They are deemed as far riskier.

If you are flying a $20 million dollar satalite, do you fly with the 6 million dollar proven launch, or the 5.999 million dollar unproven launch?

Now if the unproven guy cuts the price to 3 million dollars, the math changes (insurance can step in, etc).

I don't think they could have charged much more and gotten to where they are.

The price difference between ULA and SpaceX is much larger than that. In 2018 it was $200M (ULA) to $83M (SpaceX).

https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/16/us-air-force-spacex-ula-...

They've also increased prices now that they're proven.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-r...

Add to that ULA was forced to drop their prices, so Space-X doesn't really have much room to increase more. And they obviously can't increase on existing contracts.

I'm always shocked when a keyboard warrior on ycombinator thinks a company that size doesn't have a considerable workforce dedicated to figuring out what they can charge for their product... I doubt they just picked a number out of thin air. It was likely a combination of estimating how low they think their competitors go as well as where they need to be to win new business.

Plus, if you are going to bring the BFR online with much lower launch costs, you want people to start thinking about that reality sooner rather that later. SpaceX will have lots of their own satellites to launch, but if they are hoping to do a launch or more a day they will need to have a lot more people putting things into space. A lower price now can jumpstart lots of money into building businesses that with need those lower prices.

Atlas V prices are listed at $109 million.

https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/atlas-v

Falcon 9 is $62 million (and I believe that’s the expendable version, you get a discount if the mission allows for booster recovery).

https://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

The fact that these prices are publically available on their websites tells you something about the state of competition in the launch industry.

But the price of satellites is also much higher. A GEO commset made to common specs is going to be costing something north of $100 million. A custom DoD spysat might be in the billions. SpaceX is making very good inroads in the former but not the later.

What's the comparison on insurance rates between the two?

Hard to sell your workers on changing the game when you've got that mindset. They get some of the best because they actually want to change the way access to space works.

> They get some of the best because they actually want to change the way access to space works.

Are they really that concerned with getting "the best"? From what I've heard, they expect you to work insane hours. That pretty much limits potential employees to those without a family or a life outside of work.

Won't they just end up with the majority of their employees without significant experience this way?

In many ways though I guess it operates very much like a startup. They sell dreams to get employees.

I know a lot of current and former SpaceX employees, and can say that while they definitely used to get the best people (including a number of steals from JPL), the sheer hours has definitely negatively impacted their ability to hire the best.

A number of truly genius engineers won't even consider SpaceX anymore because they're married/have children and simply won't put up with the hours.

SpaceX still does a good job of bringing in stellar new graduates, but the lack of experience among so much of their workforce has definitely hampered their R&D.

Anecdata and probably subject to some sort of bias, but of the only two people I know who have interned there (one personally, and one via open source contributions), the first was specifically called out as "the smartest person I've ever met" by our founders when we were acquired, and the second is Sergio Benitez[1].

[1]: https://sergio.bz/

> of the only two people I know who have interned there

I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I assume those people were relatively young since they interned there?

I was not at all trying to imply they don't have talented people working there. It sounds like a great opportunity and honestly anyone who is willing to spend so much time on their craft should get good at it over time.

I am just trying to say that they are also probably missing out on many talented people who don't want to commit so much time to work.

I mean it's working out for them clearly. It seems they consider dedication to be more important than "talent" and I wouldn't necessarily say that's wrong. I only work in software which may be different but it's rare to encounter problems which require some sort of ingenuity. Most of the time work just involves.. putting in time and effort to get things done.

I suppose in a broad sense we agree then. My point was that if that's the kind of person you're bringing through the door, it's a bit academic to point out that there are other good people who disagree with how you've organized the place and won't work there. The way I'm thinking about it, that disagreement only actually matters if it's the constraint on your organization's ability to get the people you need (however you choose to define that).

I would not work SpaceX hours even though I'm a big fan. They're hiring engineers better than I, though, so I think that's a shrugworthy footnote from their perspective.

>> Hard to sell your workers on changing the game when you've got that mindset.

I don't think the workers would care if a launch cost $10-50M more than it does. If I worked there it would make me uneasy that they're looking for more funding for a mere $500M. It already makes me uneasy (and I don't work there) since I really want them to succeed with BFR and their Mars ambitions.