SpaceX launches per year

As SpaceX has launched rockets with increasing frequency, the price of a pint of lager in the United Kingdom has risen with corresponding determination, producing a correlation so tight that one begins to wonder if Elon Musk is personally responsible for the state of British pub culture. The data spans only eight years, which is barely enough time to finish a pint at current prices, but the trend is unmistakable. Space, it appears, is not the only thing getting more expensive.

SpaceX launches grew from about 8 per year in 2015 to over 90 by 2024, reflecting the maturation of reusable rocket technology and the relentless cadence of Starlink deployments. UK pint prices, meanwhile, climbed from roughly £3.30 to over £4.60, driven by ingredient inflation, energy costs, minimum wage increases, and the general economic pressure that has turned the British pub into an endangered species—roughly 400 pubs closed per year during this period. Both trends are products of a global economy experiencing simultaneous technological acceleration and cost-of-living inflation. The rockets get cheaper to launch while the pints get more expensive to pour, which is a perfectly adequate summary of where we are as a civilization.

Eight data points connecting rocket launches to lager prices is the kind of correlation that feels like it should mean something about late-stage capitalism, and perhaps it does, but not in the way the scatter plot suggests. Both trends are real, both are relentless, and both are making someone somewhere slightly anxious. The rockets go up, the prices go up, and the pubs close down.