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SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoAm I the only one who misread "Expansion" as "Explosion" when skimming the headlines?
- vvkmnn 8y agoNope.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoThere are also plans to build facilities at the Los Angeles harbor, down in Long Beach. Their finances must be in good shape to enable all these, no?
- walrus01 8y agoThe facility in Long Beach is the BFR factory. The BFR diameter is too big to move via road or rail, it can only be moved by barge or cargo ship.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoCould BFR be relocated in a self-propelled manner?
- walrus01 8y agoI am far from a rocket launch expert, but having been to the general area, I think there is nowhere near enough empty space anywhere in Long Beach to safely build a launch facility. Also the US has a pretty firm policy of never launching anything over land. There is no such thing as an eastbound launch from Vandenberg, for example.
- remarkEon 8y agoCould that change in the future, assuming reliability improvements? Though, thinking about it a bit more I don’t really see why you’d want to launch eastbound out of Vandenberg. Not sure what you’d gain.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- walrus01 8y agoVandernberg is generally used for highly inclined orbits or polar orbit launches. The earth's rotation is used to assist eastbound launches for equatorial/geostationary, so eastbound is preferred. Such as most of the launches from Florida and Wallops. One of the weird bits of space trivia is that Israel's domestic rocket and satellite launch program makes the sacrifice of less efficient launches and less total delta-v in the first and second stages, by launching westbound over the ocean, because they really do not want to launch what is almost indistinguishable from a ballistic missile eastbound over their angry neighbors. Pretty much the only place in the world where low-inclination launches occur westbound.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoProbably not. As their volume increases, even if their launches have a _really good_ success rate of 99.9% [1], catastrophic failure would still be frequent enough that you don't want to live under their flight path[2]. Even if they have a 100% success rate from here on out, there would still be issues with things like blowing out people's windows. [1] They're at around 95% now, although gradually improving. Switching to a drastically different launch vehicle like the BFR will probably bring those numbers down, at least initially [2] see https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882600/china-long-march-3b-rocket-booster-crash-xiangdu-guangxi https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882600/china-long-march..., or any of the cases where rockets killed people on the ground
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bonestamp2 8y agoI guess if it can fly into space then it's just a matter of math to bring it back down where you want it.
- chrisjc 8y agoProbably partially chosen due to the proximity to Vandenberg Air Force Base. Just a barge journey away from take off and landing zones.
- JshWright 8y agoI would be very surprised if BFR ever flew from Vandy. That sort of capacity isn't really needed for high inclination orbits.
- walrus01 8y agoUnless you're the NRO/DoD and want to launch some really, really high power synthetic aperture radar satellites into low altitude polar orbits, with massive photovoltaic arrays to power the radar (or nuclear reactors, as the Soviets did)
- JshWright 8y agoYeah, maybe, but you can fly those payloads out of CCAFS too. I don't think there will be enough demand for high inclination massive payloads to support BFR capable pads on both coasts.
- JackCh 8y agoAmerica once launched a reactor into space, the SNAP-10A, from Vandenberg. (Unlike the soviet reactors it was just an experiment.)
- walrus01 8y agoAt least it didn't pull an uncontrolled reentry over the Canadian Arctic.
- greglindahl 8y agoNote that the USAF launches Delta IV Heavy payloads from Vandy on a regular basis. Vandy is also occasionally used to launch retrograde.
- api 8y agoI think the idea of a giant fuel air bomb the size of a small skyscraper falling on Los Angeles is a barrier here.
- solarkraft 8y agoThat's crazy. Not yet, anyway. While building a rocket it'll typically not be in a condition to launch it. Plus steering? Maybe BFR will once carry smaller rockets like airplane makers are doing it, but even that's far fetched.
- mikece 8y agoDoes SpaceX pay rent to launch from KSC or do they just pay for the expansion and call it good?
- skriticos2 8y agoThey lease the launch pads, e.g. 39a has a 20 year lease. They can probably do a lot of spacey things on there for the duration. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/spacex-signs-20-year-lease-historic-launch-pad-39a-n81226 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/spacex-signs-20-year-l... edit: looking at the article map, this is patch of farmland a bit further away from the launch pad, so they probably acquired it for development.
- greglindahl 8y agoIn addition to paying rent on the land, SpaceX pays KSC/CCAFS/the Air Force for launch services support.
- jccooper 8y agoThey pay range fees, but may not pay much for the facilities themselves. It's not uncommon in things like this for the lease to be offset by the improvements built or simply for taking maintenance of the government's hands.
- kitsunesoba 8y agoThe next few years are going to be interesting. Assuming it all goes according to plan, this along with BFR/BFS will signal an end to the scrappy duct tape stage of SpaceX’s existence.
- buvanshak 8y agoIs there any concern regarding the damage these frequent and big rocket launches are doing to the upper atmosphere? Are people aware of such a thing? Because I have seen very few discussion around the same....
- Gabrielfair 8y agoI am also curious about this. Can you imagine trying to curb launches by private companies? Not going to happen especially in today's politics dominated by libertarian populism
- Robotbeat 8y agoIt'd be easy, actually. Getting a launch permit requires mountains of paperwork.
- jonknee 8y agoIn the US, but there are plenty of countries near the equater that would be happy to take the business. Export controls would make it tough for SpaceX, but if there wasn’t another way to launch the demand would lead to foreign companies taking the lead. tl;dr it won’t happen
- Robotbeat 8y agoIt's a matter of scale. There's about two launches per week /globally/. But for a single airport, you might have a flight every two minutes. There is some concern from solid rocket motors, whose exhaust is absolutely terrible environmentally (big clouds of toxic smoke that erode launch infrastructure, etc). Luckily, SpaceX doesn't use any of those.
- nickik 8y agoSpaceX is a total steamroller. Its insane. I think in 2005 nobody could have quite seen this comming. Even Elon must be suprised.
- sova 8y agoSo good! Very thrilled -- SpaceX is a model giant, but also: the emergence of qualities MUST be due to underlying levels of Need and Demand in our human economy/ecology/world. Success that has great potential pushing behind it can soar. It's important now that we follow this example and harness the gathered beam of human intelligence as a laser or light beam would be harnessed and benefit the planet with strong focii of knowledge and need satisfaction. edit: i'm very interested in any possible objections to what has been stated. i'm an avid observer and although i have no weight in the topic, i am of this genuine opinion.
- walrus01 8y agoI want some of whatever you're smoking, it sounds like some good shit.
- dwaltrip 8y agoThe downvotes are because it's not clear what the heck you are saying. For example: > the emergence of qualities MUST be due to underlying levels of Need and Demand in our human economy/ecology/world This is a very vague and confusing sentence. Which qualities are you talking about? Take it as an opportunity to improve your writing skills :)
- sova 8y agoHumans need rockets to Mars & Space and this need will manifest as thousands of small companies or several huge ones.
- throwaway2048 8y agoIts amazing what billions in government subsidies do for a company.
- indescions_2018 8y agoWould anyone be interested in creating a Space Coast Hacker House? The idea is to assemble a small group of talented folks. Even digital nomads who want to do a short stint would be welcome. And then solicit contracts, or start New Space ventures. Main benefit is of course proximity to rocket launches ;) For which we could host viewing parties, outdoor BBQs, photo shoots, etc. Region is known for relatively cheap rents (compared to South Florida). Great weather. Year round golf, tennis, scuba. Not sure about high speed internet availability. And it may be a cultural backwater. But that only leaves more time for building ;)
- balindenberg 8y agoPerspective of a current "digital nomad" that grew up in the area: The weather is great in a sense that it's warm, but be prepared for sweltering heat and humidity for ~340 days of the year. Especially during the summer, it's hard to be outside for more than a few minutes without needing a shower. Lots of outdoors stuff to do like you mentioned, especially water-oriented activities. If you surf, New Smyrna is the most consistent spot but even that's not nearly as consistently good as it is consistently sharky. High speed internet would be no problem. Brevard and the surrounding areas are red but I wouldn't necessarily consider it cultural backwater. You'll be exposed to a much higher number of crusty beach people (especially in Cocoa Beach) than you will rednecks or similar.
- dtmmax33 8y agoDamn, I have never been called crusty before.
- jonwachob91 8y agoWhen you say "culture backwater" are you referring the the fact that the Space Coast has the highest ratio of engineers to population in the US, or b/c it just not near a major city?
- friedman23 8y agoTo Californians anything that isn't California is a cultural backwater. This may also apply to New Yorkers. The amount of Californian "nationalism" I've seen is surprising.
- chiph 8y agoProbably to support the increased launch tempo for their Starlink satellite internet system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...
- Animats 8y agoWhatever happened with their Brownsville TX facility? They put in some antennas, brought in a crane, and put in some solar panels, but not much more than that.
- agildehaus 8y agoThey spent a long time stabilizing the soil there. Some of the delay could possibly be attributed to the Amos-6 incident. Now that they've rebuilt that pad, they can continue at Boca Chica, which explains the recent activity there. It's likely to be where the first BFR-related tests happen in the first half of 2019.