SpaceX Updates (Thread 6)

[FloatingFatMan]

<imagining competition CEOs banging heads on desks>

 

*Laughing my arse off at them at the mere thought*

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Because the old way of doing business always takes the safe way out....investors with greed. What just happened here is a new market has been generated by others trying to reduce costs to make their product affordable, real world competition. This is an alien concept to conglomerates who feed at the trough.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Just a follow up to SES wanting the used core for further launches......

 

 

 

Halliwell said SES is such a strong believer in rocket reusability

[FloatingFatMan]

Someone slap Elon with a wet fish!

 

Not cool my ass... If it works, DO IT!

[Draggendrop Veteran]

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Just a confirmation article about what Doc was saying about ASDS ships......

 

The drones have had wings attached, and one has the wings on deck as it gets ready to transit the Panama canal......

 

The article covers some innovations and a hint maybe.....

 

Although Musk has said the stage would be stable because of the weight of its engines and their support structure at the aft end of the stage, he has mentioned that steel

[DocM]

SpaceX's west coast marine fleet for ocean landed stage and Dragon recovery and processing will be housed at the AltSea development in the Port of LA for at least a year.

MARMAC 303 has cleared the Panama Canal and is steaming north. Once it arrives they'll have to mount its side extension wings. They had to be dismounted or it wouldn't fit.

http://www.altasea.org/mission-vision.html

http://www.dailybreeze.com/business/20150618/san-pedros-altasea-to-help-spacex-with-ocean-landings-for-rockets

San Pedros AltaSea to help SpaceX with ocean landings for rockets

In a groundbreaking collaboration to further push exploration of mankind's two remaining frontiers - ocean and space - Los Angeles port officials on Thursday announced that rocket innovator SpaceX will join with marine research center AltaSea in a yearlong partnership at San Pedro's outer harbor.

"I always thought there was a connection between the port and aerospace and this is just the beginning of building the bridge between the two," Los Angeles Harbor Commissioner Anthony Pirozzi said.

The announcement of the offshore-platform recovery and other programs that will be launched in San Pedro elicited a wave of praise at the regular Board of Harbor Commissioners meeting.

"I'm fired up, I don't know about you," said Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino, who called it an "amazing partnership."

The port will provide a land-use agreement but ultimately the deal calls for SpaceX to be listed as a client of AltaSea, which is still in the process of being formed.

The port will be used as home base for three recovery vessels - Marmac 303 (a landing platform), Smith RHEA (a tug) and NRC Quest (the support boat).

SpaceX crew and the vessels will arrive in early July with a 50-member team to begin work in the outer harbor where AltaSea is located. The partnership comes at a time when AltaSea remains in its early stages of development and is seeking tenants.

AltaSea, which will be built in three phases, is envisioned as a 35-acre center with seawater laboratories, offices, a lecture hall, interpretive center and a wave tank, wrapping in participation from many of the region's leading universities.

The matchup with SpaceX, headquartered in Hawthorne, is a significant boon to the center's ongoing fundraising efforts.

>

The outer harbor location near Warehouse One, dubbed the planet's new "gateway to space" by one of the speakers Thursday, also will support offloading of both the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rockets that carry the Dragon into space. The first mission is planned for early August with others to follow, each bringing in a new 50-member SpaceX team on rotation through July 2016.

"We plan to make the Port of Los Angeles our home" for those missions over the next year, Smoot said, adding that the arrangement could be extended after that.

The SpaceX DragonLab also will team up with AltaSea in advancing the "science of sustainability," according to Thursday's presentation.

>

The collaboration is also expected to bring jobs, businesses, educational opportunities - and some much needed buzz to the developing L.A. Waterfront.

>

AltSea

[FloatingFatMan]

I thought the whole sea landing bit was just a temporary measure until they get certified for land based landings?  This seems kinda permanent...

[DocM]

Sea landings have been required by the USAF to prove they can hit a small area before attempting a land landing at KSC or Vandenberg, mission accomplished, but they also have an operational utility.

In the case of a Falcon 9, or Falcon Heavy center core, launching a maximum payload or to deep space there may not be enough propellant reserves to do a return to the launch site (RTLS) landing. In those cases a sea landing is the only way to recover the stage.

We will likely see an RTLS (land) landing attempt this summer.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Commercial Crew Budget Debate centers on program schedule......Seems like a definition debate...but...NASA has a way out...cancel the reserved seats...........

 

 

 

A schedule of milestones published by NASA in an April presentation to the NASA Advisory Council showed that some of the milestone dates have shifted for both companies. A readiness review for tests of a structural test article in Boeing

[DocM]

Left pocket, right pocket. Either way you pay.

[flyingskippy]

The $334M they are trying to cut from CC would only buy 4 seats from Russia on the Soyuz. Does Congress really expect us to use SLS and Orion to send astronauts to the ISS? Even if they threw a billion more dollars at SLS, it wouldn't be ready any quicker than NASA's current time table. Maybe the lawyers need to leave the rocket science to the rocket scientist....

[DocM]

This is Sen. Shelby's tick. Alabama houses NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, most of which is an old boys network - read: defense & aerospace (as well as trial lawyers and banks), which translates to SLS and Orion. Anything he thinks will slow down intruders into that turf and move money to SLS & Orion he'll do.

Many people make the mistake of saying Shelby being a Republican matters, but that's a mistake on a couple of fronts,

1) Sen. Shelby started as a Democrat, a very opportunistic one on the way up to the Democrat leadership. He was tied to the old boys even then, but then the 1994 election put the Republicans in control in a landslide. This was a generational change and Shelby knew it, and Republicans appointed their committee members by House or Senate seniority (not just party seniority) so he changed parties the day after the election and became a "Republican." Poof! He's on his way to the leadership where he can do the old boys network deeds in Congress in spite of the congressional transformation.

The party switch didn't change his loyalties WRT defense,aerospace, trial lawyers or banks one tiny bit.

Wash, rinse, repeat for members of both houses & parties who are beholding to aerospace or the NASA SLS/Orion program centers being in their congressional district or senatorial state.

2) much of the Republican leadership other than Shelby actually supports commercial crew and opening up govt. launches for competition, including Sen. John McCain and House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who's a favorite to become the next Speaker of the House.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

The battle for talent......and a lame attempt at recruiting by Homeland Security and the NSA........in light of recent security revelations...and the scooping of talent by many high tech firms including SpaceX. I saw this article and had to laugh. What does the NSA have to offer that is one up from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, SpaceX, and the list goes on.

 

 

 

Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson meanwhile also went to California to announce a Silicon Valley office "to serve as another point of contact with our friends here" and "to convince some of the talented workforce here in Silicon Valley to come to Washington."

The new "US Digital Service," Johnson said, "provides the option for talent to flow and rotate between private industry and our government teams."

NSA director Michael Rogers has been making the same pitch, saying he wants students and new university graduates to understand the agency's "ethos and culture" and the possibilities for "an amazing mission."

"The biggest challenge is not retaining people," Rogers said in a Washington speech. "The biggest challenge is getting people in the door in this environment."

- 'A brick wall' -

The efforts have been greeted with at best a lukewarm response from the tech community.

"They are going to hit a brick wall because there is a fundamental misalignment between the expectations of the federal government and those of Silicon Valley," said Anup Ghosh, founder of the cybersecurity firm Invincea and a former program manager at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In the race for talented tech personnel, Ghosh said, the federal government is ill-equipped to compete with the likes of Facebook, Google and others, which pay far more generous salaries and offer a different lifestyle.

"The government does not have many tools to recruit these Silicon Valley A-listers," he said.

"I don't think they could recruit West Coasters to come in with the federal service, even if there is a West Coast office."

Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley consultant and analyst at Enderle group, said the trust gap is higher than ever.

 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_agencies_face_uphill_battle_for_tech_talent_999.html

 

Good luck on this pitch.......

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Senate passes FY2016 Defense Authorizations but is blocked by Defense Appropriations.....normally a boring read except for this little gem......

 

 

The RD-180 and launch competition issues have become entwined.  ULA has been a monopoly provider of launch services to the Air Force and intelligence community since it was created in 2006, but now a competitor, SpaceX, has emerged.   DOD, the Air Force and ULA assert that they embrace the drive for competition, but want to make certain SpaceX does not itself become a monopoly provider in the 2019-2022 time frame when Atlas V's no longer can be launched (because RD-180s are prohibited), but a ULA alternative is not ready.  These issues not only split the House and Senate authorizing committees, but the Senate authorizing and appropriations committees.  McCain's Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is the one holding DOD's feet to the fire on 2019, while the other three are siding with DOD.

http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/senate-passes-fy2016-defense-authorization-but-blocked-on-defense-appropriations

 

The White House will veto anything outside of the Statement of Administration Policy (SOP)...enclosed here in a link...and a refusal to pay extra for engine development, which is the first that I have heard this, but sound policy. ($144 million had been asked for government engine design outside of any program...About half way through the report here)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/114/saps1558s_20150618.pdf

 

This battle is getting a little more than personal.........

[DocM]

Ya think? A lot of entrenched fifedoms are at stake.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Ya think? A lot of entrenched fifedoms are at stake.

I think the implications go a lot farther than the "fifedoms"...If the government actually gets away with this...it may entrench in many followers around the world, that "common sense" and advancement has no future with the present political arrangement for a long time in the foreseeable future.

That can be devastating. Case in point in Canada with our medical fiasco's of the last decade....the exodus is large....medical recruitment is a failure in most under served area's. The high tech sector is only marginally better with the exodus out of the country to better paying jobs and less political interference (yes..we have that).

What would stop "up and coming viable companies" from staying, when they have a limited (left over scraps) future, when other countries would probably accept them with open arms and become world leaders? 

 

Scarey times indead.......

[DocM]

But...but...but...Canada has a wonderful health care system, Obama said so!!

/s

Which is why US border area hospitals are making a killing off of Canadian medical refugees.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

But...but...but...Canada has a wonderful health care system, Obama said so!!

/s

Which is why US border area hospitals are making a killing off of Canadian medical refugees.

Yes...it is actually getting real bad up here...many friends have waited 3 years and still no doctor.......

[Draggendrop Veteran]

NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager talks about the last year of activities.....

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/space-station-live-commercial-crew-news.html

 

[DocM]

Jeff Thornburg, #2 guy at SpaceX Propulsion, will be testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 26.

It'd be beyond cool if he dropped a bomb about Raptor

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display?ContentRecord_id=F6FC4CAF-4136-4765-898C-E363BCBEEA7D

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I see that it begins at 9:00 am with a live feed.......could be interesting to see "who" is uncomfortable............

[firey]

I think the implications go a lot farther than the "fifedoms"...If the government actually gets away with this...it may entrench in many followers around the world, that "common sense" and advancement has no future with the present political arrangement for a long time in the foreseeable future.

That can be devastating. Case in point in Canada with our medical fiasco's of the last decade....the exodus is large....medical recruitment is a failure in most under served area's. The high tech sector is only marginally better with the exodus out of the country to better paying jobs and less political interference (yes..we have that).

What would stop "up and coming viable companies" from staying, when they have a limited (left over scraps) future, when other countries would probably accept them with open arms and become world leaders? 

 

Scarey times indead.......

I definitely think it depends where you live.  I mean we have free walk in clinics (yea.. they can take a couple hours to get into).. I personally have never had an issue getting a doctor.   While yes.. businesses aren't doing so hot.. a lot of it boils down to US/CAD$.  In Edmonton especially... oil prices.  If oil prices drop.. companies loose money... don't invest in ventures, etc.  With benefits.. 300$ prescription drugs cost 1.99$ 

Maybe I have had the benefit of always living in areas that medical care has never been an issue.   If it isn't' severe.. then yea a 4 hour wait in emerge.. not unheard of.   

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Confirmation article for Armed Services committee........

 

 

[DocM]

Yup, and wouldn't it be a pip if Thornburg announced Raptor is going to be qualified at McGregor before any other large US engine? Bruno would probably choke on his own tongue.