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paulryanrogers | on: SpaceX Astronauts Begin Spacewalk, Putting New Spacesuits to Test
Except for the whole launch facilities thing they lease from the government.
rogerrogerr | parent | next
It’s clear they’d be fine without that; they could probably have Texas ready for manned launches fairly quick.

More likely they lease launch facilities from the government to minimize regulatory interference from… the government.

caconym_ | parent | next
Given the incredibly hostile regulatory environment they've faced in Texas trying to operate their own private launch site, I think there are very clear benefits in using an established public facility that isn't under threat by constant attempts (often in outright bad faith) to curtail its activity or even get it shut down. It's not a question of money or capability.
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jdross | parent | next
which they have also massively refurbished and could have handled themselves if not for regulations around creating a launch site.

there aren’t many technical issues to pouring concrete in a good lat-lon

michaelt | root | parent
> there aren’t many technical issues to pouring concrete in a good lat-lon

Other than when a powerful and explosion-prone rocket destroyed its launchpad, hurling chunks of steel-reinforced concrete thousands of feet. But it's almost 18 months since that happened.

gertrunde | root | parent | next
That incident probably underscores the parent poster's point quite effectively.

That launch was on 20th April 2023, and the next prototype test launch was only 212 days later on 18th November 2023, although I think the pad redesign/rebuild/repair work was complete by the end of July 2023.

So only 3-4 months to redesign/rebuild/repair the pad (although it's probably reasonable to assume some design work had already occurred).

jandrese | root | parent | next
At the end of the day it wasn't a major problem. SpaceX tried something new, it didn't work out, so they had to fix it. Nobody was hurt. Property damage was minimal. The repair didn't take very long. All in all a good example of learning from your mistakes without spending too much time or money overthinking it.
michaelt | root | parent
In civil engineering terms, if falling apart with debris thrown thousands of feet doesn't count as a "technical issue" what does?

I'm no rocketry expert, but I'm old enough to remember the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster; I'm pretty sure if you've got falling chunks of steel-reinforced concrete hitting your space vehicle during launch, that's an issue.

jjk166 | root | parent | next
The launch pad didn't explode, the rocket on the launch pad exploded. A fully fueled falcon 9 has about as much energy as a small nuclear bomb, it's not a technical issue if your structure is unable to survive that at point blank range.
gertrunde | root | parent
Oh, definitely, of course it wasn't a good or desirable outcome.

But it was also a prototype being deliberately tested to destruction, so the context as compared to Columbia was quite different. (And it wasn't just the rocket itself that was a prototype, the pad and tower were at least a little as well).

And this has always been SpaceX's approach, rapidly iterating their design by building, testing, destroying, rinse/repeat - so it sometimes feels a little difficult to compare to a more NASA-style design process where a (usually) small number of items are produced with a significantly lower tolerance for failure.

(Edit: And how much better is it to learn these design lessons before the cargo is more fragile/delicate/squishy?)

iknowstuff | root | parent | next
Whats your point
michaelt | root | parent | next
That building a rocket launch pad is in fact more difficult than pouring a slab for a garage, and there some nontrivial technical issues involved.

Having chunks of the launchpad go flying isn't just an inconvenience - flying debris during launch can damage critical rocket systems, as the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster demonstrated.

wonderwonder | root | parent
and they figured out how to prevent this happening by the next launch just a few months later. So it turned out to be fairly trivial after all. SpaceX is able to iterate in months what it takes Nasa and its contractors years to do.
taneq | root | parent
Haha well that’s gonna happen from time to time when you try new things.
dmix | root | parent
Can't be taking risks. You might actually accomplish something.
HideousKojima | parent | next
Soon to change with Starship launching from Boca Chica. And planned to be able to launch from essentially anywhere, eventually (in Musk Time so give it a decade).
elif | root | parent
I have seen no plans for a 4th launch/catch tower.. has he even hinted at more sites? Or are you referring to the historical BFR design when musk planned on landing them on the ground like falcon?
panick21_ | parent
The government took all the good land for this in the 60s. So the government mostly just has the land in the right places, that's a really important part. Building most of the ground infrastructure, is still custom to every rocket company.