穿越迷雾：看SpaceX的真正价值，要看它的竞争对手

    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•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•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•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。”

    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。

    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。

    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•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。”

    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。

    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.”

    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.

    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.

    “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.”

    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.