“Starship is the top priority.“
I think he feels pretty confident now that his situation with NASA is secure. And it probably is. They really have no choice going forward, at least until Boeing is flying, and even then they will want to have two systems, because they know that the notion of using Orion for ISS support is farcical.
[Update Monday morning]
[Tuesday-afternoon update]
More thoughts and SpaceX news from Bob Zimmerman.
Yes, NASA’s willingness to accept used rockets and capsules is a huge sea change.
[Bumped]
Hard to see how he can justify any operation in California. The real innovation is building the rocket right on the launch pad and avoiding all the rigamarole transporting pieces thousands of miles.
Ir will be interesting to watch developments at Boca Chica. There might be mfg. setups to allow parallel assembly and test lines. A boom at one would have little to no effect on another.
That would appear to be presaged by construction of a second test stand – already underway before the SN4 explosion. With a target production rate of 100 Starships per year, there will likely be still more additions to the test stand population at Boca Chica.
The justification for staying in CA is that the SpaceX Hawthorne works are long since paid for and the local work force there is a well-oiled machine.
If Musk decides to exit CA, it is far likelier to be a process than an event.
A bellwether will be what, if anything, now happens with the newly-reacquired Terminal Island site. If no prompt start of work at that site is evident, it likely means SpaceX will abandon it for a second time preparatory to executing a long and slow recessional from Hawthorne.
The first such step would most probably be to either transplant Starship aero-surface production from Hawthorne to Boca Chica or to transplant Raptor production from Hawthorne to McGregor. Engineering would be transferred, incrementally, to Boca Chica as well. Or, perhaps split between there and a new SH-Starship manufacturing complex at KSC.
The Falcon and Dragon stuff would stay in Hawthorne until those vehicle families are entirely retired. Perhaps The Boring Co. would move into space vacated there by SpaceX.
Lots of possible approaches exist to diminishing the amount of weight SpaceX currently rests on CA.
The biggest problem with that will be that a lot of SpaceX employees (including Elon) like living in California, for all its negatives. XCOR lost personnel when it moved to Midland, and Boca Chica is no Midland.
Exactly. My SoCal employer has moved significant amounts of work to locales with substantially lower costs of living; however, getting people to pull up stakes and move to a MUCH different area – climate, amenities, school systems, etc. – has been difficult, even with expansive move packages. The people who have taken the relocation from SoCal have mostly been two groups. the first group consists of those with less than ~10 years experience who are (a) priced out of the SoCal housing market and want to raise their kids in a house with a yard, not a condo, and/or (b) are tired of an onerous commute. The second group is high-level managers who see the assignment as a major promotion, and figure they’ll stick it out for 5-6 years, then wangle a transfer/promotion back to SoCal.
As sucky as the political and cost of living aspects of SoCal are, when I was presented with my “opportunity” a few years ago, it was easy to say no. I won’t be looking elsewhere until the re-education squads are on my doorstep :-/
Did those XCOR people actually like California or did they just fall for the sunk cost fallacy of having family, property, etc. there?
No, Boca Chica is no Midland. But Midland is no South Padre Island either and SPI is just a few miles up the coast from Boca Chica. If Elon moves a bunch of people from Hawthorne to TX, it’ll probably be SPI where they stay. Other than Elon himself in one of those two dozen Boca Chica Village houses SpaceX bought up, no one lives in Boca Chica. I think even BocaChicaGal Mary commutes now.
South Padre is no LA. People who can afford to live in LA love the beaches, the mountains, the climate, and the culture. It will be hard to get them to leave.
The company is now building rockets that can takeoff and land with less variability than a jetliner. I understand why the company wants to launch from Boca Chica. I also understand the model of building where you launch, but isn’t that model a bit dated now with their current capabilities. How much fuel to launch a rocket sub-orbital from Houston to Boca Chica? For that matter, would it need a lot more fuel to go from Las Vegas, Tennessee, or Alabama?
Ferry it, refuel it, fit it with payload, and then do the space launch from near the equator. Prove that capability and then start ferrying it to the equator.
You can do all that once it’s working. They aren’t there yet. It’s a problem of integration and testing. You can do that in California and then get to redo it at the launch pad in Boca. Or you could skip the redo. Also you don’t need to ship teams back and forth across the country to do the postmortem and then return to re-engineer a solution which gets shipped back across the country to be implemented (hopefully correctly). Or maybe the re-implementation misses an important assembly step? If I recall there used to be reasons in the aerospace business the engineers worked on the assembly floor alongside the technicians and mechanics doing the assembly. Maybe I’m wrong, but as far as I can see, the assembly of a Starship is not a modular sub-assembly drop in place event. Not yet anyway.
Brownsville, though, beats the hell out of Midland. I have a couple glasses of wine in me right now and can’t recall the name of the former Midland airport Manager, but he was very happy to move to Brownsville and go to work for SpaceX.
I think the issues going forward are integration and test. The orbital stuff can be simulated in Hawthorne but the nuts and bolts of construction has to be done in Boca. The reason for Boca is that it is the only facility fully dedicated to Starship. The Cape has split priorities and Vandy is too important for milsats. It’s not necessarily one of migration since the nature of the work will be different. Perhaps mew hires if necessary. The expertise has to be learned and practiced locally. That’s life.
I anticipate that Musk’s detractors will fasten upon this latest declaration as evidence that SpaceX will now neglect Crew and Cargo Dragon 2 and the Dragon XL that is to carry cargo to Gateway.
Despite massive evidence to the contrary having been in plain sight for years, there are some who just can’t seem to wrap their tiny minds around the idea that SpaceX, as an organization, can not only walk and chew gum at the same time, it can do both while also juggling running chainsaws and playing hacky-sack.
…and while solving a Rubik’s cube!
I fear that may be so. If it gets to be too big a headache Elon can spin Hawthorne (Falcon/Dragon) out as a subsidiary dedicated to government contract fulfillment. Not unheard of. Think mini ULA.
Actually, Space X is like the four-armed Hindu God, Shiva. It can walk, chew gum, and eat two pieces of pizza, all at the same.
I think the Russians, in particular, very much see SpaceX as Shiva the Destroyer. And not without good reason.
Starship being the top priority is IMHO not going to give NASA any qualms. Quite the contrary, because NASA has already given SpaceX a contract regarding using a modified Starship for a lunar lander (both cargo and crew) for Artemis.
The biggest issue with Starship in such a role is schedule – will it be ready in time? It’s not just Starship and Superheavy, but also the required development of orbital prop transfer and storage. Making Starship top priority IMHO alleviates some of the concerns.
I’m also going to speculate that if Starship is doing orbital missions and demonstrating prop transfer before SLS is even off the pad, it’s possible that NASA might wish to use Starship for more than just lunar cargo and crew transfer from high lunar orbit to the surface and back.
Heh, Musk is still trying for landing cargo on Mars in 2022, and crew on Mars in 2024. *If* he can pull that off, it’s very possible that, given SLS’s ongoing schedule slips, SpaceX could have landed crew on both the moon and Mars by the time SLS clears the tower for the first time.
Elon Musk’s timetables are always aspirational, not realistic. Landing people on Mars before the end of the decade isn’t out of the question though. And whether they would ever be coming back is an open question.
Open, but not by too much. The initial Mars settlers will be selected from people looking to go, stay and build an entire new world. There will be some returnees every conjunction, I would suspect. But not many.
OK. Mars gets done. What’s next? Blasting off and leaving America altogether?
The political situation in America seems something to contend with. Although, the Sodom transformation of the cities may be a good thing to leave, and not look back on. SpaceX has an unhealthy public funding percentage. Politicians change. This hurt NASA. 100% reliance on bureaucratized state funds is not sustainable. People inevitably want lollypops and pornos, not scientific miracles. Defund the police seems a little premature, when one might simply defund NASA.
What “political situation” did you have in mind, exactly?
It would take quite a political change to cut SpaceX off from NASA and NatSec missions. I see zero probability of that happening. If the State of California wants to harass SpaceX, Elon can yank the whole thing over to TX in jig time.
The people howling about defunding the police aren’t going to defund the police or NASA or anything else because they aren’t ever going to assume power. Don’t confuse being on TV with being consequential.
I’ve wondered about this, too. Does Musk want to get as much work done as possible because he’s afraid that if the Democrat take over, they’ll hammer the economy flat with their tax policies, and maybe even try to shut him down in order to devote resources to the “climate crisis.”
That’s where StarLink becomes important. Elon is supposedly aiming at two markets: rural customers who are currently paying $100ish for rural internet monopolies (or even more for GEO satellite), and high-volume stock traders who are attracted by the promise of sub-20ms latency (and therefore willing to pay tens of millions a year–or more–for it). SpaceX could easily pull more money in from service plans than from all other operations by the second or third year, thus insulating them from a lot of political shenanigans.
Note that I haven’t included foreign StarLink customers. Between the dual nature of the transceiver (state-of-the-art phased array) and the risks of the network being misused by hostile powers, I expect the government to tightly restrict which countries they can provide service to. Still, Canada and Oz seem like shoe-ins with fairly large populations that are poorly-served by ISPs.
Don’t forget the US military. They were the anchor tenant for the recapitalized Iridium and are already doing starlink tests.
I figure that when Elon decides to move something, it will move, with or without the odd employee. I wouldn’t look for him to start up anything new in California and the lay-offs send a message of their own.
For all the cheering, here, about Starship, isn’t this a reversion to the NASA concept of One Large Booster to Rule Them All?
What happened to on-orbit propellant storage and transfer (“depots”)? How about a reusable, refuellable aero-braking transfer stage? Why not refine and mass produce the smaller rocket that works so well?
Your not all wrong, and I agree that a different interplanetary stage probably makes sense, at least at first. But F9 is a mature technology; the second stage will never be recoverable. If Starship works as advertised (big if) it can do what F9 does for an order of magnitude less cost irrespective of any extra capabilities.
I gotta believe Musk ran the numbers and feels Starship is the better option. It’s interesting to speculate on the path not traveled. Had effort been poured into enhancing the Falcon architecture to achieve Lunar/Mars goals. Since work would be to evolve Falcon, getting NASA on-board or at least have them be happy on the sidelines would have been a no-brainer. Musk must feel that in the long run Falcon was a dead end when it came to Mars or inevitably leads to a Starship like vehicle in any case. So why not just cut out the throwaway middle steps?
It looks as though there will be some kind of Starship-based depot ship as part of SH-Starship’s Moon and Mars architectures. These, like the HLS Starship Moon lander, would likely trade TPS and aero-surfaces for a lot of insulation. Starship tankers would visit them, serially, on-orbit, fill them up, then an outward bound Starship of whatever sort, would re-tank from them in a single operation before proceeding on its way to whatever deep space destination awaited.
Don’t forget that Starship partly came out of SpaceX studies attempting to figure out how to recover the second stage. They had to waste so much mass on TPS and fuel that they couldn’t make the numbers work with the F9 first stage–the whole thing had to grow.
That led to the “reusable second stage” and the “Giant Mars Rocket” becoming combined into one single project… which is supposedly going to be cheaper to launch than even a re-used F9. It’s more or less cutting the Gordian Knot.
And on-orbit storage can still be done… and probably will be. Remember that a Mars shot requires launching a Starship… and then refueling it from 9(?) more Starships. Wouldn’t it make more sense to include an 11th Starship, get it fully fueled from the other 9, and *then* launch your Mars-bound rocket? You then only have to refuel your manned Starship once, rather than 9 times. Sounds a bit safer and easier to me, especially if range restrictions prevent you from launching all of the tanker flights within a reasonable timeframe.
And if you’re going to do that, why not build a purpose-built storage facility–perhaps a Starship with extra tanks, or maybe a free-flying facility carried up by the chomper variant?
>How about a reusable, refuellable aero-braking transfer stage?
So developing another entirely new vehicle, at additional expense? Only if/when traffic justifies it. This is the problem with Zubrin’s suggestion – the first and second stages can be built with the same tooling (as is done with Falcon 9). A totally new vehicle which works only in space can’t be developed until the lift capability is available. And even then, you need a lot of traffic to amortize the additional development costs.
Why not refine and mass produce the smaller rocket that works so well?
You mean the Falcon 9? With no reusable 2nd stage? And a fuel that’s less than optimal for engine reuse? (coking)
I wonder how many will still cling to California when Governor Newsom repeals Prop 13 and adds a Wealth Tax to make up for all the businesses fleeing the state. No wonder Elon Musk is selling his houses and leaving. He knows which way the wind blows.
Well, well, well.
https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1268316718750814209
I’ve never really understood the mindset that finds either LA or NYC worthwhile places to live and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in both (business trips to LA and my second wife was from the Bronx). Especially that bit about the beaches. They resemble the beaches of Maine (cold water and rocks). On the other hand, a friend visiting from CA found the sand and hot sea beaches of the southeast repulsive. Go figure. If I’d worked things right, I would have wound up in the Ozarks.
Parts of California resemble the beaches of Maine, but not LA beaches. They are sand, and much wider than the east coast beaches. The water is chilly, though; you need a quarter-inch suit to spend much time in it (e.g., surfing). But a lot of people like going to the beach even if they don’t go in the water. Manhattan Beach is the volleyball capital of the world.
Um, no, you don’t need a wetsuit to surf in SoCal in summer; I grew up there, and was a surfer. You’ll see a lot of guys out on the break in boardies in summer (and a few in late spring and early fall, too). I had a wetsuit, but that was for cooler seasons.
However, that said, yeah, the water is cooler than the east coast, Hawaii, etc, but you get used to it pretty quick. The beaches are the only thing I miss about California.
What percentage of LA residents go to the beach, how often, to do what? You can play volleyball anywhere (although I guess maybe watching bikini-clad girls playing volleyball in Antarctica might not be so common). A lot of the other things said of SoCal have always struck me as available anywhere. Climate is a matter of taste, insofar as its not a matter of propaganda. Culture? Um.
I lived (15 miles inland) and worked (right on the waterfront) in Maine for several years. The pay was good.
Ummmmm…many thousands? Particularly in the summer? To play volleyball, to watch women playing volleyball, to watch women in skimpy bathing suits, to watch women playing volleyball in skimpy bathing suits, to play in the surf, to surf, to paddleboard, to watch for wildlife, to listen to the surf, to beat the heat from inland? And I’m sure that few people are imagining that they enjoy the Mediterranean climate due to “propaganda.” They can figure it out themselves by just living there and going outside for a year or two. I know you may find this hard to believe, but I have actually witnessed with my own eyes SpaceX employees at the beach.
But hey, go argue with the SpaceX employees who aren’t going to be that interested in moving to Boca Chica.
Boca Chica is a beachfront site. In fact it’s a TX state beach.
And South Padre Island, a famous beach resort, is within spitting distance up the coast. From what I can see, SPI has pretty much the same ambience as Venice, CA – nice beach backed by lots of little shops and restaurants/bars.
There is surfing there too and it is said to be pretty good. I suppose it must be as SPI supports several surf shops and there’s at least one streaming surfcam.
There is also both organized and informal beach volleyball. A lot of it seems to go on near an establishment known as Boomerang Billy’s Beach Bar.
The babe-watching is also famously world-class, especially during Spring Break.
With the Boca Chica factory/spaceport there to add interest, the average level of tourism year-round seems likely to increase.
I think SpaceX singles, in particular, will love the place.
Thousands out of millions? That sort of makes beaches like golf courses, taxpayer supported playgrounds for a tiny minority. Of course you could say the same thing about state parks, which I use heavily. When I go, there are crowds of picnickers at the entrances near the parking lots, but once a mile in, I have the tens of miles of hiking trails largely to myself.
As for “propaganda,” I think you have a kinder view of human nature than I do. The relentless boosterism of Californians and New Yorkers does appear elsewhere, too. When I first moved to NC (as usual, in hot pursuit of the elusive feral vulva), I arrived in Chapel Hill, described as “the Southern Part of Heaven,” despite being little more than one more crappy little college town, inhabited by snobs and their servants.
People talk about their special places in special ways, without much objectivity. New Yorkers talk all about their “culture,” with special reference to museums and Broadway shows. I livedin DC as a teenager, and there’s nothing in NY that compares with the Smithsonian, and most of the Broadway shows I’ve seen (I think the last one I went to was “Miss Saigon,: so it’s been a while) were sort of like live performances of a Merrie Melodies cartoon. Still, it’s “the Great, White Way” and all that…
Sorry for the rant. I just find it baffling.
I was surprised by the beauty of Mississippi beaches. They are very accessible and nice white sand with clear water. What’s missing are waves because of the chandelier islands. That makes it great for swimming and fishing, but not for surfing.
As you mention the Ozarks; I’m a Texan, and most of us are very found of the state and boast we won’t leave. However, I’ve visited the Appalachian region, and it is just beautiful with great weather.
The Gulf Coast beaches of Florida are nice as well. My father swore he was going to die in Clearwater, but stayed in NH to the bitter end.
I live along the VA/NC border in the Blue Ridge foothills (ostentatiously referred to as the Piedmont, I guess because Jefferson liked Italy or something). The Ozarks and this area are in the same climate zone depending on where you are, which part. Similar people, too, hillbillies more than rednecks.
The best big city beaches in the world are in Perth, Western Australia.
I’m biased as I grew up there. Similar climate to Southern California without the tens of millions of people. Nice wide river for sailboats right near the city, too, running down to Fremantle which is familiar to US submariner history. Pity about the mountains or lack thereof, though.
Nine mile.
Reminds of a Ringo novel.
The best beach I ever was at was near Ponce, Puerto Rico ca. 1970. I was 19 and for the first time met some girls who thought a tall boy with black hair and an enormous nose was “handsome.” I almost drowned skin diving on an ebb tide (found out I could indeed swim for more than a mile) and found out why you don’t try to pick up a sea urchin with your bare hands. I spent the summer in PR that year and wanted to run away from home. When I did come home, it was with a new worldview.