SpaceX is way ahead of Blue Origin in satellite communications, says Tulane's Walter Isaacson

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]But what does this mean for rival SpaceX as it prepares to go public? Walter Isacson is an advisory partner at Pirella Weineberg, Twolane University professor and a CNBC contributor.

[00:00:10]Walter, it's great to see you again. Um, I I don't know the detail. I mean, I don't Maybe this could affect I I understand there was some damage at the launchpad. It could perhaps affect NASA.

[00:00:20]I haven't seen if Musk has commented on it yet. Although um you know what I I feel that when we hear from SpaceX as they've had multiple issues with RI, he'll always say, "Look, this is a tough business and when they achieve things like landing a rocket back on a floating raft, you realize, yeah, there's going to be some, you know, correlary damage to getting this right." Um so maybe it's not a big deal for for Blue Origin. And maybe it is. I'm just curious what you make of it. Well, it is a big deal for Blue Origin because they launched their launchpad and it was the only launchpad that can launch New Glenn. So, that's going to set them back quite a few months as they try to rebuild a launchpad. It's not great for NASA's mission to the moon because you had both Blue Origin and SpaceX were both building the human landing system.

[00:01:08]Obviously, uh SpaceX is now more likely to get it built first. Uh but space is a very difficult thing. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said it after the uh blow up of uh of the Blue Origin uh launchpad. He said space is difficult as you say landing space uh uh boosters.

[00:01:30]This is something Bezos has been doing and SpaceX has been doing for a long time. I mean, I'm sitting here on the banks of the Mississippi River at Blaine Kern's Mardigrail World, and this is where some of those barges are built at the Ballinger shipyard where totally, amazingly, they land rockets upright, but every now and then you have something like happened yesterday.

[00:01:52]>> Yeah. And I called I misspoke. It wasn't a takeoff. It was an a hot fire test they were conducting on the ground when those engines ignited. So, SpaceX has this IPO coming up in a couple of weeks.

[00:02:02]And it was interesting to learn the financials of Walter. I don't know if you've looked at those in detail, but 19 billion in revenue, 25 or so of losses.

[00:02:10]It's not that spectacular.

[00:02:12]>> Yeah, but they are now one of the things that I was down in South Texas at the SpaceX launch facility for the latest uh Starship launch just last uh Thursday or Friday. And it's that's the biggest rocket ever made. It's the counterpart to the new Glenn rocket that Blue Origin is doing and it got all the way up and all the way around. A few glitches, but it was enormously successful. It will be able to launch huge amounts of satellite and the cargo you need to have a landing system ready for a moon landing and a moon base. So, uh, we're seeing this is that launch last week was very good for SpaceX and it c it puts them way ahead in the race of doing communication satellites in low Earth orbit, which is what Blue Origin is trying to do, but SpaceX is way ahead. And the loss of this launch pad uh during this test means that it's going to be harder for Blue Origin to catch up in the next two or three years with low Earth orbit communication satellites.

[00:03:19]>> Do you think this might be a silly question, but do you think in a weird way all you know, as we've heard there's going to be a big retail allocation at this IPO and some say that's cuz institutions don't want it. I don't know. The the public certainly does. Is that in part because they find it fun to give capital to Elon Musk because he goes and changes the world with it? I mean Tesla, he went and did it right. It the auto business didn't even look good for years and years and years and and now with SpaceX and the satellites and everything else he wants to do. It almost feels to me like the retail public is saying we just want to give you fuel to go and try to achieve these dreams and sure we hope you make money and I know they don't want to lose their money. I mean these companies have maintained their valuations more or less. There's a lot of risk around the IPO but can you just talk about those dynamics?

[00:04:04]>> Well first of all I think they will make money. I mean to have a recreated internet in low earth orbit uh that they have with Starlink. That's huge. And soon we'll be be building data centers for AI in space. That will be huge. But you've asked a really good question. And I wouldn't just personalize it. I would actually elevate it a bit which is if you want to invest your money, do you want to invest in something that's truly meaningful that makes a real difference in this world? uh for example of the transition to a world of electric vehicles, space exploration. These are the type of things that maybe retail investors, not just because they're sentimental, but but they believe in deploying capital for good things. Uh I don't think it's just let's give it to Elon Musk. It's no let's go to the moon.

[00:04:54]Let's go to Mars. Let's get into an era of electric vehicles. I'd love to I would I don't invest in things like this because I write about them, but I if I were going to invest, I'd rather do that than in some Bitcoin thing that may not be adding great value uh to the planet.