Profit is the reward for becoming more efficient than the competition. Using a metric for efficiency of a useful product or service makes much sense.

“This more than any is why I favor the launch count as the metric. It tells me who is accomplishing the most.”

This may be why it is the major metric used by virtually everyone.

You found the word that I was looking for. Measuring the accomplishments that we achieve in space is what I think is more important than mere “Gross Space Product.”

Landing science instruments and man on the Moon are major accomplishments, but accomplishing Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision — or even ULA’s vision — would have made them even more relevant. Ignoring the Moon for decades failed to accomplish anything.

Edward: More than any other metric, the one that really counts the most is profit. And the winning number there is not even necessarily the highest. If Rocket Lab can sustain a regular and lush income stream from many smallsat launches, while also gaining great experience as a launch provider, they will set themselves up to do far greater things down the road.

This more than any is why I favor the launch count as the metric. It tells me who is accomplishing the most.

The number of satellites, missions, or constellations may make for another metric for the use of space, but it is not such a good metric for launch capability.

Number of annual launches to orbit is a traditional metric that goes back to 1957, the opening of the space age.

In the coming decade, space is likely to become far more useful than it has been in the past, increasing the types of activities that we do there. The Internet of Things is likely to depend heavily on com-sat constellations to help track/communicate with things that are not near internet WiFi connectivity (e.g. deserts or mid ocean). At least three companies are planning commercial space stations to supplement then replace the ISS, allowing for far more space experimentation than even with the ISS. Other companies expect to commercially or privately explore the lunar surface. And SpaceX has a goal of creating profitable colonies on Mars. Eventually there will be space tugs and other spacecraft that perform multiple missions without returning to Earth, thus not needing a launch to perform a mission.

It would be interesting to have a metric, other than a “Gross Space Product,” to measure the increase in such explorations and experimentation. I don’t expect Robert to be enthusiastic enough about such a metric to follow it through; I’m not, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHQn82TLKQ (2 minutes, ULA’s Vision for a Self-Sustaining Space Economy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxftPmpt7aA (7 minutes, ULA’s CisLunar-1000, 30 years to 1,000 people working and living in space)

Col Beausabre: No. I am tracking the launch industry, not the satellite industry. This was a single launch, performed by SpaceX, just as a previous Indian launch was a single launch, even though it put 104 smallsats into orbit.

The goal is to see who is accomplishing what in terms of rockets. It has been argued that mass-to-orbit would be a worthwhile metric to also track, but I think that unnecessarily complicates matters. The number of launches reveals very quickly who is getting somewhere, and who is not.

Can’t wait to see what happens when a stage flies its tenth time!