未来四年Starship（星舰）或将发射400次

SpaceX 总裁兼首席运营官 Gwynne Shotwell 在 11 月 15 日举行的第 31 届年度 Baron Investment 会议上。图片来源：Baron Capital 网络直播

WASHINGTON — While the Starlink constellation is becoming a moneymaker for SpaceX, the company’s president believes that the Starship launch system will have a bigger long-term impact.

华盛顿——虽然 Starlink 星座正在成为 SpaceX 的赚钱工具，但该公司总裁认为，Starship 发射系统将产生更大的长期影响。

In an on-stage interview at the 31st Annual Baron Investment Conference Nov. 15, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer at SpaceX, said that Starship will “take us over the top” to become one of the most valuable companies in the world.

在 11 月 15 日举行的第 31届年度 Baron Investment Conference 上接受台上采访时，SpaceX 总裁兼首席运营官 Gwynne Shotwell 表示，Starship 将“带领我们超越顶峰”，成为世界上最有价值的公司之一。

SpaceX is currently valued at $210 billion based on the pricing of recent tender offers of shares in secondary markets, although the Financial Times reported Nov. 15 that an upcoming tender offer at a higher share price would boost that valuation to more than $250 billion. The most valuable publicly traded company, chipmaker Nvidia, has a market capitalization of more than $3.4 trillion as of Nov. 15.

根据最近二级市场股票要约收购的定价，SpaceX 目前的估值为 2100 亿美元，尽管英国《金融时报》在 11 月 15 日报道称，即将以更高股价进行的要约收购将使该估值提高到 2500 亿美元以上。截至 11 月 15 日，最有价值的上市公司芯片制造商英伟达的市值超过 3.4 万亿美元。

SpaceX’s current valuation is largely driven by Starlink, which now has more than four million subscribers. “We’re going to make some money on Starlink this year,” she said. “We’ve had quarters of making money on Starlink in the past.”

SpaceX 目前的估值主要是由 Starlink 推动的，Starlink 现在拥有超过 400 万用户。“我们今年将在 Starlink 上赚一些钱，”她说。“过去，我们在 Starlink 上赚钱了几个季度。”

She declined to go into specifics about the finances of Starlink when asked. A report earlier this year by Quilty Analytics projected that Starlink would generate $6.6 billion in revenue for SpaceX in 2024 and $600 million in free cash flow even after accounting for the costs to build and launch the satellites.

当被问及 Starlink 的财务状况时，她拒绝透露细节。Quilty Analytics 今年早些时候的一份报告预计，Starlink 将在 2024 年为 SpaceX 带来 66 亿美元的收入和 6 亿美元的自由现金流，即使考虑到建造和发射卫星的成本。

“The company is incredibly valuable, I think, right now because of Starlink,” she said. “Starlink will add a zero, probably, at least as we continue to grow the Starlink system.”

“我认为，由于 Starlink，这家公司现在非常有价值，”她说。“Starlink 可能会增加一个零，至少在我们继续发展 Starlink 系统时是这样。”

That growth comes in many different markets, from residential broadband services to maritime and aviation connectivity. SpaceX will begin offering direct-to-device services “within the next month or so,” she said, with an initial version for “very light data” and text messaging.

这种增长来自许多不同的市场，从住宅宽带服务到海运和航空连接。她说，SpaceX 将“在下个月左右”开始提供直接到设备的服务，初始版本用于“非常轻的数据”和短信。

However, she argued that Starship will be even more valuable to SpaceX in the long run. “Ultimately, I think Starship will be the thing that takes us over the top as one of the most valuable companies. We can’t even envision what Starship is going to do to humanity and humans’ lives, and I think that will be the most valuable part of SpaceX.”

然而，她认为，从长远来看，Starship 对 SpaceX 来说将更有价值。“最终，我认为 Starship 将成为让我们成为最有价值的公司之一。我们甚至无法想象 Starship 将对人类和人类的生活产生什么影响，我认为这将是 SpaceX 最有价值的部分。

That is based on the belief, she said, that the fully reusable rocket with a payload capacity to low Earth orbit that could exceed 100 metric tons, will “change everything” about spaceflight, and not just with lower launch costs. “Starship is so big that the concept of how we put things in space, how people will travel in space, is totally different.”

她说，这是基于这样一种信念，即完全可重复使用的火箭，其有效载荷能力可能超过 100 公吨，将“改变太空飞行的一切”，而不仅仅是降低发射成本。“Starship 是如此之大，以至于我们如何将物品放入太空，以及人们如何在太空中旅行的概念，都是完全不同的。”

One example she offered was using Starship to launch a satellite. If that satellite was not working, she explained, the satellite could be brought back into Starship’s payload bay to either be repaired or returned to Earth.

她提供的一个例子是使用 Starship 发射卫星。她解释说，如果那颗卫星不工作，可以将卫星带回 Starship 的有效载荷舱进行维修或返回地球。

“What we’re doing, with the work that we’re doing, is to allow ordinary people to go to space,” she said.

“我们正在做的，以及我们正在做的工作，是让普通人能够进入太空，”她说。

She predicted that Starship will rapidly eclipse the company’s existing Falcon family of rockets, which has launched more than 400 times. “I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years,” she said. That will be in parallel with Falcon 9, but she suggested that vehicle could be retired, along with the Dragon spacecraft used for crew and cargo missions, in as little as six to eight years as customers move to Starship.

她预测，Starship 将迅速使该公司现有的 Falcon 系列火箭黯然失色，该系列火箭已经发射了 400 多次。“如果我们在未来四年内进行 400 次 Starship 发射，我不会感到惊讶，”她说。这将与猎鹰 9 号并行，但她表示，随着客户转向 Starship，该飞船可以在短短六到八年内与用于机组人员和货运任务的 Dragon 宇宙飞船一起退役。

Ron Baron, founder and chief executive of Baron Capital who participated in the interview with Shotwell, appeared convinced of SpaceX’s growth potential with both Starship and Starlink. He said his firm has made “seven times our money” since it started investing in SpaceX in 2017. “We think we’re going to triple our money again over the next five years and then we think, in the 2030s, we could make five times again.”

Baron Capital 的创始人兼首席执行官 Ron Baron 参加了 Shotwell 的采访，他似乎对 SpaceX 通过 Starship 和 Starlink 的增长潜力深信不疑。他说，自 2017 年开始投资 SpaceX 以来，他的公司赚了“七倍于我们的钱”。“我们认为我们将在未来五年内再次将我们的资金增加两倍，然后我们认为，在 2030 年代，我们可以再次赚五倍。”

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk, he added, “believes that our goals are very conservative to his goals.”

“他补充说，SpaceX 首席执行官埃隆·马斯克 （Elon Musk） ”认为我们的目标与他的目标相比非常保守。