ocean. And then they would- they would be refurbished and then those would launch again. So this sort of thing theoretically has happened, but the difference is with things like that, the order of magnitude- it's probably an order of magnitude more expensive, where they basically cycle out every part, scrub it clean, and then send it back up.

而SpaceX正在迭代的方向——这是可重复使用性最乐观的设想——只需对火箭进行一两天检查就能再次发射，无需更换任何部件，可能每隔十次发射才需要更换零件。目前他们最多将一级火箭重复使用了三次。但确实存在非常真实的成本节约——想想看不必每次都制造一枚全新的猎鹰九号火箭（虽然我不知道其具体制造成本，但每次都是两三千万美元的火箭）。未来几年我们就能验证SpaceX是否能实现'只需简单检查，48小时后即可复飞'的里程碑。不过关于可重复使用性是否真能带来SpaceX宣称的那种成本节约，目前还存在巨大争议。

And SpaceX is iterating toward, you know, this is the bull case on reusability, being able to just give a one or a two day inspection, on the rockets and then, and then send them back without replacing anything, and only needing to replace things maybe every 10 times or so that you send it up. And right now, think the maximum that they've- they've sent, a rocket back up or a stage one back up has been three times. But you know, there are very, real cost savings, that- that, that you have here from, you know, not having to produce a- I don't know what the cost of goods sold are on a Falcon nine, but 20,000,030 million dollars rocket every single time. And, you know, I- I think in the coming years we'll see if SpaceX is actually able to get to the milestone of, you just need to give it a once over, and forty eight hours you can fly it again. But, there's massive debate over whether the reusability actually provides the type of savings that SpaceX claims.

好的。我们是不是该讨论下'如果没发生这些会怎样'？

Yeah. Should we move on to, what would have happened otherwise?

好，开始吧。

Yeah, let's do it.

这该从何说起呢？整个发展过程中有太多可能偏离轨道的节点了。

Where do you even start here? There's like there's so many moments where this all could have gone off the rails.

我认为最关键的是——如果NASA没有改变他们的招标策略会怎样？

I mean, think the biggest one is what if, what if NASA hadn't sort of changed their their tune on how we bid stuff out?

确实。如果没有这个转变，小型卫星市场就像我们之前说的，虽然未来终将形成——现在也确实正在形成——但在SpaceX最需要它的那个时间窗口，这个市场根本不会及时出现。

Yeah. I mean, think without that, the small sat market just, you know, I think it probably will like we said will materialize in the future and it is materializing now. But during the time period that SpaceX needed it to, it just wasn't going to.

是的。

Yeah.

实际上我认为这与一个重要观点相关——虽然我们这期节目至今完全没讨论星链，但除了星链本身作为卫星互联网接入的巨大市场吸引力外，SpaceX决定内部成立这个部门的另一个原因，就是要刺激小卫星市场及其需求。现在他们将成为自己小卫星和拼车发射计划的首个也是最佳客户——就是在发射大型载荷时，顺便为小卫星预留空间。

And this is actually I think a big point related to, we didn't really talk about Starlink at all in this episode thus far, but, I think one of the reasons besides Starlink and providing satellite internet access being a big market and attractive in and of its own that SpaceX decided to launch this division internally was to stimulate the small sat market and demand for it. Like, now they are gonna be their own first and best customer for small sats and the rideshare program that they launched where, you know, when they're sending up big stuff, having space available for for little sats as well.

没错。既然我们已稍露端倪，我想详细解释下你刚提到的两点。对于还不了解星链的人（比如两个月前的我，甚至一周前的我），SpaceX计划将1200颗卫星送入近地轨道——不，是12000颗，环绕地球。

Yeah. I wanna give a little bit of detail on both of those things that you just described now that we've sort of, we've tipped our hand a little bit. So for people who don't know what Starlink wa is, which is me probably two months ago and mostly me even a week ago. SpaceX is going to put 1,200 satellites up in low Earth orbit- 12,000. Around the Earth.

抱歉纠正，是12000颗卫星在近地轨道。距离比DIRECTV卫星近得多——后者需要在地球同步轨道（约22000英里外），而这些卫星仅在约200

I'm sorry, 12,000 satellites, low Earth orbit. So way, way, way closer than the DIRECTV satellite that needs to be out in geosynchronous, which is, I don't know, 22,000 miles away. Like, these things are on the order of, 200

对，正是如此。

Yeah, that's right.

英里高度。虽然仍需火箭发射，但相比传统卫星或固定地球同步卫星近得多。SpaceX将发射这12000颗卫星，它们都能彼此保持视线连接，能以低成本为地球任何角落随时提供宽带网络。其运作原理堪称奇迹——

Mile- miles away. So, you know, takes a rocket to get it up there, but you know, it's, it's- it's not- it's not as far away as, as the old stuff is, or as- as a lot of the, fixed geosynchronous stuff. So SpaceSys is gonna launch these- these, 12,000 satellites, and, they are all going to have line of sight to each other. And they are all going to, be able to provide broadband internet anywhere on earth at any time to anyone in a cost effective way. And the way that it works is- is kind of a miracle.

所有卫星都能高带宽互联意味着延迟大幅降低。传统卫星网络需往返44000英里，即使光速传输也有延迟，导致网速极慢。而当大量近地卫星能实时互联时，无需单颗卫星持续悬停头顶也能保持良好连接。

The fact that all of them have this line of sight to each other and can communicate in high bandwidth between one another, it means that the latency can be way less. So since they're way closer right now, the problem with using satellite internet is it has to round trip all the way out 22,000 miles and back. And even at the speed of light, that's still time. And so you're getting, you know, dog crap slow speeds on, on satellite internet. And if you have a whole bunch of them pretty close here and they can all communicate with each other, it's kind of okay if there's not a single same one above you all the time.

只要头顶上总有东西存在，并且它们能相互通信，你就能

As long as there's something above you all the time and they can communicate with each other, you can

通过这个卫星宽带的WiFi网状网络。

pass This the is the Wi Fi mesh network of satellite broadband.

完全正确。这太天才了。你可能会想，天啊，这么多卫星，那肯定是遥远的未来吧。但实际上他们一次就发射60颗。

Totally. It's genius. And so you might think, my gosh, that's so many satellites. That must be really far in the future. Well, they launch 60 at a time.

他们已经这样做了三次。他们把卫星紧密堆叠，硬是把60颗塞进猎鹰九号的整流罩里发射上天。这些卫星会在空中排成一条链，一个接一个地运行——而且确实可行。

And they've done this, I think, three times now. Like, they literally stack them real tight. They jam 60 of them in a fairing in a nose cone of a of a Falcon nine, they shoot them up. And they all sort of make a little string in the sky, and they they go right behind each other. And it works.

埃隆·马斯克就用星链网络发过推特。

Like Elon Musk has sent a tweet from Starlink internet.

哦，不会吧？我没看到这条。

Oh, no way. Haven't seen that.

他确实发了。他推文说'我正在用星链发推'，一分钟后回复自己说'成功了'。虽然有点营销噱头，但你能看到这正在发展成一项有趣的自主运营业务——要知道发射成本极高，比如我发射要6200万美元，政府则要9000万美元，因为他们有额外监管要求。

He has. He tweeted something like, I'm tweeting this from Starlink. And then he replied to himself a minute later and was like, got it. And, you know, it's- it's these publicity sense, but like, that you can see turning into this very interesting owned and operated business where they can be, you know, it's a huge fixed cost to send them up there. It's, you know, to them, the cost- it- it would cost me $62,000,000 to send something up on a Falcon nine, but- and it would cost the government something like $90,000,000 because they have additional regulatory stuff.

但对于SpaceX，我不清楚他们的具体成本，假设是4000万美元吧，这是一笔巨大的固定投资才能把他们送上天，但他们可以运营盈利业务，我们都能——或者说很多人通过星链获取网络，这就像一台印钞机，能为未来事业提供资金。所以他们不仅每次发射都能赚钱，还能通过天上已有的服务获得持续订阅收入。我知道我的分析涉及面很广，包括商业模式，但当你深入了解星链时，我觉得重要的是搞清楚它到底是什么、实现的可能性和时间表，大概两三年后才会真正显现价值。

But for SpaceX, I don't know what their costs are, call it $40,000,000 so it's that sort of big fixed cost investment to get them up there, but they can run a profitable business, and we can all- or a lot of people get their internet from Starlink, and that can be a cash machine that then can bankroll future endeavors. So they're not just getting paid every launch, but they can get paid in perpetuity for a subscription to something that's already in the sky. So I know I'm dipping all over the place here in analysis and business model, but when you dip into Starlink there, I think it's important to sort of like what the heck that is and how real it could be and how soon it could be, you know, two, three, four years before that starts to be meaningful.

是啊。我是说，卫星都已经在天上了。

Yeah. Yeah. Mean, it's like the satellites are already up there.

没错。而且他们也有竞争对手。亚马逊有'柯伊伯计划'，软银投资了一家叫OneWeb的公司也在做这个。但这确实是未来感十足的东西，

Yeah, totally. And they've got competitors there too. Amazon's got Project Kuiper and SoftBank funded a company called OneWeb that's doing it. But yeah, it's futuristic stuff that's

实际上SpaceX的优势在于垂直整合，你看，这对业务各方面都有利。一方面他们在内部构建业务，另一方面他们刺激了更多发射需求——而他们正是主要供应商。这会带来更多发射、更深度的垂直整合、成本进一步下降，然后这个飞轮就会持续转动。

actually Well, happening SpaceX has the you know, back to the vertical integration, like they have the advantage of, you know, it benefits all sides of the business. A, they're building this business internally. B, they're giving more, they're stimulating more demand for launches of which they are the primary provider. It's gonna lead to more launches, more vertical integration, cost comes down farther, and then the flywheel is just gonna keep spinning.

百分百同意。你还提到了'拼车'这个词用在太空里挺有意思。这是他们去年在官网上线的服务，顺便说，你可以用信用卡支付定金——他们真的会扣你信用卡——但最低花一百万美元就能搭个便车。

100%. 100%. And you mentioned rideshare too, which is a funny word to use in space. But it's the thing that they put on their website in the last year or so, where by the way, you can put in a credit card, to- to- for them to take a deposit on this, and it's- they will charge you a credit card. But you can basically pay as little as a million dollars to hitch a ride.

完全如你所说，大卫。你发射大型卫星时顺便捎上我的小卫星。你可以上官网说'我想在2024年前发射100公斤的东西'，然后他们会报价。这简直太疯狂了

So it's exactly what you said, David. You're sending a big satellite up, take my little one up too. You can go to the website and you can say, I I want to send up something that's 100 kilograms by 2024. And, like quote me. And it is the craziest

的事。我没想到他们真接受订单。这就像在官网上用Apple Pay付特斯拉定金一样。绝对是的。

thing. Thing. I didn't realize they take orders. So this is like the equivalent of an Apple Pay down payment on a Tesla on the website. Absolutely.

你知道特斯拉的网站是用Shopify搭建的吗？我不知道。如果真是那样就太棒了。

Do you know if Shopify powers it? Like Tesla? I don't know. That would be amazing.

这是个好问题。

That's a good question.

特斯拉和SpaceX的网站设计非常相似。我在想是不是用了Shopify。

The design is pretty similar between the Tesla website and the SpaceX website. Yeah. I wonder if it is Shopify. Yeah.

为了避免重复讨论，我现在要提前说一下关于定价手册的事。SpaceX公开定价页面对整个航天生态系统造成了巨大冲击——这简直疯狂，你可以直接查看拼单发射服务，甚至还能下载详细报价PDF。上面明码标价：猎鹰九号6200万美元，重型猎鹰...

Just because I don't want to talk about this twice, I'm gonna pull forward playbook thing now about about the pricing there. It is a massive disruption to the entire aerospace ecosystem that SpaceX has a pricing page. Like it is the craziest thing you can go to to- there's the rideshare thing, but then there's also like literally just a PDF that you can click and pull up. And it's like, do you want a Falcon nine? It's $62,000,000 Do you want a Falcon Heavy?

更贵些（具体价格我记不清了）。航天行业从未有过这样的价格透明度，这种公开把业内人都吓坏了。

It's more expensive and I don't know what it is. But this has never been an industry with price transparency. And by bringing that, it is just like, you know, it freaks everyone in the industry out for them to be that transparent.

还有类似优步拼车的模式。

Plus the Uber Pool.

对，对。好的，刚才本该讨论的内容被我提前用定价手册举例了。

Right. Right. Okay. So, that was what would have happened otherwise. I dipped us into playbook.

我们继续吧

Let's keep going

如果有人想效仿这种做法，他们应该遵循怎样的行动指南？我们在这里注意到哪些关键主题？

with If if someone wanted to do something like this, what is the playbook they should run and, what are some of the themes that we noticed here?

哎呀，好吧。我快速过一下我记下的几点。首先，我开始研究思考——汉密尔顿·赫尔默会如何评价SpaceX是否拥有竞争优势？

Oof. Oh, man. Well, okay. I'll run through some of the ones I jotted down quickly. One, I started thinking doing the research about like, what would would Hamilton Helmer say about like, what is SpaceX's does SpaceX have power?

如果有，那是什么？我认为正确的答案是——这基本上也是我们整期节目反复强调的——他们采取了反定位策略，比如垂直整合以及通过价格透明化等对整个行业的颠覆性做法。如果美联航等竞争对手效仿，将彻底破坏他们的组织结构和商业模式。完全正确。所以他们根本不可能跟进。

If so, what is it? And I think the right one, and I think this is basically what we've been banging the drum on all episode is they came out with counter positioning like the vertical integration and the whole approach that they've taken with price transparency and everything to the industry. If UAL and other competitors match that it would destroy their whole organizational structure and business model. Totally. So there's no way they can match it.

但这里还有个有趣的现象——我不太确定这是否算作竞争优势，或者适用于多少其他行业——我开始思考垂直整合。在许多行业里，颠覆往往发生在从垂直转向水平整合时，就像PC行业的历史。然后我思考原因，认为这通常发生在像当年大型机时代那样：计算设备高度垂直整合，出货量极少且单价极高时适合垂直整合。而当规模扩大、出货量激增、价格下降时，水平整合就更合理，因为可以更灵活地划分技术栈各层级的价值分配，将标准化部件外包。

But I think there's another interesting thing here and I'm not quite sure I'm not quite sure if this is a power or how many other industries this is applicable to, but I started thinking about vertical integration and in so many industries you see going from the disruption happened when you go from vertical to horizontal. Like this is what happened in the PC industry. You know, and then I started thinking about why and I think it's often when if you think about like when computing was vertically integrated in the deck days, it was when you had mainframes and you had pretty few units shipped like at a very high price for each of them. That's like when it makes sense to vertically integrate. And then as volumes grow and you get a lot more units shipped and goes up and price goes down, then horizontal integration makes more sense because you can be more nimble, can define layers of the stack where there's more power versus another and you can have more profitability and outsource commodity parts.

耐人寻味的是，这个行业原本的结构是：全球火箭发射数量这个'n值'极小，但由于政府主导的商业模式，却反常地形成了水平整合的竞争格局。SpaceX进场后断言：不，这里实际存在的是反规模经济效应。

What's interesting here is that you had this industry structure where you had an extremely small n, number of units shipped, like number of rocket launches around the world was extremely small and yet you had these because of the way most of it being government business, you had these like horizontally integrated players that were competing within it. SpaceX came in and said, oh, no. No. No. There's actually, an antiscale economy here.

我们应该垂直整合。我实在想不出还有哪个市场像这样——规模极小却反常地水平化。但这突然让我意识到，这正是SpaceX能够颠覆行业的核心密钥。

We should be vertically integrated. And, like, I I can't think of any other markets that exist like that where you have, like, a really small number, but you have this bizarrely horizontalized industry. But it just struck me though like this was like major key to how SpaceX was able to disrupt it.

这很有趣，因为我在想这个类比是否反向也成立。比如苹果公司是否垂直整合了iPhone？他们确实做到了部分整合。

That's interesting because in some ways, I'm trying to think if the analogy holds in the other direction. Like Apple has has Apple vertically integrated the iPhone? They've it's

嗯，某种程度上他们最初是垂直整合的。

Well, in some started it vertically integrated.

噢天哪。其实Techri上有篇很棒的文章指出这并非真正的垂直整合。他们只做自认为能形成差异化的部分来紧密耦合，比如CPU和操作系统。

Oh boy. Think there's actually a great Techri post on the fact that this is not vertically integrated. That they do make, they do the things that they view as differentiable to tightly couple. So like CPUs, the OS.

其实有趣的是，他们并不生产这些，而是负责设计。

And actually interesting, they don't make them, they design them.

确实如此。但他们随后将数千个部件外包。

That's true. But then they outsource thousands

在很多方面他们确实外包了...我是说，苹果更像是底特律汽车制造商模式：设计核心引擎，其余部件由大量供应商提供。

of parts. They have in a lot of ways really outs I mean, if anything Apple is kind of like the Detroit audio manufacturer model where they design it, they make the core engine, and then they have a ton of suppliers for all the other parts.

没错。但他们对这些供应商有极强的议价权，能压缩其利润空间。而航空航天业没人挤压利润，大家都乐意让下游合作伙伴赚取丰厚利润。

Yep. But they have so much power over those suppliers that they're able to squeeze margins on those. Yep. Whereas there was nobody squeezing margins in aerospace. Everybody was happy to let their downstream partners have fat margins.

是的。因为从洛克希德、波音的角度来看，总价越高越好，他们赚的钱就越多，因为他们只是按固定比例抽成。

Yep. Because again, from the Lockheed's, the Boeing's perspectives, the higher the total price, the better, the more money they made because they were just getting a straight percentage.

没错。真有意思。有趣的是，我表达方式和你不太一样，但我试着列出了商业模式的要点：第一，每次发射收取高额费用（但没其他公司那么夸张）。NASA愿意支付是因为传统竞争对手成本结构高得离谱，而且关键是没有可复用性——虽然目前不重要但将来会很重要。

Yeah. So interesting. It's funny, I didn't articulate it quite the same way you had, but I tried to write out like the bullet points of the business model, which is like, one, get paid exorbitant fees but not as exorbitant as everyone else for every launch. NASA's willing to pay this because the old world competitors had crazy high cross structures, and importantly, no reusability. Hasn't been important yet but will be.

所以我认——我认为他们现在每次发射的毛利率都是正的，甚至首次尝试就盈利（不考虑复用），虽然我不完全确定，但有些估算是这么显示的。第二，用这些利润投资开发更高复用性和更低成本的系统。第三，通过卫星发射合同等业务获得更高利润。第四，在竞争对手追赶复用技术和垂直整合供应链时享受丰厚利润。数据显示SpaceX收费低于竞争对手，但明显远高于他们的成本基础。

And so what I th- I think they're gross margin positive on every launch now on the first try even without reuse, I'm not totally sure, but that's what- what, some estimates suggest. So then two, is take those profits to fund the development of more reusability and more lower cost systems. Three, make even more margin from doing that and getting paid for those contract launches of satellites, etcetera. Four, enjoy these fat margins while everyone else is trying to catch up to reusability and trying to vertically integrate or squeeze all their suppliers. And as a data point here, SpaceX charges less than their competitors, but obviously well above their- their cost basis.

如果他们真能通过垂直整合获取所有这些利润，本可以大方让利。具体数据是：猎鹰九号对美国政府的任务（包含额外3000万美元成本）收费不到1亿美元，而ULA的合同——我记不清具体是哪份——但基本上每次发射要价4亿美元。

If they're actually able to harvest all this margin there, they would have been giving away by vertically integrating. The data point is that Falcon nine missions, even to the US government with- with the additional $30,000,000 in Costco for under $100,000,000 And ULA's contract that was, I can't remember which one, but basically has all of the launches at $400,000,000

是啊。

Yeah.

所以这里面利润空间太大了。第五步，用这些丰厚利润的资金来资助自有业务，比如星链或我们接下来要讨论的火星计划。SpaceX可以无限期对这些自有资产收费——他们先用NASA的资金启动火箭生产，再用这些利润空间启动自有业务，就像两级火箭助推。

And so like, there's just so much margin in there. So then component five, use the funds from these fat margins to fund their own owned and operated businesses like Starlink, or like the Mars stuff that I think we'll talk about here. Where basically SpaceX themselves will be able to charge for those owned assets on an indefinite basis. Like they're able to like bootstrap the production of rockets using NASA, and then bootstrap their owned and operated business with all this margin that everyone let them play with. It's like this two step bootstrap.

没错，这确实很厉害。我想快速提几点：一是我们刚才提到蓝色起源，这个话题改天可以单独聊。但有意思的是——回到我之前那个'钱多事多'的比喻——贝索斯每年往蓝色起源投10亿美元，策略完全不同。

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. A couple of the quick ones I wanna hit on. One, we've alluded to Blue Origin a little bit on this and that's probably another episode for another day. But I just, you know, with different strategies, different approaches, but it strikes me as interesting back to the whole, know, fun analogy I use is mo money, mo problems. Like Bezos is putting a billion dollars a year into Blue Origin.

贝索斯正在出售价值十亿美元的亚马逊股票，这笔资金可能用于

Bezos is selling a billion dollars in Amazon stock that could be used for

但蓝色起源获得的资金远超1亿美元，股权融资已投入其中。有趣的是，SpaceX在股权融资方面筹集到的资金少得多，而马斯克从一开始就专注于将其打造成能盈利的业务。表面看来你会觉得他们资源匮乏，但正是这种资源限制和必须建立盈利模式的压力，迫使他们找到颠覆行业的方法并取得巨大成就。这就像我们节目中常看到的创业公司主题，对吧？

But funding for Blue certainly a lot more than $100,000,000 has gone in in terms of equity funding into Blue Origin. It's interesting though, like SpaceX in terms of equity funding has raised so much less money and Elon from the beginning was focused on this is going to be a revenue generating profitable business. And so on the one hand you think naively like, oh, they have so much fewer resources. But I think it's in many ways precisely because of that resource constraint and having to build this profitable business that they've figured out how to disrupt the industry and accomplished so much. It's just like, that's just such a theme like we see all the time on this show and in startups, right?

有时候你会看到某些公司融资巨额资金，以为能横扫行业获得成功，但最终反而害了他们，因为他们没有被逼着去建立真正的商业模式。

It's like sometimes you think when you're out of the gate, like you see these companies raise tons of money and like think they're gonna, you know, clear out the industry and have all this success, but it ends up hurting them because like they're not forced to build a real business.

是啊，我之前确实没从这个角度思考过。

Yeah. I hadn't really thought about it in those terms.

最后一点与此相关的是：纵观SpaceX和特斯拉，马斯克不就是纳西姆·塔勒布'利益攸关'理论的活化身吗？这家伙完全做到了言行合一。你可以对马斯克有各种评价，但他多次公开表示'如果特斯拉或SpaceX破产，我个人也会破产'——这本就该如此。他们经历过的濒死时刻和绝地重生，如果他没有这种破釜沉舟的态度，比如想着'就算破产我还有迈凯伦'...

And then the last last one just related to that, you know, is Elon across across, SpaceX and Tesla, is he just like the living embodiment of, you know, the Nassim Taleb, skin in the game? You know, Axiom, like, this guy, like, absolutely put his money where his mouth is. And you can say many things about Elon but you know, he's been quoted on so many occasions saying like, if either Tesla or SpaceX goes bankrupt, I will personally go bankrupt. And that is as it should be And the number of near death moments they've had and pulled through, like if that weren't the case, if he were like, you know, I'll be fine. I'll still have my McLaren if this goes bankrupt.

他们是否还能有那种坚韧毅力渡过难关？我觉得很难说。

Like would they have had the fortitude and he had the fortitude to pull through? Like, I don't know.

我确实这么认为。你把因果关系弄反了——但这就是先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题。我的理解是：马斯克追求成功的驱动力才是根源，而不是什么金钱上的利益捆绑。

I do think so. I think you're reversing the chicken and the egg there. But that's why it's a chicken or the egg thing. Like the way that I would think about this is like, Elon's drive to make this thing a success is the reason. Like it's not any monetary skin in the game.

他——我是说他在乎破产与否，但也不尽然。如果真那么在意避免破产，他就不会在两家公司同时加杠杆。显然，他真正在乎的是完成这项使命。正是这种执念让他押上全部身家。倒不是说因为投入巨大就被迫必须成功。

He- I mean he cares if he goes bankrupt, but not really. Like if he really cared about not going bankrupt, then he wouldn't have doubly leveraged himself across two companies. So like, clearly the thing he cares about is succeeding in this mission. And that is what drove him to put all of his money in. It's not like he's locked into succeeding now because of the fact that he's so invested.

没错。但他确实已无退路。

Yeah. But he definitely burned the bridges behind him.

对，对。他现在其实——我是说现在还是有退路的，毕竟他还持有SpaceX约40%股份，股权价值足够庞大。是的，他——特斯拉的退路完全可以通过埃隆退出SpaceX来实现。

Yes. Yes. There is no way for him to I mean, now there's a way out because there's just he still owns probably 40 something percent of SpaceX and there's so much equity value there that you know. Yeah. He- he- there's- there's a way out for Tesla purely by- by Elon getting out of SpaceX.

确实。现阶段是这样。

Yep. At this point.

而且这生意实在太棒了。说真的，单次发射就能赚1亿美元，每月若能完成两次。尤其如果能重复使用那些火箭的话。

And it's such a good business. I mean, truly, like making- making a hundred- $100,000,000 a pop if you can do that twice a month. Yeah, especially if you can reuse those rockets.

好吧。抱歉。继续你的主题吧。

Yeah. All right. Sorry. Go for your themes.

好的好的。现在我想到几个有趣的点。想聊另一种垂直整合方式——SpaceX是水平组装火箭，而其他公司多是垂直组装。想象一下，当火箭平躺在地面建造时，就不需要动用昂贵复杂的液压设备来移动，也不必为火箭专门建造摩天大楼般的设施。

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I've got a couple of fun ones. So I want to talk about a different type of vertical integration, which is SpaceX assembles their rockets horizontally, and most other companies assemble their rockets vertically. And as you can imagine, when you lay them on the ground and you build them that way, you don't have to take really expensive crazy hydraulic machines and move around. You know, you don't have to construct a skyscraper around your rocket.

这个——我举这个例子，是因为它极具说明性，展示了SpaceX如何在资金受限的环境下，通过解决公司建设中的每个环节问题，找到更创新、更低成本的方法。我记得埃隆有句很有意思的话，大意是说俄罗斯人——不确定是埃隆还是格温说的——俄罗斯人是在地面制造火箭的，而大多数美国公司是垂直制造的。但格温引用的数据显示，SpaceX的火箭工厂每平方英尺成本仅50美分。如果你垂直整合火箭（双关语），将其竖立起来组装，那么太空制造的实际成本会达到每平方英尺12到18美元，因为你需要让工人上下移动来建造这些高耸入云的火箭。

And this is a- I'm using this as an example, but it's super illustrative of how SpaceX problem solved every single component of building their company in a cash constrained environment into finding a more innovative, more inexpensive way of doing something. And like, I think Elon has this interesting quote where he's like, yeah, actually the Russians, I don't know if it's Elon or Gwen, but the Russians actually manufacture them on the ground. Most of these US companies actually manufacture them vertically. But the number that Gwen cites is that she says, SpaceX's rocket factory is 50¢ a square foot. And if you vertically integrate your rocket, no pun intended, stand it up and assemble it that way, space ends up effectively costing you $12 to $18 a square foot because you're moving people up and down to build these rockets way the heck up in space.

这完美体现了SpaceX面临的极端约束条件——其他达到同等规模的企业从未经历过这种压力。

And it's just it's just a great illustration of the incredible constraints that SpaceX was under that no other player that's ever reached the scale that they're at has been under.

是啊老兄，太疯狂了。这简直是...成本差距超过一个数量级了。

Yeah. Man, that's crazy. That's such a that's like a so it's more than an order of magnitude difference in the cost.

确实如此。

Absolutely.

那特么的为啥不这么干呢？

And like, why the F wouldn't you do that then?

完全同意。另一个我们讨论过的新兴市场需求案例也很有意思。他们——这个例子来自埃隆·马斯克的书——在所有人都认为只有法拉利才有市场时，他们却造了辆本田雅阁。结果证明市场确实存在对雅阁的需求，这种意外发现很酷。现在有了立方卫星这类技术，创新速度会比过去十年才发射一次哈勃望远镜的时代快得多。

Absolutely. It's really amazing. The other one that we talked about is sort of new market needs. So they, they sort of built a, this isn't a, this is from the Elon Musk book, but, they built a Honda Accord instead of, building a Ferrari when everyone else thought only Ferraris were, would, would be wanted, but it turned out there's an emerging market for Accords, which is unexpected and cool to see. And I think we'll see the innovation compound now that we're having all these CubeSats and things like that up there much faster than we saw with, only shipping a Hubble up once a decade.

没错。事实证明，就算开法拉利或迈凯伦的人，也不会天天开这些车。

Yep. Well, it turns out even the people who drive Ferraris or McLarens, you know, they don't wanna drive those every day.

没错。后来特斯拉和SpaceX做了完全相同的事，就像在说：'嘿，我们知道怎么廉价生产雅阁，现在还要造超便宜的法拉利。'是的，抱歉现有的法拉利用户，但你们也会想要我们的车。

Right. And then at some point, you know, Tesla did SpaceX did exactly the same thing Tesla did, which is like, hey, we know how to make Accords really cheap. So now we're also gonna make a really cheap Ferrari. Yep. And, sorry existing Ferrari people, but you're also gonna want ours.

我前几天就在看这个。性能版Model 3——虽然还是很贵的车——大概要

I was looking at this the other day. What is, the performance Model three, which granted is still a very expensive car. It's like

5万5到6万美元。

a $55,000 $60,000 car.

对，还是太贵了。但花6万美元就能买到零百加速...现在降到3秒内了吧？

Yeah, right. Still way too, it's like, But gonna buy the, you know, call it, let's say $60,000 you can get zero to 60 time. What it's down like three, below three now?

不太确定，差不多吧。

I don't know, something like that.

是啊，以前你得花几十万才能达到这个水平。

Yeah, for like you used to have to spend a couple 100,000 to get that.

没错，说得好。最后——这是我最后一个观点吗？我想我最后的策略是客户多元化。

Yep. That's a great point. All right. My last, is this my last? I think it's my last playbook here is customer diversification.

因此他们并不依赖单一客户或单一类型的客户。他们拥有所有这些不同的业务领域。在政府方面，他们有国防和民用业务，比如NASA的补给和载人航天合同。而在国防领域，他们还有空军合同等等。

So they are not reliant on one customer or even one type of customer. They have all these different sectors. They have defen- so within the government they have defense and they have civil. So NASA's resupply and human contracts. But- and the defense, they have these Air Force contracts among other things.

此外他们还拥有电信和媒体等商业业务。所以目前来看，这是一个稳健且多元化的业务体系——这在航天领域以前基本是不存在的。这将为他们构筑护城河，帮助他们在不同市场抵御风暴。

And then they've got the commercial business with telecom, with media. And so it's- at this point, it's a robust and diversified business that is just- that was not true in space largely before now. And it's gonna be defensible for them. And it's gonna help them weather storms in different markets.

是啊，这很有意思。我们马上要进入评分环节了，所以我先不展开。但问题是：这个市场最终会有多大？好吧。

Yeah, it's interesting. Well, we're gonna get to this in grading in a minute. So I'll hold off. But the question is like, okay, so how big is this market gonna get? All right.

没错，让我们期待评分环节吧。

Yes, let's hope for grading.

嗯。

Yep.

最后我想指出的是，截至2019年5月，埃隆持有SpaceX 54%的股份。虽然后来他们又融资了约5.5亿美元，但天啊，这家伙牢牢掌控着公司股权。他做到了...埃隆在很多方面都是大师，要知道他还是首席工程师。

Lastly, the thing that I want to point out, I think as of May 2019, Elon owned 54% of SpaceX. And so they, they did just raise something like $550,000,000 since then. But like, holy God did that guy hold on to equity in his company. He managed to he is Elon is a master of many things. Know, he's the chief engineer.

他是...你知道的，他身兼多职。他更是筹集资金的高手。

He's, you know, he's lots of things. He is a master of of raising capital.

嗯，我是说，这很有趣，对吧？他没有融资，而是投入了自己的资金。我觉得有意思的是，虽然我们在历史和事实部分没讨论这个，但在他们拿到NASA合同后，在猎鹰九号和龙飞船成功对接国际空间站后，公司内部员工对上市的呼声很高，因为他们觉得，看啊，我们的估值刚刚实现了巨大飞跃，而且我们在这里拼死拼活，我们需要一些流动性。

Well, I mean, it's interesting, right? He didn't raise capital. He put his own capital in. Then I think what's interesting is so we didn't talk about this in history and facts, but after they got the NASA contract and after the successful Falcon nine and Dragon after the successful Dragon rendezvousing with the ISS, I think there was a lot of pressure internally from employees for the company to go public because they were like, like, look, we just hit this massive step change in valuation and like we've been killing ourselves here. We want some liquidity.

埃隆实际上写了份备忘录，给全公司发了邮件，列举了他认为上市没想象中那么好的理由，要知道他在特斯拉经历过这一切。但之后他们开始定期融资，虽然我认为部分资金可能是初级融资，但大部分应该是为员工提供的次级融资。

And Elon actually wrote a memo, an email to the company with the reasons why he thought like they should like going public isn't as good as you think, you know, and he's lived through all this at Tesla. But in the wake of that, they started doing these regular fundraisers, but I believe most some of the capital may have been primary, but I believe most of it was secondary for employees.

买断

To buy

员工的股份。有意思。流动性。我记得埃隆对此直言不讳，他说，我就要这么做。

out the employees. Interesting. Liquidity. And I think Elon was pretty outspoken about this. Said like, is like, I'm gonna do this.

这对SpaceX会是更好的解决方案。我们不必成为上市公司，员工能获得流动性，同时我们还有登陆火星的长期宏伟愿景。

This is gonna be a much better solution for SpaceX. We won't have to be a public company. We can get employee liquidity. We've got this massive long term vision of getting to Mars.

对。

Right.

是的。所以我其实认为这些资金主要不是为公司筹集的。

Yeah. So I I actually don't think that the money was raised for the company mostly.

有意思。这说明企业的商业模式更健康，因为他们至少能用毛利利润来维持运营，而不是全靠新股权资本融资。是的，我认为SpaceX整体上不盈利，但从单项目来看是赚钱的。

Interesting. Well, speaks even better to the profile of the business than that they've been able to fund with at least gross margin profit dollars rather than funding the business with all new equity capital. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think SpaceX is a profitable business, but I do think they're profitable on a unit basis.

嗯，我记得格温说过他们在某些年份实现了盈利运营。

Well, and I believe Gwen has said they have operated profitably in certain years.

哇。考虑到现在所有的研发投入，包括星链项目，我敢说他们目前肯定亏损。每次发射星链卫星其实都在亏钱，因为那个发射位本可以给别人赚9000万美元。

Wow. I mean, I'm sure they're not now, now that all the R and D is happening and, both Starlink. Well, I mean, first of all, they lose money every time they launch a star do a Starlink launch because that could have made them $90,000,000 from someone else.

据他们估算，完成整个星链系统需要投入100亿美元的资金。

And they've estimated it's gonna take $10,000,000,000 in capital to get that all built in them.

另一个烧钱大户是星际飞船的研发。不过有意思的是这些资金主要来自二级市场。好了，说回价值创造与价值捕获。这部分我会尽量简短，通常我们分两个环节讨论——

And then the other thing they're spending tons of money on is the R and D for the Starship. But yeah, interesting that those are mostly secondaries. All right, value creation and value capture. So I'm gonna be very brief on this. This is a two part segment that we usually do.

第一环节评估：他们为世界创造了这么多价值，是否有效实现了价值捕获？这方面做得好的是谷歌，反面教材是克雷格列表。第二环节要讨论：他们是否真正创造了新价值？还是像我们多次在软银系企业案例中提到的——可能摧毁了价值？或者只是把价值从某些人口袋转移到另一些人口袋？

The first part covering, of all the value that they created in the world, did they do an effective job of capturing it? People who do a good job at this are Google, people who do a bad job at this are Craigslist. And then the second piece, you know, did they actually do value creation in the world, at all? Or did they maybe either destroy value like we've talked about on many episodes with SoftBank backed companies? Or did they, perhaps just shift value from one person's pockets to another person's pockets?

我认为这根本无需争论——他们确实创造了世界新价值，开辟了新市场，加速了行业发展，而且在价值捕获方面做得非常出色。

I think it's just like an absolute no brainer that it was new value creation in the world, enabling new markets, accelerating markets, and they're doing a bang up job capturing value from it.

是的，完全同意。第一部分因为他们是私人公司所以有点不透明，但看起来确实如此。不过天啊，就像你在节目里说的，第二部分简直不用动脑子，没有任何合理的反对理由。我是说，肯定有人会反对，但在我看来，SpaceX的存在对世界没有好处这种说法根本站不住脚，你懂吧？

Yeah, totally. A little opaque because they're a private company to know on part one, but it seems like yes. But, oh my God, if there were ever a no brainer on part two, like you said on this show, like there is no reasonable argument. You I mean, I'm sure there's some arguments, but, like, to my mind, there's no reasonable argument to be made that, like, SpaceX did not like, having it exist is not good for the world. You know?

对。

Right.

好了听众朋友们，现在正是感谢我们Acquired新合作伙伴Sentry的好时机。拼写是S-E-N-T-R-Y，就像站岗放哨的人。

Alright, listeners. This is a great time to thank a new partner of ours here at Acquired, Sentry. That's s e n t r y, like someone standing guard.

没错。Sentry帮助开发者调试错误和延迟问题，几乎能解决任何软件故障，在用户发火前修复问题。正如他们官网所说，被超过400万软件开发者评价为'还不错'。

Yes. Sentry helps developers debug errors and latency issues, pretty much any software problem, and fix them before users get mad. As their homepage puts it, it's considered, quote unquote, not bad by over 4,000,000 software developers.

今天我们讨论的是Sentry如何与收购宇宙中的另一家公司Anthropic合作。Anthropic原本有旧的基建监控系统，但在其庞大的规模和复杂度下，他们转而采用Sentry来更快发现和解决问题。

So today, we're talking about the way that Sentry works with another company in the acquired universe, Anthropic. Anthropic used to have some older infrastructure monitoring that was in place, but at their massive scale and complexity, they instead adopted Sentry to help them find and fix issues faster.

确实。AI领域崩溃可能造成大问题。如果你在运行像训练模型这样的大型计算任务时某个节点故障，可能影响数百甚至数千台服务器。Sentry帮助他们检测故障硬件，在引发连锁问题前快速剔除。原本需要数天调试的重大问题，现在几小时就能解决，让他们能继续训练任务。

Yep. Crashes can be a massive problem in AI. If you're running a huge compute job like training a model and one node fails, it can affect hundreds or thousands of servers. Sentry helped them detect bad hardware so they could quickly reject it before causing a cascading problem. Sentry enabled them to debug massive issues in hours instead of days so they could get back to their training runs.

如今Anthropic依靠Sentry实时追踪异常、分配错误并分析故障，覆盖其研究团队使用的所有主要语言，包括Python、Rust和C++。Anthropic团队表示：'Sentry为开发者提供了调试问题所需的全部信息一站式平台'。

And today, Anthropic relies on Sentry to track exceptions, assign errors, and analyze failures in real time across all the primary languages used by Anthropic's research teams, including Python, Rust, and c plus plus According to the Anthropic team, Sentry gives our developers one place where they have all the information they need to debug an issue.

Sentry世界还有一个有趣的更新：从本月起，Sentry推出了名为SEER的AI调试器。SEER是一个AI代理，它能深入分析Sentry的所有问题上下文和您的代码库，不仅能猜测问题，还能根除棘手问题的根源，并为您的应用程序提供可直接合并的修复方案。

And one other fun update in the world of Sentry is that as of this month, Sentry now has an AI debugger called SEER. SEER is an AI agent that taps into all the issue context from Sentry and your code base to not just guess, but root cause gnarly issues and propose merge ready fixes specific to your application.

我们非常兴奋能与Sentry合作。他们拥有令人印象深刻的客户名单，不仅包括Anthropic，还有Cursor、Vercel、Linear等。如果您想像超过13万家使用Sentry的组织一样，从独立爱好者到全球最大企业，快速发现并修复问题代码，可以访问sentry.i0/acquired了解更多。他们为所有Acquired听众提供两个月的免费服务。就是Sentry，s-e-n-t-r-y，.i0/acquired，只需告诉他们是本和大卫推荐您的。

We are pumped to be working with Sentry. They've got an incredible customer list, including not only Anthropic, but Cursor, Vercel, Linear, and more. If you wanna fix broken code like the over 130,000 organizations using Sentry from indie hobbyists to some of the biggest companies in the world to find and fix broken code fast. You can check out sentry.i0/acquired to learn more, and they are offering two free months to all Acquired listeners. That's Sentry, s e n t r y,.i0/acquired, and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.

好了，评分环节。这次从未有过交易记录，通常这不是我们会评分的情况。对于新听众，这个环节的规则是：大公司收购小公司后，我们事后评估这笔资本运用有多明智？像Instagram那样成功，还是像AOL那样糟糕？

Alright. Grading. So there's never been a transaction, which is nor normally what we would grade. If you're new to the show, the way this section works is, big company buys little company, we grade, in- in hindsight, how good of a use of capital was it for big company to buy a little company? Was it as good as Instagram or as bad as AOL?

然后我们会给出字母评级。在没有实际交易的情况下，我们会讨论A+的标准是什么，F又是什么样子，也许C级会怎样。这次因为我们不认为他们会IPO或被收购，所以基本上就是讨论这家公司在各种情境下的最终形态会怎样。大卫，你之前问的那个问题——我真想隔着Zoom给你一巴掌——就是‘说真的，这个市场到底有多大？’

And you know, issue a letter grade. The way that we do that in this world where there hasn't been a transaction yet is talk about what would an A plus be or, you know, what would an F be and maybe what would a C look like? And in this case, because I don't think we're talking about it IPO ing or, you know, somebody, buying them. I think we're basically just going to talk about what does an end state look like for this company in each of these, in each of these scenarios. And, David, you asked the question earlier, which I wish I could reach through Zoom and slap you for, which is, well really, come on, how big is the market?

丹，这叫伏笔。

Dan, it's called foreshadowing.

当然我们可以讨论有多少没有宽带的人会付费购买宽带。也可以讨论商业和政府发射卫星的市场规模。但二月份整个火星经济会有多大？要知道，在某个未来，我们谈论的可能是火星的GDP——当火星上有一百万人口时的生产力规模。

Like sure we could talk about a market for how many of the people without broadband would pay for broadband. And sure, we could talk about both the commercial and the government markets for launching satellites. But how big is the entire Mars economy going to be in February, you know? Like there- there is some future where the- what we're talking about here is the GDP of Mars. And the GDP of Mars with a productive capacity of a- of a million people on it.

我知道我这么说像个疯子，但这就是埃隆·马斯克眼中的A+愿景——这就是整个项目的终极目标。

And I know I sound like a nut job for throwing that out, but like that is Elon Musk's A plus case here is like, that's the whole goal of this thing. Yeah.

好的。那么，你是想继续说还是希望我插话？

Yeah. Well so, okay, is that Do you want to say more or do you want me to jump in?

我在画画，这是最棒的部分。就像我们制定了一个多步骤计划，要可靠、低成本且安全地将人类送上火星，并在那里建立社会和经济体系。

I'm painting, that's the A plus here. Like it is nothing shy of we figure out a multi step process to get people to Mars reliably, cheaply, safely and build a society and economy there.

是的。不过现在有趣的是，通常我们这么做时，在SpaceX这里情况很特别，常规规则不适用。我们会提供一个时间框架，比如五年的规划期。

Yeah. Well, now the interesting thing though is so usually when we do this it's so funny with SpaceX, the usual rules don't apply. We provide a time frame, a time horizon of like five years.

这很合理。

That's fair.

SpaceX与许多其他新时代太空公司相比的有趣之处在于——当然并非所有公司都如此——但过去几年确实有许多新时代太空公司提出过类似的宏伟蓝图，比如火星经济、行星资源开发，或者在太空建加油站、开采小行星。问题在于这些公司的计划都是非此即彼的。他们只盯着遥远的终极目标，却忽视了中间过程。

So the interesting thing about SpaceX versus I think a lot of other new age space companies, not all of them by any means, but certainly there have been many new age space companies in the past several years that have had a similar a plus case of like something like the Mars economy or like, you know, planetary resources, right, or like, you know, gas stations in space, mining mining asteroids. The problem with those companies was it was it was a it was a binary. Yeah. We get to that a plus in some far future state. There's nothing along the way.

埃隆和SpaceX的非凡之处在于他们采用了阶梯式发展策略。比如：先造火箭，然后成为太空运输公司，接着转型为卫星公司并提供卫星宽带服务，之后又分拆出Boring公司——毕竟如果要在火星生活，我们总归需要隧道技术。

What's amazing that Elon and SpaceX have done is they've stair stepped up to it. It's like, oh, well, okay. First, we're gonna become a, you know, we're gonna build rockets and then we're gonna become essentially a space shipping company. Well, and then we're gonna be a satellite company and, provide internet pro satellite broadband. Well, then we're gonna spin off the boring company because actually if we're gonna be on Mars, like we need tunnels to live on Mars, so we're gonna need that anyway.

而且这些技术在地球上也很有用。之后我们还要为国际空间站供货，与NASA合作开展龙飞船计划。每个五年阶段都能实现一个里程碑目标。

And actually that's useful on Earth. Okay, then we're gonna supply the ISS and we're gonna do the Dragon program with NASA. And it's like every step along that like you can hit an A plus in each kind of five year time horizon.

确实，这个观点很中肯。我也不该提二月的事。我当时那么说是因为没想清楚实际需要多长时间才能让一百万人用上星链。其实时间要短得多。不过你说得对。

Yeah, that's a fair point. I also shouldn't have said February. I said that because I couldn't think of what timeline is to actually get a million people up there. Like, it's much sooner. But yeah, you're right.

就像——可能还有逐步提升的空间。我不确定——其实我应该知道这个的。星链的目标是计划为多少人提供多少网络服务，以及定价如何。就像——运营星链本身就是门好生意，可能单独估值就有300亿美元。虽然我不确定这是否属实。

Like the- there are potentially incremental A pluses. I don't know what the- I actually should know this, but don't. What the goal of Starlink is, is how much internet do we intend to provide to how many people and at what price. Like there's some- there's some business case for like, just operating Starlink is a really good business to be in and might be a $30,000,000,000 enterprise value thing on its own. I don't know if that's true.

我猜不是，不过

I suspect it's not, but

嗯，他们可能确实值这个价。我是说可能更高。我们知道他们预计投入100亿美元的资本支出，这部分资金来自SpaceX其他项目的现金流。他们最近筹集的大部分资金都是用于星链的。所以我也说不准。

Well, we we well, they might be. I mean, might be more. We know that they expect to put $10,000,000,000 worth of CapEx into it, both from that's CapEx funded by cash flow from other projects within SpaceX. They have raised a a lot of the primary capital that they've raised recently has been for Starlink. So I don't know.

我是说，如果你不认为能从中获得300多亿美元收入，投入100亿资本支出还合理吗？

I mean, like, would you would it be reasonable to put $10,000,000,000 of CapEx into something if you didn't think you could generate $30 plus billion in revenue out of it?

对，这个观点很好。虽然我没看过融资方案，但肯定有类似说法。更不用说他们在发射市场还在持续拉开差距。猎鹰九号简直是劳模，发射业务做得风生水起。

Yeah, that's a good point. I haven't seen the pitch deck, but I'm sure it says something like that. Yeah. Not to mention, continue to sort of pull away I think in the launch market. Mean, Falcon nine is just a workhorse and an amazing business of doing these launches.

所以在未来三四年里，在星舰真正成熟前，如果他们每月都能发射——光是猎鹰九号的年收入就能达到14亿。不知道你打算用多少倍率来估算这个，或者我们该先算出EBITDA利润率再计算。但确实是个好生意。

And so for the next three, four years until they really have Starship humming, if they can actually take up to a month, they'll do what's 60,000,024 is 1,400,000,000.0 a year in revenue just from the Falcon nine launches. So I don't know what kind of multiple you want to apply to that or if we should figure out actually what the EBITDA margin is and do it that way. But yeah, it's good business.

好的，我们该讨论F案例了吗？F。

All right, should we move to the F case? F.

是的。我是说，有些F案例我不想提，所以就不说了。但其中一个可能是SpaceX无法控制的外部因素导致多次发射失败，或者关键发射失败，进而使他们失去订单。这个行业对品牌信誉的依赖程度高得惊人，其他风险较低的行业并非如此。而且，我认为由于这种风险因素，他们的收入比其他企业更容易归零。

Yeah. I mean, there's some F cases that I I don't wanna say, so I'm not going to. But one would be that factors outside of SpaceX's control, cause more than one launch, to- to go poorly, or in fact an important launch to go poorly, and- and basically make it so that they don't get orders anymore. This business is incredibly brand depend- dependent in a way that, other businesses that are not this high risk are not. And, I think it would be very, Their revenue could go to zero much more easily than other businesses because of that risk factor.

是啊，不过挺有意思的。我是说，这种风险因素...毕竟私营企业以前从未真正涉足过这类业务。但这个行业的风险因素一直存在，这本来就是个高危行业。

Yeah. It's interesting though. I mean, at the same time that risk factor Well, because a private company has never really been doing this kind stuff before. But that risk factor has always existed in this industry. Like this is a dangerous industry.

事实上，历史上这个行业曾发生过政府导致的可怕事故。

And in fact, there have been terrible, you know, accidents in the history, of the industry made by governments.

是的。但我们取消了航天飞机计划。

Yeah. But we canceled the shuttle program.

没错。但那不是因为哥伦比亚号事故吧？

Right. But that wasn't because of the Columbia, was it?

我不太确定。但感觉这是个复合因素，既昂贵又不安全。

I don't know for sure. Feels like a compounding factor though that it was both expensive and unsafe.

确实，确实如此。希望我们不会遇到那种特殊情况，不过这个观点很好。我是说，就像埃隆指出的那样，我们在本期节目中也多次提到，这类事务通常属于国家而非公司的范畴。因此可能会出现各种难以预料的因素。

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, hopefully we don't, face that particular case, but but it's a good point. I mean, like, you know, as Elon makes the point and we've made the point several times on this episode, typically this stuff is the domain of countries, not companies. And so there might be all sorts of unforeseen, factors that pop up here.

完全同意。确实可能会遇到政府层面的问题。我的意思是，可能会出现外国政府无法与美国公司开展业务的情况。这家公司X1清单上的风险因素规模之大，远超大多数企业可能面临的情况。

Totally. Yeah. You could have governmental problems. I mean, you could have problems where foreign governments aren't able to do business with American companies. I mean, risk factors that would go on this company's X1 are just at such a bigger scale than you would ever see in most for most companies.

没错。举个例子，我觉得这算是一种F级情景。通过这个视角来评估会很有趣——如果他们最终实现了所有目标，成功将百万人送上火星，那意味着什么？实际会产生什么影响？

Yeah. Well, here's one. I mean, I guess this is a sort of a, F scenario. Well, I think kind of is an interesting lens through which to look through grading here, which is if they're ultimately successful in everything that they're talking about here and they get a million people to Mars, what is it? What does that actually mean?

他们需要解决很多问题。比如，SpaceX会成为火星的政府吗？

Like, there's a lot of questions they're gonna have to get figured out. Like, is SpaceX, like, the government of Mars?

我也在思考这个问题。

I was wondering this too.

这到底是一家公司还是一个国家？我们开始听起来像是科幻小说里的反乌托邦未来了。

Like is this a company or is this a country or is this like we're starting to sound like pretty sci fi dystopian future here.

打个比方，如果哥伦布抵达美洲，那么北美是属于荷兰东印度公司还是...对吧，属于哥伦布代表的西班牙政府？

I mean, like if Columbus makes it to The US, does the Dutch East India Company own North America? Or does Right. Columbus, the Spanish government?

这是个好问题。

It's a good question.

是的。随着时间的推移，谁能用军队征服它，谁就拥有它。是的。我是说，以历史为鉴。

Yeah. Over time, whoever has the army that's able to conquer it probably owns it. Yeah. I mean, looking at history as a guide.

是的。我是说，虽然听起来有点疯狂，但我知道埃隆谈论过这个，他希望火星也能有类似的类比，你知道，距离上一个新世界已经过去三百多年了。如果这成为现实，将会有一个新世界，那么，谁拥有那个世界呢？是的。

Yeah. I mean, again, this sounds sort of crazy but I, know, Elon talks about this that this is sort of, he hopes the same type of analogy with Mars is like, you know, it's been three hundred plus years since there was a new world. If this happens, there will be a new world and like, well, who owns that world? Yeah.

如果你思考过这个问题或知道答案，请联系我们，加入我们的Slack群组acquired.fm/slack，或发邮件至AcquiredFMGmail.com。这同样适用于本期节目的其他内容。我相信这里有很多比我们更了解航空航天的人，当然也有很多科幻迷。所以，是的，我们希望能和大家一起深入探讨。

If you've thought about this question or you know the answer to this question, please reach out, join us in the acquired Slack, acquired.fm/slack or email us at AcquiredFMGmail dot com. This goes with everything else in the episode too. I'm sure there's lots of people here who are more sort of aerospace native than we are and certainly lots of sci fi geeks. So, yeah, I think, we'd love to think more about this with, with folks.

是的。我猜这不会是我们最后一期关于SpaceX的节目。是的。

Yeah. I suspect this won't be our last, SpaceX episode Yeah.

或者广义上的太空主题节目。

Or space episode broadly.

是的，完全同意。

Yeah, totally.

好的，专属时间。

All right. Carve outs.

开始吧。我们好久没安排专属时间了。是啊，最近发生了这么多好事。隔离期间我看了很多优质内容，从书籍到小说和非虚构作品，再到播客、电视节目和电影。

Let's do it. It's been a while since we've had a carve out. Yeah. So much good stuff been going on. I think among much great content I've been consuming during quarantine from books to both fiction and nonfiction to, podcasts to, to TV shows to movies.

我觉得《最后之舞》最让我印象深刻。这周早些时候我刚看完。你看完了吗？

I think The Last Dance takes the cake for me. I wrapped it up earlier this week. Have you finished it yet?

我还没看完。

I haven't yet.

哦，真的太棒了。特别是，你知道，我从小就看这些比赛，记得小时候在电视上看过很多场，尤其是公牛队98年的赛季。现在能通过这部纪录片深入了解幕后故事，不仅看到乔丹，还有整个团队的全貌。每一秒都让我享受。

Oh, it's so good. So good. Just like especially, like, you know, growing up watching, you know, I remember being a kid and watching a lot of those games on TV, especially the 98 run, for the bulls, and then, like, just getting this super deep behind the scenes, you know, look at all of it and the portrait not just of Jordan, but of everybody on that team. So, so great. I enjoyed every single second of it.

我想看第三集。虽然所有精彩片段都已经被剧透了，因为我看到了所有相关梗图，但我还是期待能...

I want episode three. I'm I'm I already all the best parts are spoiled because I saw all the memes, but I am still looking for a

不一样啊。对啊，那些梗图就是关于以赛亚·托马斯的。我见过所有...不知道为什么。是啊，为什么他没被选上。

different Oh, yeah. The memes are just Isaiah Thomas meme. I met all the I don't know why. Yeah, why wasn't. Was not selected.

太棒了。

So great.

哦，没错。太好了。我想说的是，这可能已经被单独列出来了，因为我向不同的人推荐过很多次。但这是迈克尔·马尔贝森五年前的一次演讲，在谷歌做的，我想是为他的新书巡回宣传，或者只是讨论《解构技能与成功方程式》这本书。这是你能花时间度过的最有价值的一个小时，他在演讲中阐述了技能游戏与运气游戏，以及几乎所有或大多数事物都兼具这两者。

Oh, that's right. So good. Mine is, I think there's some chance that this may have already been a carve out because I've recommended this so many times to different people. But as a five year old talk by Michael Malbeson, This one at Google, for his, I think, book tour, or at least just discussing the book Untangling Skill and The Success Equation. And it is one of the best hours you could spend with your time, where he lays out games of skill and games of luck and every- or most things are both.

理解你所热爱的各种运动或游戏在这个连续体上的位置。同时思考你生活中遇到的竞争，哪些更依赖技能，哪些更依赖运气。他对此进行了非常理性和理论性的分析，观看这个过程本身就是一种享受，因为他揭示了像这样的奇怪悖论：一项活动所需的技能越高，运气对结果的影响就越大。

And understanding where a lot of the different sports that you love or games that you love are on that continuum. And also thinking about competitions in your life of what's more skill based and what's more luck based. And doing this really analytical and theoretical analysis of it that is just a privilege to watch because he uncovers weird paradoxes like this one. The more skill an activity requires, the more luck will play a role in the outcome.

什么？技能悖论，对。

The, what's that? The paradox of skill, Yeah.

这太有趣了。比如，如果你是个体育迷，或者投资者，或者在某个领域参与最高水平的竞争，观看这个演讲会让你对'你参与的是什么游戏'有异常清晰的认识。我强烈推荐。

And it's so interesting. And like, if you're interested in, if you're a sports fan, or if you're an investor, or if you compete in anything at the highest level, it is wildly clarifying to watch this and understand sort of, what game you're in. I can't recommend it enough.

太好了。你还读过关于这个主题的书，对吧？

So good. And you read a book about this, right?

书名一样。

Same title.

是的，而且标题也一样。是的，我想是的，我应该回去重读那篇文章，或者至少重看那个视频。我记得它非常棒。

Yeah, and with the same title. Yeah, I think it was, I should go back and reread that or at least rewatch the video. I remember it being fantastic.

太棒了，真的太棒了。好吧，我们通常的总结环节到了，我们还有一个有趣的公告。那就是我和David将在11月参加一个名为ASCEND的航空航天行业会议并发表演讲。基于我们俩在这方面的深入研究，虽然我们自称是航空航天新手，但充满好奇并热爱钻研这些内容。

It's awesome. It's awesome. Well, our usual sort of wrap up here, we have one more, kind of fun announcement. And that is that David and I are gonna be speaking at an aerospace industry conference, in November called ASCEND. That's, something that, you know, obviously based on both of us getting to go deep on the research here, I'd call ourselves, aerospace novices, but, but curious and- and, love diving into this stuff.

而且我们很幸运能有机会参加Ascend并做一些演讲。所以如果你和我们一样对这些内容感兴趣，或者认为太空可能是未来，或者你想进入太空相关行业，Ascend应该是个很棒的活动。希望我们能线下见面，大家可以去看看，我们会在节目说明里放上链接，如果你感兴趣的话。

And, and we were fortunate enough to- to get to attend and- and do some talks, at Ascend. And so if, if you're like us where this stuff is interesting to you or you think space may be the future, or you're interested in getting, getting into a space adjacent industry, Ascend, should be a great event. Hopefully we'll get to do it in person, but, folks should check it out and, we'll put a link in the show notes if that, tickles your fancy.

是的，我已经等不及了。真的很希望能线下举办，你知道，在很多方面这次活动对我们个人和许多听众来说都意义重大，迫使我们成长和适应。但大家可能知道我们过去所有节目都是线下与嘉宾录制的，我们会飞去见嘉宾。虽然现在不能这样做了，一方面很好，但另一方面，我确实很怀念，希望能线下重聚，和大家在一起。

Yeah, I can't wait for it. Really hope it'll be in person to be such a great, you know, many ways I think this time has, for us it acquired us personally and for many of our listeners too, know, forced us to grow and obviously adapt. But, you know, folks may know we we used to do all of our episodes, with guests in person. We would fly to go see our guests. Obviously, we haven't been doing that now, but, which is on the one hand been great, but on the other hand, you know, I miss it and it'd just be great to hope that happens in person, be there together and, and just have our community together.

是的，当然。我特别期待的一个演讲是NASA局长Jim Bridenstine的发言，他将概述本周的所有重要活动。他在航空航天行业的地位非常高。另外ULA的总裁兼CEO也会出席，我相信他的发言会非常精彩。

Yeah, for sure. Well, one, I mean, one talk I'm really excited for is, Jim, Bridenstine, who's, NASA's administrator, who was sort of overseeing, everything about what's- what's gonna be happening this week. He'll be speaking there. And it's a lot of, you know, it's- it's, as sort of high up as the- the sort of folks go in- in the aerospace industry. And, one other person who I'm sure will be a fascinating one to hear is the president and CEO of ULA is going to be there.

尽管我刚才说了些调侃的话，但听听他们如何应对SpaceX和其他竞争肯定会很有趣。好吧，这就是Ascend，去看看吧，ascend.events。

And so for all the shade I just threw, I think it'll be really interesting to hear how they're sort of navigating you know, SpaceX and other competitive Yeah. All right. That's Ascend. Check it out, ascend. Events.

如果你还没订阅，又是新听众并且喜欢我们的内容，你真的应该订阅。你可以在任何播客客户端订阅我们，或者我们现在也通过邮件发送新节目。你可以在我们的网站acquired.fm的页脚或右上角订阅。这样我们发布新内容时就能通知你。如果你想成为有限合伙人，订阅还能获得我们的 bonus show 访问权限。

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正如之前提到的，LP通话环节让我们有机会与大家互动，这将非常有趣。收听方式：点击节目说明中的链接或访问glow.fmaquired，所有新听众可享7天免费试用。若想轻松交流，欢迎加入Slack群组——已有超过4000人在那里讨论公司建设、当日新闻、收购案例，并探讨往期节目内容。相信本期节目发布后，我们也会在那里畅聊。

And, as mentioned, the LP calls where we get to, interact with all of you, which will be super fun. And, to listen, you can click the link in the show notes or go to glow.fmaquired and all new listeners get a seven day free trial. If you just wanna hang out and, and chat, you should join the Slack. We've got over 4,000 people in there talking about, different topics of company building, news of the day, acquisitions, and discussing previous episodes. So I'm sure we'll be chatting in there after we drop this episode.

那么，我们下次再见。

With that, we will see you next time.

我们下次见。

We'll see you next time.