
SpaceX Has Nearly a Full Uber Funding in Contracts - confiscate
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/14/spacex-has-nearly-a-full-uber-funding-in-contracts/
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Animats
Space-X has a big order book, but that's not investment funding. That's
potential future sales. Space-X only gets paid when they deliver a successful
launch.

Space-X has had a huge future launch manifest for years, but they've never
been able to keep up with their announced launch schedule. Now they no longer
put dates on their launch manifest. Compare the current manifest [1] with one
from a year ago [2] They're about 15 missions behind their announced schedule
from last year.

[1] [http://www.spacex.com/missions](http://www.spacex.com/missions) [2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140917002523/http://www.spacex...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140917002523/http://www.spacex.com/missions)

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sunstone
Clearly since Russia messed with Ukraine SpaceX' well being now has a national
security aspect to it. Government support will be there for it if for nothing
else but a goad for NASA to work faster.

They might be behind schedule but Musk is known for setting unrealistically
aggressive targets. His companies may missed the milestones but they're still
streets ahead of anyone else.

SpaceX' track record has been nothing short of amazing so far and is likely to
continue once it get's its supply chain wrinkles ironed out.

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pbreit
I get what "full Uber" is trying to mean but it seems like a pretty silly
concept. And I don't see the connection between one company's bookings and
another's funds raised.

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LeoNatan25
On a personal note, I'd say it's pretty sad that a taxi company is raising
more than a company attempting to further the technological front. Not popular
to say anything against Uber here these days, but this is not against Uber
specifically, more the perverted culture that we live in. Imagine these 8+
billion going to cancer research, for example.

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davnicwil
If people can get around cheaper and more easily using Uber than they could
previously using taxis, that's an enabler for better productivity and quality
across the entire economy.

Not even to mention that Uber, in complete opposition to taxis, is massively
incentivised to drive self-driving tech forwards as quickly as possible. That
will be a huge, huge multiplier on the above.

Your use of 'perverted culture' in reference to demand for improvements in
transport services puzzles me. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your intent.
People getting around, seeing other people, working with other people is the
very basis of, well.. everything in our economy, and in our lives.

Even if only on an academic level, I really struggle to see how anyone
couldn't be excited by the improvements companies like Uber are making right
now, and the potentially more drastic improvements they could make in the
future, in this sector.

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gozo
You somehow think Uber is going to continue subsidize taxi travel forever? Is
that what all these investors are putting money into, of course not. The
technological mertis of Uber does not take that much money. They might be
working on self-driving cars, but so are several other startups and car
companies. Just not as some lofty future goal, but as actual incremental
improvements.

I think most peoples excitment over Uber is reactionary. Because they clearly
aren't as excited about all the other companies that are now using similar
technology without the poor ethics of Uber.

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pbreit
I don't like some of Uber's ethics but its execution overall has been
exceptional. There is one impressive technical component around matching up
riders along the same route. Otherwise, the Uber service is mostly just well-
executed technology. But where Uber is way beyond others is operations, scale,
marketing, etc. All worthy characteristics even if they don't resonate so much
with a pure technical crowd.

Also, on a gross basis, Uber's 20-25% take rate makes it wildly profitable.

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djloche
Here is the relevant link to the SpaceX press release:
[http://www.spacex.com/press/2015/09/14/spacex-signs-new-
comm...](http://www.spacex.com/press/2015/09/14/spacex-signs-new-commercial-
launch-contracts)

and here is the page that has all their contracted future launches:

[http://www.spacex.com/missions](http://www.spacex.com/missions)

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api
So "one Uber funding" is now a unit of economic measurement?

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toxican
What's going exchange rate between Uf's and $, again?

