隨著火箭發(fā)射變便宜 500強公司將競逐"太空資源"

“這次離成功也就一步之遙。”

Behold the words of SpaceX founder Elon Musk,offering a post-op summary of the fiery crash-landing of one of his company’s first stage rocketboosters aboard a floating barge in the Atlanticearlier this month. It smacked of the billionaireentrepreneur’s typical comedic understatement.Video accompanying the comment, delivered in atweet, shows the rocket coming in too fast and toosteep before exploding in a magnificent fireball. Itwas a far cry from the soft landing Musk and SpaceX had planned.

請留意SpaceX公司創(chuàng)始人埃隆o穆斯克說的這句話。1月初，該公司一枚一級火箭助推器拖著熊熊烈焰，墜落在大西洋的一個鉆井平臺上，他隨后發(fā)表了一番“行動總結”。它聽起來倒是很符合這位億萬富翁一貫的語言風格——很有喜感地輕描淡寫。這條發(fā)布于Twitter的評論還附帶一段視頻。從中可以看出，這枚火箭降落得太快太陡，隨即爆炸起火，變成熊熊火球。這與穆斯克和SpaceX公司當初計劃的軟著陸相去甚遠。

Most of the press called it a failure. Musk called it “close.” Experts familiar with the commercialspaceflight industry are calling it what it is: evidence that 2015 will be the year SpaceXmanages to successfully bring a first stage rocket booster and its nine rocket engines safelyback to Earth for reuse, potentially cutting the cost of space launch in half and upending thecommercial launch industry.

多數媒體認為，這次發(fā)射徹底失敗，但穆斯克認為它“接近成功”。熟知民用航天業(yè)的專家則給出了一個恰當評論：很明顯， SpaceX公司將在2015年竭力回收一枚一級火箭助推器和它的9個火箭引擎，以重新使用。一旦成功，這將使得航天發(fā)射的成本減半，從而徹底顛覆商業(yè)發(fā)射業(yè)。

But lost in the whiz-bang awesomeness of rocket launches (and crashes) is the way SpaceX’sreusable rocket technology could impact industries beyond those associated with space, suchas telecommunications and imaging. The cost of space access could drop from its currentrange of between $65 million and $70 million to something more like $30 million, or even $20million, putting it within reach of companies and industries that couldn’t consider it before.

火箭發(fā)射(及墜毀)時驚心動魄的轟然巨響背后，隱藏著巨大的成本，而這正是Space X公司的可循環(huán)火箭技術不僅將影響航空業(yè)，還將影響通訊和衛(wèi)星成像等其它行業(yè)的原因所在。依靠這種技術，太空探索的成本可能會從現(xiàn)在的6500萬到7000萬美元降至3000萬美元左右，讓那些此前從未考慮過這種事情的企業(yè)和行業(yè)也能嘗試一下。

“When launch costs drop, new customers will emerge,” says Dick “Rocket” David, CEO of spaceindustry information provider NewSpace Global. “But most of the customers that will beinterested don’t even realize today what impact access to space will have on their businessmodels.”

NewSpace Global公司是一家航天信息供應商，該公司首席執(zhí)行官迪克o戴維稱：“一旦發(fā)射成本下降，新客戶就會涌現(xiàn)。但很多潛在感興趣的客戶直到現(xiàn)在都還沒意識到，太空探索將對其商業(yè)模式產生什么影響。”

SpaceX wanted to bring its first stage booster back to Earth for a simple reason: the rocketboosters that are typically jettisoned after their fuel runs out cost millions of dollars to developand manufacture. If the company can return a stage to Earth intact for refurbishment andreuse, it can dramatically reduce what has long been considered a cost of doing business.

SpaceX公司想回收一級火箭助推器的原因很簡單：推進器的研發(fā)和制造過程都耗費了巨資，燃料用盡后，它們就會被當做垃圾丟棄。如果該公司能完整回收推進器，翻修后重復使用，就能顯著降低航天業(yè)歷來被認為高不可攀的巨額成本。

There remain questions: how much it costs to refurbish a rocket booster and how many timesa single booster can be reused, for example. And space industry analysts think costs could golower still. Musk has suggested that he’s eventually shooting for a sub-$10 million launchprice. But merely halving the cost of launch could stoke increased demand for launch servicesand bring a flood of new entrants into the orbital domain.

不過人們仍有很多疑問：比如，翻修要花多少錢?一枚推進器能重復使用多少次?而航天業(yè)分析師認為，成本還會不斷下降。穆斯克曾表示，他將全力以赴，最終讓發(fā)射價格降到1000萬美元以下。但僅僅讓發(fā)射成本減半，就會帶動發(fā)射服務的需求大幅增長，從而使太空軌道迎來大批新成員。

How all this impacts the average Fortune 500 firm remains to be seen, but two things arealmost certain to happen in the near term. First, the services that companies and individualscurrently get from space will become better, less expensive, and more accessible, says CarissaChristensen, managing partner at defense, space, and technology consultancy Tauri Group.That’s not necessarily a groundbreaking development, but it’s certainly a meaningful one.Companies spend a whole lot of money on communications, imagery, and other data collectedand relayed by orbiting satellites. In some industries, the high cost of satellite services keepsmaller companies from competing as effectively with their larger counterparts. “Cheaper,cooler, and better things from space is kind of a big deal,” Christensen says. “The benefit ofmuch cheaper satellite services is not trivial.”

這些情況會對《財富》500強公司產生何種影響還有待觀察，但近期肯定會出現(xiàn)兩大新動向。首先，國防、航天及科技咨詢公司金牛座集團執(zhí)行合伙人卡瑞薩o克里斯滕森稱，企業(yè)及個人所獲得的航天技術服務會變得更加質優(yōu)價廉，也更容易獲取。這也許不是什么巨大的突破，但一定是意義深遠的進步。目前凡是由軌道衛(wèi)星采集并傳送的通訊、影像及其他數據，各公司都要花大價錢才能獲得。在某些行業(yè)，衛(wèi)星服務的高昂成本使一些小型公司無法與大型企業(yè)有效抗衡。克里斯滕森稱：“由航天技術提供的更便宜、更先進、也更優(yōu)質的服務將是一樁大買賣。價格更低的衛(wèi)星服務帶來的好處不容小覷。”

Second, a huge number of new entrants and new dollars will pile into the orbital domain—and infact already are. Just last week, SpaceX announced plans to build out a network of micro-satellites over the next five years that would blanket the globe in internet. This week thecompany announced that Google GOOG -3.10% and investment bank Fidelity FNF -0.80%have invested $1 billion in the project,valuing SpaceX at $10 billion. Another satellite internetstartup known as OneWeb—launched by Google’s former satellite internet project lead, GregWyler, who left the company in September—also announced last week that it has securedfunding from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Qualcomm QCOM -1.16% to create a satellitenetwork of its own. The $2 billion project plans to launch 648 small satellites weighing 285pounds each starting in 2018, each of which will require a ride into an orbit.

其次，大批新面孔和大量資本將涌入軌道領域——其實已經是這樣了。就在上周，SpaceX公司宣布將在未來五年打造一個覆蓋全球的微型衛(wèi)星網絡。本周該公司又宣布，谷歌公司和投資銀行富達投資公司已對該項目投資10億美元，使SpaceX公司估值達到100億美元。另一家名為OneWeb的衛(wèi)星網絡初創(chuàng)公司——由去年九月從谷歌離職的前衛(wèi)星網絡項目負責人格里戈o惠勒創(chuàng)立——上周也宣布，該公司已獲得理查德o布蘭森的維珍集團和高通公司的投資，并且將打造自己的衛(wèi)星網絡。這個耗資20億美元的項目計劃從2018年開始發(fā)射648顆小型衛(wèi)星，每顆重285磅，而且每顆都需要進入一個運行軌道。

Analysts are optimistic that space launch activity will create new opportunities that could inturn further boost investment in the space.

分析師們樂觀預計，航天發(fā)射將會創(chuàng)造各種新機會，這反過來又會進一步促進航天領域的投資。

“Keep in mind that whenever you start launching more satellites, when you make launchservices cheaper and bring new players into the market, you have a lot of spinoff effects,” MarcoCaceres, director of space studies at aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “Youhave an expanding market, you have submarkets. And you have investors taking a second, athird, a fourth look at companies like SpaceX and the ones that will follow. Venture capital willstart flowing back into the market like it did in the 1990s.”

航天及國防咨詢公司蒂爾集團航天研究總監(jiān)馬可o卡塞雷斯稱：“請牢記，無論什么時候開始發(fā)射更多衛(wèi)星，只要能大幅降低發(fā)射服務的價格，帶來更多新入行的企業(yè)，就會產生大量連帶效應。這樣就能獲得一個規(guī)模不斷擴大的市場和各種細分市場，還能使投資者認真考量SpaceX及其他類似公司。風投就會像1990年代那樣重新涌入這個市場。”

Emerging space companies are already baking lower launch costs into their business plans.Space is to the decade ahead what the Internet was to the 1990s, NewSpace Global’s Davidsays. It’s not necessarily going to upend your revenue streams tomorrow. But if you’re notthinking about how space access impacts your business and how to leverage it to youradvantage, you’re setting yourself up as the Barnes and Noble BKS -0.16% to someoneelse’s Amazon AMZN -0.94% .

新興航天公司已在自己的商業(yè)計劃里大幅降低了發(fā)射成本。戴維表示，在未來十年中，航天業(yè)的重要性就好比1990年代的互聯(lián)網。它并不會立刻顛覆傳統(tǒng)產業(yè)的收入模式。但如果不認真思考航天探索將對自己商業(yè)模式產生的影響，以及如何充分利用這一趨勢，就會將自己置于巴諾書店當年面對亞馬遜崛起時所處的那種境地。

“The challenge is understanding the impact something like a reusable first stage booster willhave upon a very terrestrial business model today,” NewSpace Global’s David says. “If you’reCoca-Cola, if you’re Walmart, if you’re Toyota, if you’re Lukoil—what does a satellite have to dowith your business model today? What will falling launch costs have to do with your businessmodel in the future? From our perspective, the companies capable of connecting those dotswill be able to capture tremendous financial growth opportunities. Those who fail tounderstand that connection to their very terrestrial business models could end up on thewrong side of financial evolution in the next decade.”

“挑戰(zhàn)在于，要理解可循環(huán)一級推進器這類裝備對目前世界上盛行的商業(yè)模式的影響。如果你恰好是可口可樂、沃爾瑪、豐田、盧克石油這樣的企業(yè)，衛(wèi)星和你目前的商業(yè)模式有何關系呢?發(fā)射成本大幅下降與你未來的商業(yè)模式有何關系?在我們看來，那些能在這兩者之間建立聯(lián)系的企業(yè)將抓住大量增長機遇，而那些無法理解這種關系的企業(yè)在未來十年可能會走下坡路，” 戴維稱。

Most companies don’t think of themselves as “space companies,” David says. But it’s hard tofind a company on the Fortune 500 that isn’t intimately connected to terrestrial assets—realestate, agriculture, transportation infrastructure, energy infrastructure, brick and mortarfacilities. The ability to connect all those assets in a proprietary way, to monitor them inrealtime and generate accurate and instantaneous information about them will ensure acompetitive edge for companies in the 21st century.

戴維表示，多數公司并不認為自己是“航天公司”。但在《財富》500強企業(yè)中，很難發(fā)現(xiàn)有幾家是和陸上資產無關的——不管是房地產、農業(yè)、交通基礎設施、能源基礎設施還是實體建筑。能用獨有方式連接所有這些資產，實時監(jiān)控它們并實時獲得精確的信息，將確保21世紀的企業(yè)獲得競爭優(yōu)勢。

That’s especially true for firms who rely on fast, accurate information—and proprietary accessto that information—to generate revenue. “Is it obvious that someone like BlackRock or Apollowould care about having their own satellites?” David says. “I think if you were to poll most PEfirms and IBs on Wall Street they would say, ‘Space? You gotta be kiddin’ me.’ But what we’regoing to see in the near term as launch costs come down, as more satellites are lifted, is anincrease in knowledge at higher frequency. That’s going to lead to results that could changethe very nature of financial analysis.”

對那些依靠快速準確的信息，并能獨家獲取這些信息才能獲得收入的企業(yè)來說，這更是真切無疑。戴維表示：“像貝萊德集團和阿波羅公司這樣的企業(yè)想擁有自己的衛(wèi)星，這難道不是顯而易見嗎?我想，如果去問華爾街上大多數基金公司和投行對此事的看法，他們肯定會說，‘航天?開什么玩笑。’”但在不久的將來，我們就會看到，隨著發(fā)射成本降低，更多衛(wèi)星上天，信息量將更快增長。這將導致一些可能深刻改變金融分析本質的結果。”

Whether or not Stamford-based energy traders will soon find themselves jockeying for thechoicest orbits from which to count oil tankers in the Strait of Malacca is anyone’s guess. Butthe takeaway from SpaceX’s most recent rocket recover “failure” is this: access to space isaccess to knowledge, and the next space race will be among companies vying to be a “spacecompany.”

位于斯坦福德市的能源貿易商們是否會競相爭取最好的軌道來監(jiān)測馬六甲海峽的油輪數量，這誰也說不準。但SpaceX公司近期火箭回收“失敗”的啟示是：占領太空就能獲得信息，下一輪太空競賽將來自于那些競相成為“航天公司”的企業(yè)。(財富中文網)