Few days back we discussed how SpaceX bagged
40% of launches costing $316 million for mission
USSF 67 to become a long runner in the market
of national security satellites in USA.
SpaceX has also become the first private spacecraft
to successfully launch and land their crew
Dragon in the Gulf of Mexico.
Following these events, on 13th August, Thursday,
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took twitter to criticize
SpaceX's biggest competitor United Launch
alliance saying-
"Efficiently reusable rockets are all that
matter for making life multiplanetary & “space
power”.
Because their rockets are not reusable, it
will become obvious over time that ULA is
a complete waste of taxpayer money."
No-one from SpaceX's leadership team was available
to make any comment on the announcement regarding
the contract, as per reports SpaceX's communication
team was also not available to respond to
any big media houses until Musk took twitter
on Thursday to express his displeasure & why
not!
Apart from SpaceX CEO's reaction we have two
more news for you, first - SpaceX's job posting
for a Resort Development Manager to develop
the Boca Chica Village into a spaceport and
second - NASA's announcement regarding the
revised date of SpaceX Crew 1's launch.
Let's find out the details now.
Since SpaceX started it's journey Elon Musk
always targeted to reduce the cost of access
to spacecrafts and also intended to expand
US Military's authority.
SpaceX has already proved their capability
to reuse SpaceX Falcon 9 booster as many as
five times.
From the very beginning SpaceX's vision has
been revolving around producing reusability
of spacecrafts.
Elon Musk's criticism also highlights the
same, the way a larger share of the contract
were handed over to ULA instead of SpaceX's
recent success of bringing back Demo 2 Crew
Dragon, hence the outburst in the social media
from SpaceX's CEO was evident.
Tim Fernholz is a reporter at Quartz who publishes
a weekly newsletter called “Space Business."
In the recent edition of this newsletter he
has made fun of the commercial rocket industry
for its fuzziness and continuing an imprecise
culture.
Tim has mentioned-
"Much of this newsletter is sealed to protect
the competitive secrets of SpaceX and the
other bidders, but redacted filings give us
a clue about what Musk and company are upset
about".
The following comment which he associated
with his newsletter drew attention of Musk.
Knowing SpaceX CEO for reacting to Twitter
provocations Tim also said - “We've found
something Elon won't tweet about."
and he got what he was looking for - Headlines.
Fernholz most probably wanted to capitalize
on SpaceX's silence even after bagging such
a big contract.
No reaction from any SpaceX's big shots were
raising eyebrows and speculations about not
meeting expectations as well.
SpaceX might have opted not to react as they
are yet to receive any clarification regarding
the criteria or process which allowed ULA
to get away with 60% of the contract share,
another probable reason could be SpaceX's
ongoing lawsuit with the US government as
well.
Though Tory Bruno, the CEO of United Launch
Alliance played safe in the entire episode
social media reactions and simply replied
to SpaceX's CEO indirectly by tweeting - "I
congratulate SpaceX on their USAF NSS Phase
2 award".
As per reports ULA wish to launch reusable
version of company's Vulcan rockets but they
have not set any specific goal or timeline
so far.
During all this a Job advertisement from SpaceX
drew everyone's attention.
They are
willing to hire a “Resort Development Manager”
to develop the Boca Chica Village in Texas
“into a 21st century Spaceport” and the
company’s first resort.
As per the job posting by SpaceX the "Resort
development manager" will be responsible for
supervising the development of a luxury spaceport
in Texas from which humans will one day travel
to Mars.
"Aiming to make it super fun!" - this what
SpaceX CEO tweeted after the job posting was
published.
Design management, construction supervision,
architecture and managing the development
of the resort till completion are the role
defined for this post.
The manager would need to provide the final
cost and schedule for the project and implement
cost controls.
The basic qualification required for this
post is Bachelor's degree with 5+ years experience
in construction project management.
It would require to resort development manager
to obtain all city, county, governmental approvals
and coordinate all of the field work, act
in the capacity of a project superintendent.
Coordinating and confirming the project specifications
with the user and maintain the quality and
workmanship of the project is also part of
the job role.
Having working experience for any high end
luxury brand development is a prerequisite
as well.
The facility will be catered by SpaceX's starship
spacecraft which successfully completed test
flight early this month.
We all know Elon Musk has a dream to colonize
Mars, he not only wants to see us there but
also wish to die there as well.
In June SpaceX CEO already expressed his concern
that he might not be able to see humans making
to Mars in his lifetime, so building Starship
spacecraft is utmost priority for his company.
49 years old Elon Musk, said at the Satellite
2020 conference in March - "The thing that
concerns me most right now is that unless
we improve our rate of innovation dramatically,
there is no chance of a base on the moon or
a city on Mars," He added - "This is my biggest
concern.
We've got to improve our rate of innovation
or, based on past trends, I am definitely
going to be dead before Mars."
As per SpaceX, though no dates are finalized
yet but as early as 2024 the early missions
for Starship could get initiated.
The humongous spaceship may transport human
beings to moon while catering many other locations
in between.
Travelling at hypersonic speed is also a possibility.
In February 2020 there were statements from
SpaceX which gave us some idea how the future
spaceport may look like.
SpaceX CEO hoped to initiate the process to
convert the village of Boca Chica into the
"SpaceX Village" having eye set on the Mars
Mission.
He was willing to build a private spaceport
which may feature 100 rooms, facilities to
arrange volleyball tournaments, kayaking and
rock climbing activities including lounge
to host events or parties.
But soon after the job advertisement was posted
SpaceX started facing resistance from the
current residents from that village as many
of them are not willing to sell their houses
at any cost, even not for many a times market
value.
The residents are seeking legal help as SpaceX
wants to start the development of the village
as soon as possible.
This job posting made one thing pretty evident
that SpaceX is still committed to convert
Boca Chica into a resort similar to what Virgin
Galactic is establishing in the New Mexico desert.
In our last video we discussed about SpaceX's
plans in near future which revolved around
Crew 1.
This spacecraft will be the first one used
for full length astronaut mission by SpaceX,
it will carry four crew members in a Crew
Dragon capsule to spend six months on the
International Space Station.
On 13th August NASA announced that Crew 1
which was planned to be launched no earlier
than September this year will be postponed
to no earlier than October 23rd.
SpaceX's Crew 2 mission is planned to launch
on spring next year which may happen at the
same time when Crew 1 will most likely be
docked.
NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon
Walker and JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi will be
the crew members from Crew 1 mission.
The capsule will be lifted by SpaceX's Falcon
9 rocket which arrived at Florida in July.
As per NASA the delay is mainly due to Space
traffic as a Russian Soyuz spacecraft is set
to launch to International Space Station in
October.
NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and cosmonauts
Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov are
the crew members of Russian Soyuz MS-17 craft.
Following the success of SpaceX's Demo 2,
Crew 1 will also make a huge impact on commercial
spaceflights milestones.
As per NASA Crew 1 will enable the agency
"to regularly fly astronauts to the space
station, ending sole reliance on Russia for
space station access".
Making it a historic week SpaceX's employees
were given a day off on Friday officially
titled "Crew Mission Holiday".
Such an eventful week isn’t it!
That’s what we had for you this time.
Hope you have liked it.
Stay safe and take care.
