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Last week, rumors concerning the value of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rippled across the Web after tech startup-watcher TechCrunch reported that private investment in the company valued it at “somewhere south of $10 billion.” SpaceX quickly quashed the rumor. “SpaceX is not currently raising any funding nor has any external valuation of that magnitude or higher been done,” a company spokesman said in a statement. And so SpaceX ended the week just as it began it, despite having briefly enjoyed the status of a $10 billion industry behemoth.
私营航天业非常不透明，SpaceX又口风甚严，再加上风投领域的小道消息看起来很不可靠，这让人们很难对它进行解读。同样的，该公司的自我描述也不一定能成为对它进行评价的依据（埃隆o穆斯克说SpaceX将在未来10年里登陆火星。该公司总裁格温o肖特韦尔则放言，到2100年SpaceX将成为太阳系运输领域的主导者。在这两个时点之间，SpaceX还打算把火箭有效载荷提高到58.5吨）。评估该公司当前价值和升值潜力的最佳途径也许不是金钱或者豪言壮语，而是观察这一业界新贵对商业航天领域的竞争对手产生了怎样的影响。
The private spaceflight industry is so opaque and SpaceX’s cards are so closely held that it is difficult to get a read on the company, especially using the venture capital rumor mill. Nor can one necessarily judge SpaceX based on what the company says about itself. (Elon Musk says that the company is headed to Mars in the next decade. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell boasts that by 2100 the company will dominate transportation across the solar system. Between them is a 58.5-ton payload of ambition.) Perhaps the best way to evaluate SpaceX and its potential value isn’t in dollar figures or in audacious claims, but by observing what the upstart space firm is already doing to its competition in the commercial space industry.
20世纪80年代初，美国退出了商业航天市场。从那时起，商业航天器发射领域基本上就处于被欧洲公司垄断的状态，比如法国的Arianespace[法国航空业巨头空中客车（Airbus）持有部分股份]和International Launch Services[美俄合资，采用俄罗斯质子号（Proton）运载火箭的技术发射卫星]。尽管SpaceX通过为国际空间站（International Space Station）运送补给从美国国家航空航天局（NASA）获得了很大一部分收入，但在该公司截至2018年的40多次发射任务中，价值2000亿美元的卫星发射市场也占了很大的比重，而且这个比例还在不断上升。
That competition—mostly European space launch providers like France’s Arianespace (partially owned by French aerospace giant Airbus) and International Launch Services (a U.S.-Russia joint venture that launches satellites aboard Russian Proton launch technology)—has largely held a monopoly on commercial space launches since the U.S. retreated from the industry in the early 1980s. Though SpaceX derives a chunk of its income from NASA in exchange for resupplying the International Space Station, the $200 billion satellite industry makes up a huge and growing chunk of SpaceX’s nearly 40-strong launch manifest through 2018.
SpaceX的航天器发射价格有时仅仅为传统竞争对手的一半，这让它在较短时间里成功实现了很高的市场占有率。该公司安全记录良好，业界对其核心业务的信心也不断增强。今年夏天，SpaceX为在德克萨斯州南部建立自己的专用发射场铺平了道路，并且开始实验火箭循环使用技术，这有可能大幅降低发射成本。
By offering space launch services at prices that in some cases undercut the traditional launch industry by half, SpaceX has managed significant market penetration in a relatively short period of time. It has a strong safety record and industry confidence in its core services is growing. Over the summer the company cleared the path toward construction of its own dedicated launch facility in southern Texas while also experimenting with reusable rocket stage technology that could reduce launch costs by an order of magnitude.
如果SpaceX在欧洲等地的竞争对手相信所有这些都只是炒作，那它们表达这种态度的方式也太奇怪了。就算不仔细观察也能发现，这些公司看来正在慌忙展开行动。
In January, the president of the French national space agency (and former Arianespace CEO) wrote an op-ed in France’s Le Monde detailing all the things SpaceX has done right, calling on the European space industry to adapt as quickly as possible. In February, Arianespace’s current chairman and CEO Stephane Israel told the European Space Agency that it may need additional subsidies from European governments in order to remain a viable competitor, citing the arrival of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 medium-lift rocket as the cause of its competitive headaches. At the Berlin Airshow in July, Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders urged Europe to completely overhaul its space launcher industry, mentioning SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk by name. “Musk gives us the opportunity to shake up what has been quite a successful European space industry,” Enders told Reuters. “We either much improve and integrate our industrial structures or we’ll become irrelevant.”
今年1月份，法国国家宇航局总裁（曾任Arianespace首席执行官）在法国《世界报》（Le Monde）发表社论文章，详细列举了SpaceX采取过的正确措施，并敦促欧洲航天业尽快效仿。2月份，Arianespace现任董事长兼首席执行官斯塔费恩o伊斯雷尔向欧洲航天局（European Space Agency）表示，自己的公司可能需要欧洲政府提供更多补贴，以便保持足够的竞争力。他说，SpaceX推出猎鹰9号（Falcon 9）中型运载火箭对Arianespace构成了相当大的竞争压力。在7月份的柏林国际航空航天展上，空客集团（Airbus Group）CEO汤姆o恩德斯敦促欧洲航天器发射企业进行彻底革新，并且提到了SpaceX及其首席执行官埃隆o穆斯克。恩德斯在接受路透社（Reuters）采访时表示：“虽然欧洲航天业一直都相当成功，而穆斯克给我们带来了对它进行重整的机会。我们得大幅改进并整合这个行业的结构，不然就会变得无足轻重。”
It’s not just talk coming out of the global space industry. In July Arianespace cut its launch prices in an effort to minimize SpaceX’s market advantage, though its prices are reportedly still nowhere near as low as SpaceX’s. Airbus and Safran, a French propulsion systems maker, have entered into a 50-50 joint venture aimed at designing a new, less costly rocket for Europe. Several European space officials and potential future customers have called for a rethinking and possible redesign of Arianespace’s new Ariane 6 rocket.
这些航天公司不光是嘴上说说而已。7月份，Arianespace下调了航天器发射价格，目的是尽量削弱SpaceX在市场上的优势。但据报道，和SpaceX的低廉价格相比，Arianespace还差得很远。空客和法国推进系统制造商赛峰集团（Safran）已经建立了一家合资公司，双方各出资一半。这家合资公司旨在为欧洲设计一款成本较低的新型火箭。欧洲航天部门的几名官员和一些潜在未来客户都已要求Arianespace重新考虑乃至重新设计它新推出的阿丽亚娜6型（Ariane 6）火箭。
Back in the U.S., competitors that have traditionally enjoyed non-competitive launch markets have found themselves forced to respond to SpaceX. Earlier this year SpaceX sued the United States Air Force over an $11 billion contract awarded to Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA) for a block of military satellite launches. SpaceX claims the contract was awarded through a bidding process that was not competitive, and a federal judge has ordered a review of the dealings. Even as it was suing the Air Force, SpaceX still managed to receive USAF certification to launch military hardware aboard it Falcon 9 rocket.
美国方面，以往在航天器发射领域从未遇到过竞争的那些公司发现，自己必须针对SpaceX采取相应措施。今年早些时候，SpaceX把美国空军告上了法庭，原因是后者将一系列军事卫星发射任务交给了波音（Boeing）和洛克希德-马丁（Lockheed Martin）设立的合资公司United Launch Alliance（ULA）。SpaceX提出，这份合同在招标时并没有采用竞争的方式。一名联邦法院法官已经下令就此进行审查。就算双方正在打官司，SpaceX还是通过了美国空军的认证，从而有资格用自己的猎鹰9号火箭发射军用航天器。
“While the European Space Agency, Arianespace, Safran may not have taken SpaceX seriously before, those entities certainly are taking SpaceX seriously now,” says Richard David, co-founder and CEO of commercial space industry analysis firm NewSpace Global, whose global ranking of private space companies places SpaceX at the very top. “NSG analysts track around 700 companies worldwide, and it’s not just about SpaceX and its European launch competitors. But SpaceX is ranked number one for a reason.”
在商业航天业分析机构NewSpace Global（简称：NSG）的私营航天公司排行榜上，SpaceX高居榜首。NSG联合创始人兼首席执行官理查德o戴维说：“虽然欧洲航天局、Arianespace和赛峰以前可能没把它当回事，但现在它们一定严阵以待。我们的分析师追踪全球约700家公司，不光是SpaceX和它的欧洲竞争对手。但SpaceX独占鳌头有它的道理。”
The fact that absolutely no one in the business of launching payloads into space has been able to ignore SpaceX as it piles success upon success says more about the company and its future prospects than any rumored dollar valuation. And just as important to SpaceX’s future prospects is the global aerospace industry’s inability to respond. The high costs and myriad challenges inherent in the commercial spaceflight industry—this is, quite literally, rocket science—means that most of SpaceX’scompetitors are either joint ventures like ULA and Airbus-Safran or large, bureaucratic, multinationals like Arianespace, which counts two dozen major shareholders from nearly a dozen European states all asserting influence and competing interests into the company calculus.
在航天器发射领域，绝对没有谁能对接二连三获得成功的SpaceX视而不见，这比任何估值传闻都能更好地体现SpaceX的现状和未来。同时，世界上其他航天公司无力对SpaceX进行反击，这对该公司的未来前景同样重要。商业航天代价昂贵而且挑战纷繁，这是名副其实的“高科技”，这也意味着SpaceX的大多数竞争对手要么是合资企业，就像ULA以及空客和赛峰的合资公司，要么就是像Arianespace那样的官僚型跨国公司，它们有二十几个大股东，来自十几个欧洲国家，这些股东都想对公司产生影响，又都在其中争夺利益。
“They’re already responding, or trying to figure out the best way to respond,” says Kate Maliga, an industry analyst at aerospace and defense analysts Tauri Group, of SpaceX’s competitors. “But it’s hard, especially with the complicated structure of European governments and industry. There’s very little they can do in the next year or two, but they feel like they need to respond and they will try.”
航天和军工分析机构Tauri Group的行业分析师凯特o马利加说：“它们已经开始采取对策，或者正在寻找最佳的应对方法。但这很难，特别是考虑到欧洲政府和行业的复杂结构。今后一、两年它们基本上将束手无策，但它们觉得自己需要这样做，而且也会进行尝试。”
SpaceX may seem to be riding as its competitors struggle to adapt, but the company has by no means conquered the industry, Maliga says. Satellite companies are by nature risk-averse, and no company wants to have only one launch provider handling all of its multimillion-dollar hardware. Though SpaceX continues to build industry confidence, Arianespace already has a decades-long established record of launching successfully and on time—the latter something SpaceX has struggled with. For satellite television providers broadcasting the World Cup, for instance, a delay in launching a satellite can cost many more millions than the price disparity between Arianespace and SpaceX, Maliga says. Which means SpaceX’s successes do not spell doom for its more expensive competitors, at least not yet.
马利加指出，在竞争对手难以招架之际，SpaceX看起来也许一帆风顺，但无论如何也不能说它已经征服了这个行业。卫星公司本质上都厌恶风险，而且没有哪家公司愿意把自己价值数百亿美元的设备都交给同一家发射服务供应商。尽管SpaceX让业界对它越来越有信心，但几十年来，Arianespace一直都能做到成功而准时地发射，而SpaceX在准时方面做得并不如意。马利加举例说，对于转播世界杯赛事的卫视来说，卫星发射受到延误所产生的成本可能比Arianespace和SpaceX之间价差要多得多。也就是说，SpaceX的成功并不会让要价较高的竞争对手遭受灭顶之灾，至少现在还没有。
“I don’t see anyone being an absolute existential threat to anyone at this point,” Jon Beland, a senior analyst at defense and aerospace industry consultancy Avascent, says. “The launch industry has historically undergone cycles where new entrants enter the field and shuffle the cards around. It’s still too early to tell.”
军工和航天业咨询机构Avascent高级分析师乔恩o贝兰德指出：“目前还没有谁能给别人带来生死攸关的威胁。航天器发射领域会在行业新军到来后重新洗牌，历史上这种情况反复出现。现在下结论还为时过早。”
