⚠ The Permits Can BindModerate threat

Physical infrastructure that is a moat when you control it becomes a chokepoint when others do. SpaceX's launch cadence ultimately runs at the pace regulators, environmental reviews, and range availability permit — and those are not always aligned with the company's ambitions. Efforts to sharply increase launches from sensitive coastal sites draw environmental challenges and local opposition; expanding new sites invites years of review. The very permits and airspace coordination that keep rivals out can also throttle SpaceX itself, and a company whose valuation assumes ever-rising cadence is exposed to the unglamorous possibility that the paperwork, not the physics, sets the ceiling — on a valuation of ~90x sales that needs the cadence to keep climbing¹.