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Can you honestly not see the difference between a taxi that will only be used on days clear enough to land a rocket and regular ship to shore operations charact
by throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Can you honestly not see the difference between a taxi that will only be used on days clear enough to land a rocket and regular ship to shore operations characteristic of the oil industry?
Tesla's use case is likely less dangerous than the helicopters that fly VIPs all around NYC simply because the airspace will be so much less cluttered allowing for higher faster flights that are more tolerant of things going wrong.
- beerandt 6y agoIf you see a significant difference, it's only because you want to see one. The Gulf of Mexico already has the highest amount of helicopter traffic in the country. It's always cluttered. I'd expect most of the local helicopter services and pilots that ferry the oil industry would be also be ferrying for SpaceX. >Tesla's use case The SpaceX use case is based on high frequency launches. You don't get high frequency by sticking to Space Shuttle blue-sky launch requirements. (And the safety-obsessed oil industry isn't flying in weather it shouldn't be.) But it's still coastal weather, and even blue-sky launches are going to require pre-dawn (or after dark), foggy and/or windy flights out to the rig (and back to shore). If it's point-to-point rocket travel, daylight at the launch site means it's likely to be dark at landing, and vice-versa. Otherwise flight windows are going to be very restricted. If anything, time windows are likely to be more constrained for launches than for the oil industry (who might have a day-long+ window for personnel changes), which means more flying when you have to, not waiting for when conditions are ideal.