隨着火箭發射變便宜 500強公司將競逐"太空資源"

“Close, but no cigar. This time.”

“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 rocket boosters aboard a floating barge in the Atlantic earlier this month. It smacked of the billionaire entrepreneur’s typical comedic understatement. Video accompanying the comment, delivered in a tweet, shows the rocket coming in too fast and too steep before exploding in a magnificent fireball. It was a far cry from the soft landing Musk and SpaceX had planned.

請留意SpaceX公司創始人埃隆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着熊熊烈焰，墜落在大西洋的一個鑽井平臺上，他隨後發表了一番“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。這條發佈於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公司當初計劃的軟着陸相去甚遠。

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

多數媒體認爲，這次發射徹底失敗，但穆斯克認爲它“接近成功”。熟知民用航天業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，這將使得航天發射的成本減半，從而徹底顛覆商業發射業。

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

火箭發射（及墜毀）時驚心動魄的轟然巨響背後，隱藏着巨大的成本，而這正是Space X公司的可循環火箭技術不僅將影響航空業，還將影響通訊和衛星成像等其它行業的原因所在。依靠這種技術，太空探索的成本可能會從現在的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和行業也能嘗試一下。

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

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

SpaceX wanted to bring its first stage booster back to Earth for a simple reason: the rocket boosters that are typically jettisoned after their fuel runs out cost millions of dollars to develop and manufacture. If the company can return a stage to Earth intact for refurbishment and reuse, 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：推進器的研發和製造過程都耗費了巨資，燃料用盡後，它們就會被當做垃圾丟棄。如果該公司能完整回收推進器，翻修後重復使用，就能顯著降低航天業歷來被認爲高不可攀的鉅額成本。

There remain questions: how much it costs to refurbish a rocket booster and how many times a single booster can be reused, for example. And space industry analysts think costs could go lower still. Musk has suggested that he’s eventually shooting for a sub-$10 million launch price. But merely halving the cost of launch could stoke increased demand for launch services and 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？一枚推進器能重複使用多少次？而航天業分析師認爲，成本還會不斷下降。穆斯克曾表示，他將全力以赴，最終讓發射價格降到1000萬美元以下。但僅僅讓發射成本減半，就會帶動發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 are almost certain to happen in the near term. First, the services that companies and individuals currently get from space will become better, less expensive, and more accessible, says Carissa Christensen, 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 collected and relayed by orbiting satellites. In some industries, the high cost of satellite services keep smaller 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 of much 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，但近期肯定會出現兩大新動向。首先，國防、航天及科技諮詢公司金牛座集團執行合夥人卡瑞薩o克里斯滕森稱，企業及個人所獲得的航天技術服務會變得更加質優價廉，也更容易獲取。這也許不是什麼巨大的突破，但一定是意義深遠的進步。目前凡是由軌道衛星採集並傳送的通訊、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，衛星服務的高昂成本使一些小型公司無法與大型企業有效抗衡。克里斯滕森稱：“由航天技術提供的更便宜、更先進、也更優質的服務將是一樁大買賣。價格更低的衛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 in fact 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 the company 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 internet startup known as OneWeb—launched by Google’s former satellite internet project lead, Greg Wyler, who left the company in September—also announced last week that it has secured funding from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Qualcomm QCOM -1.16% to create a satellite network of its own. The $2 billion project plans to launch 648 small satellites weighing 285 pounds 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。就在上週，SpaceX公司宣佈將在未來五年打造一個覆蓋全球的微型衛星網絡。本週該公司又宣佈，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。另一家名爲OneWeb的衛星網絡初創公司——由去年九月從谷歌離職的前衛星網絡項目負責人格里戈o惠勒創立——上週也宣佈，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，並且將打造自己的衛星網絡。這個耗資20億美元的項目計劃從2018年開始發射648顆小型衛星，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 in turn further boost investment in the space.

分析師們樂觀預計，航天發射將會創造各種新機會，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 launch services cheaper and bring new players into the market, you have a lot of spinoff effects,” Marco Caceres, director of space studies at aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “You have an expanding market, you have submarkets. And you have investors taking a second, a third, a fourth look at companies like SpaceX and the ones that will follow. Venture capital will start flowing back into the market like it did in the 1990s.”

航天及國防諮詢公司蒂爾集團航天研究總監馬可o卡塞雷斯稱：“請牢記，無論什麼時候開始發射更多衛星，只要能大幅降低發射服務的價格，帶來更多新入行的企業，就會產生大量連帶效應。這樣就能獲得一個規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 David says. It’s not necessarily going to upend your revenue streams tomorrow. But if you’re not thinking about how space access impacts your business and how to leverage it to your advantage, you’re setting yourself up as the Barnes and Noble BKS -0.16% to someone else’s Amazon AMZN -0.94% .

新興航天公司已在自己的商業計劃裏大幅降低了發射成本。戴維表示，在未來十年中，航天業的重要性就好比1990年代的互聯網。它並不會立刻顛覆傳統產業的收入模式。但如果不認真思考航天探索將對自己商業模式產生的影響，以及如何充分利用這一趨勢，就會將自己置於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 will have upon a very terrestrial business model today,” NewSpace Global’s David says. “If you’re Coca-Cola, if you’re Walmart, if you’re Toyota, if you’re Lukoil—what does a satellite have to do with your business model today? What will falling launch costs have to do with your business model in the future? From our perspective, the companies capable of connecting those dots will be able to capture tremendous financial growth opportunities. Those who fail to understand that connection to their very terrestrial business models could end up on the wrong side of financial evolution in the next decade.”

“挑戰在於，要理解可循環一級推進器這類裝備對目前世界上盛行的商業模式的影響。如果你恰好是可口可樂、沃爾瑪、豐田、盧克石油這樣的企業，衛星和你目前的商業模式有何關係呢？發射成本大幅下降與你未來的商業模式有何關係？在我們看來，那些能在這兩者之間建立聯繫的企業將抓住大量增長機遇，而那些無法理解這種關係的企業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 to find a company on the Fortune 500 that isn’t intimately connected to terrestrial assets—real estate, agriculture, transportation infrastructure, energy infrastructure, brick and mortar facilities. The ability to connect all those assets in a proprietary way, to monitor them in realtime and generate accurate and instantaneous information about them will ensure a competitive edge for companies in the 21st century.

戴維表示，多數公司並不認爲自己是“航天公司”。但在《財富》500強企業中，很難發現有幾家是和陸上資產無關的——不管是房地產、農業、交通基礎設施、能源基礎設施還是實體建築。能用獨有方式連接所有這些資產，實時監控它們並實時獲得精確的信息，將確保21世紀的企業獲得競爭優勢。

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

對那些依靠快速準確的信息，並能獨家獲取這些信息才能獲得收入的企業來說，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想擁有自己的衛星，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？開什麼玩笑。’”但在不久的將來，我們就會看到，隨着發射成本降低，更多衛星上天，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 the choicest orbits from which to count oil tankers in the Strait of Malacca is anyone’s guess. But the takeaway from SpaceX’s most recent rocket recover “failure” is this: access to space is access to knowledge, and the next space race will be among companies vying to be a “space company.”

位於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”的啓示是：佔領太空就能獲得信息，下一輪太空競賽將來自於那些競相成爲“航天公司”的企業。（財富中文網）