If you‘re building an actual civilization, that’s a lot of transport to generate revenues from. You have to believe that people will want to built a permanent city there.
Fair question, one that I have pondered without hard answers.
What is access to another planet worth? To some nothing. To others priceless.
Sounds like a slam dunk priceless deal to me. Want to go to another planet for any reason? Talk to SpaceX.
In terms of cash flow.... I cannot say.
Thanks. It feels sort of like Bitcoin to me, it has a (replacement) cost, but what is the value proposition?
With 1,000 ships at 100 tons that's 100,000 tons. At $100k a ton (recent goal Tim Dodd inverview), that's $10 Billion in cost, every 2ish years, so $5 billion a year. Given the point from Elon's side is human expansion, I don't see applying a lot of markup. Even at 100% markup it's $10 billion in revenue, need a 200x multiplier on earnings to get a trillion valuation.
Even a million tons to Mars is still 'only' $100 billion in launch costs. 10 million tons is one trillion cost and likely self sufficiency, but that is 5,000 ships/ yr over 43 years.
On the Starship side: Earth point to point could be a lot more lucrative. Plus orbital clean up, zero G whatever (tourism, research, manufacturing), Moon, ...
And, of course, Starlink is probably a cash machine.
But making mass to Mars affordable also means making mass to Mars low revenue. Making Mars self sustaining also cuts potential profits/ future required demand.