Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Payson and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren. And when laugh we left,
Speaker 1: we were talking about SpaceX and we had gotten up
Speaker 1: to the year two thousand and nine, at which point
Speaker 1: SpaceX had successfully launched the Falcon one once in a
Speaker 1: test and wants to take a Malaysian satellite up. And
Speaker 1: with these resounding successes said, you know, let's retire that one.
Speaker 1: I spilled something bigger, bigger and better. Yes, we can
Speaker 1: make it bigger, faster, stronger. So two thousand and ten
Speaker 1: they launched a successful test of a Falcon nine rocket.
Speaker 1: It's eight better than the Falcon one. You might ask, well,
Speaker 1: why did they go from one to nine like what
Speaker 1: happened to Falcons two through eight. Well, the nine doesn't
Speaker 1: refer to the version, No, it refers to how many
Speaker 1: engines are in the first stage of the rocket. Yes,
Speaker 1: it has nine Merlin engines in that first stage. It
Speaker 1: is also a two stage rocket. Yes, so like the
Speaker 1: Falcon one, it's a two stage rocket, but unlike the
Speaker 1: Falcon one, it had nine engines instead of just one engine. Uh,
Speaker 1: still was a liquid liquid fuel engine liquid oxygen and
Speaker 1: kerosene specifically, and used aluminum aluminum lithium alloy tanks. Now,
Speaker 1: according to SpaceX, the nine engines provide more thrust than
Speaker 1: five seven forty seven's at full power. Now I should
Speaker 1: stress that's the current Falcon nine because over the course
Speaker 1: of the last few years. Yeah, the Falcon nine has
Speaker 1: gotten pardon the pun, a bit of a boost over
Speaker 1: the last Okay, I'm sorry, I regret everything I've said,
Speaker 1: I know, but but it is, it has improved over
Speaker 1: the years as they've worked on it. So the the
Speaker 1: figures we have for the Falcon nine really reflect the
Speaker 1: most recent version of the rocket, not the original, not
Speaker 1: this original one from yes Um. And the reason I
Speaker 1: has those nine engines in there is to provide redundancy,
Speaker 1: that way of the that the rocket can continue even
Speaker 1: if two of its engines shut down entirely during the process. Right.
Speaker 1: So they've had issues where they I mean they've actually
Speaker 1: tested it where they would shut down an engine on
Speaker 1: purpose and then fire it back up to make sure
Speaker 1: that in fact the rocket would be able to continue
Speaker 1: and deliver its payload into orbits. So this was definitely
Speaker 1: something that was built into the design. Also, what's really
Speaker 1: kind of cool is that, uh, the the stages stage
Speaker 1: one and stage two, they are separated by a different
Speaker 1: method than the way you would find in um in
Speaker 1: in previous versions of launch vehicles. Now, normally a launch
Speaker 1: vehicle the two stages would be connected with explosive bolts
Speaker 1: and you would blow the bolts and then stage one
Speaker 1: would fall away, in stage two would ignite and continue
Speaker 1: to go up into orbit. But since they were hoping
Speaker 1: to create a rocket system that can be used multiple time,
Speaker 1: like the whole shebang, not just the shuttle bit, yeah,
Speaker 1: they decided to go with something else. They went with
Speaker 1: using air pressure. They essentially had like pneumatic bolts that
Speaker 1: would blast off with a little little blast of compressed air.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't explosive in the sense of like an
Speaker 1: actual explosive device. It would separate more um less violently.
Speaker 1: Let's say, yeah, gently is good because this soothing easing
Speaker 1: blast from high in earth. Yeah. Really, it was mostly
Speaker 1: to to make sure that things would remain safe for
Speaker 1: once the falcon would start to carry people, not just
Speaker 1: not just stuff. Stuff is replaceable. People are not to know.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the if everything is working properly when the
Speaker 1: engines a night, Uh, they will burn for three minutes
Speaker 1: in that first stage and uh interesting facts. So at
Speaker 1: sea level, the Falcon engines engines provide and again this
Speaker 1: is current. Falcon nines provide one point three million pounds
Speaker 1: of thrust, which is five thousand, eight hundred five kilo newtonts.
Speaker 1: But rocket thrust increases as altitude increases, so they just
Speaker 1: get more powerful as they go further up in the air.
Speaker 1: So once they get to space, the engines are putting
Speaker 1: out one point five million pounds of thrust or six thousand,
Speaker 1: six d seventy two kilo mutants, So that's pretty awesome. Now,
Speaker 1: earlier rockets were slightly less powerful, but still significantly stronger
Speaker 1: than the Falcon one, not a big surprise with all
Speaker 1: the extra engines thrown in there. I'm just waiting for
Speaker 1: them to have the Falcon eleven so turn it all
Speaker 1: the way up to eleven um, which would make sense
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure Tesla's vehicles have dials that go
Speaker 1: all the way up to eleven I think I think
Speaker 1: Musk is a fan of spinal test. So uh, Now,
Speaker 1: as the rockets mass decreases, which you would expect to
Speaker 1: have happened. It's got fuel, it's burning fuel, so therefore
Speaker 1: it's going to lose mass in the process of actually
Speaker 1: launching into space. The Falcon nine engines gradually get throttled
Speaker 1: back to compensate so that it keeps acceleration within the
Speaker 1: right parameters, because obviously, if you have the engines blasting
Speaker 1: at the same amount of thrust and the mass of
Speaker 1: the thing it's thrusting up into space is decreasing, then
Speaker 1: it would accelerate beyond what they had it they need.
Speaker 1: So interesting that you have to actually think about throttling
Speaker 1: back the engines as opposed to because you know, getting
Speaker 1: stuff into space is hard. We talked about that. It's
Speaker 1: it's hard to think you would think that it would
Speaker 1: be full, right, that's not the way it works. It's
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Uh. Now, the second stage of the
Speaker 1: rocket has a single Merlin vacuum engine, not a vacuum
Speaker 1: cleaner engine. It's an engine that works in the vacuum
Speaker 1: of space. So for being in space. Yes, yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got this pneumatic stage separation that separates once. Once that happens,
Speaker 1: the stage one starts to fall away. Stage two kicks
Speaker 1: in that one Merlin engine kicks in and provides a
Speaker 1: hundred eight thousand pounds of force or a hundred one
Speaker 1: killing Newton's so, you know, relatively modest compared to the
Speaker 1: actual stage one rocket, which makes sense because that was
Speaker 1: again nine engines versus one. Uh. And that one burns
Speaker 1: for three hundred seventy five seconds, which is six minutes
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds for those who want to break it down
Speaker 1: like that. Uh, and then it will get into its orbit,
Speaker 1: so the second stage engine can actually stop and start
Speaker 1: multiple times, which allows the Falcon nine to place different
Speaker 1: payloads into different orbits. You group the payloads together so
Speaker 1: if you have satellites that need to go into a
Speaker 1: certain orbit, you can release them and then continue the
Speaker 1: spacecraft further out to deliver more payloads and higher orbits. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this allows you know, everyone involved to save a
Speaker 1: lot of money because the actual launch is what's expensive.
Speaker 1: You know. Once once you're up there, it's kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just just toss everything around wherever it needs to get right, Okay,
Speaker 1: who's here for lower th orbit? All right out you go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where, uh, it makes it
Speaker 1: a viable business to work with these other companies we
Speaker 1: talked about in our first episode where we were talking
Speaker 1: about how you know, a company might have a satellite
Speaker 1: that needs to put into orbit, and another company may
Speaker 1: have a similar satellite that also needs to go in orbit,
Speaker 1: it's maybe a slightly different elevation. This would allow SpaceX
Speaker 1: to have the opportunity to launch both in the same
Speaker 1: mission and thus you you can serve and you end
Speaker 1: up making the whole endeavor less expensive for all individual parties.
Speaker 1: So pretty pretty savvy move on the business side. Uh,
Speaker 1: pretty cool stuff. Now beyond all that, also in two,
Speaker 1: SpaceX would land a contract with a satellite operator called
Speaker 1: a Ridium for four hundred ninety two million dollars, as
Speaker 1: was the largest commercial space launch deal ever up to
Speaker 1: that time. And in the second test of the Falcon nine,
Speaker 1: SpaceX becomes the first private company to launch of spacecraft
Speaker 1: into orbit and then recover it after it orbits the Earth.
Speaker 1: So this is again pretty it's it's a pretty big yeah.
Speaker 1: Another step on that on that plan. On the back
Speaker 1: of all of this this wonder and amazement, Musk would
Speaker 1: make the only a little bit far reaching claim that
Speaker 1: he would be sending astronauts into space within three years
Speaker 1: at only twenty million dollars a piece. Yeah, that's um,
Speaker 1: that's that's compared to uh previous missions. Sure, and spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: that did not happen. No, it would take a little
Speaker 1: longer than three years because we still haven't sent anyone
Speaker 1: up into space. No humans have gone into space on
Speaker 1: a SpaceX vehicle yet. So if you're waiting to hear
Speaker 1: that magical fairy tale story, we don't have that. If
Speaker 1: it happened while we were recording, that's different, but as
Speaker 1: of the recording, it has not yet happened. Now, moving
Speaker 1: on to two thousand eleven, we have a groundbreaking ceremony
Speaker 1: for the Vandenburg Air Force Base space launch complex that
Speaker 1: SpaceX would use. Uh. Now, at that point, SpaceX was
Speaker 1: valued at about one point three billion dollars, pretty impressive
Speaker 1: considering that it only had had started back in two
Speaker 1: thousand two. Yeah. Yeah, And and this Air Force space
Speaker 1: that they were celebrating was not for them alone, right,
Speaker 1: it's a government facility exactly. It's it's essentially they're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: do you mind if we use your your playground to
Speaker 1: launch our our our rockets and air forces. You know,
Speaker 1: we can work up a deal, and that's exactly we
Speaker 1: can work that out. Um. Meanwhile, over at NASA, the
Speaker 1: Shuttle program was officially shut down in eleven after the
Speaker 1: Atlantis Is final flight, which returned to the Kennedy Space
Speaker 1: Center on July one. This means, among other things, that
Speaker 1: the amazing infrastructure that is the Kennedy Space Center and
Speaker 1: its launch pads would be rendered idle um at a
Speaker 1: cost of like some a hundred thousand dollars per month
Speaker 1: in maintenance. I don't think that's offset by tourists like
Speaker 1: me going to look around at the Kennedy Space Center.
Speaker 1: Not quite no, um. So you know, in turn, that
Speaker 1: means that you can bet NASA was pretty eager to
Speaker 1: start looking at at ways to recoup that and start
Speaker 1: renting out those launch pads to private companies. Yes, so
Speaker 1: that will become more important a little later on. Yes.
Speaker 1: In two thousand twelve, in May, SpaceX would launch a
Speaker 1: successful mission to have its Dragon spaceship dock with the
Speaker 1: International Space Station. So the Dragon spaceship is like a capsule.
Speaker 1: If you look at it, it kind of is reminiscent
Speaker 1: of something like one of the Apollo capsules. It looks
Speaker 1: kind of in that same sort of general shape. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's not carrying any cargo on this first test. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there it doesn't have any people aborted on the
Speaker 1: first test, but it was successful in docking with the
Speaker 1: I s sh yeah. Yeah, and the astronauts who are
Speaker 1: already up there could open the docked capsule and go
Speaker 1: right on inside, which is any brave. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you said there thinking. I mean, I'm sure they had
Speaker 1: all the instrumentation to prove that in fact, it was
Speaker 1: perfectly safe. But just think of this, This unmanned capsule
Speaker 1: docks with the space station and it's you know, docks
Speaker 1: to an airlock, and I can't imagine the amount of
Speaker 1: tension I would feel opening the airlock for the first
Speaker 1: time and not knowing for sure that everything on the
Speaker 1: other side was still okay. I'm sure that they were
Speaker 1: like tethered in, and I'm sure there are many safety
Speaker 1: precautions taken. It's just interesting to be like, as are
Speaker 1: a world apart from me. I'm too nervous to be
Speaker 1: able to do. Yeah, I get anxious, like going to
Speaker 1: the grocery store. So let's talk about this Dragon spacecraft.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. So it's designed to deliver people and
Speaker 1: cargo to space, although again no people so far have
Speaker 1: gone anywhere. Specifically, is designed to go to orbiting destinations
Speaker 1: like the I S S or satellites, as opposed to
Speaker 1: some longer mission to say the Moon or Mars. It's
Speaker 1: not meant for that. About how much stuff can it hold?
Speaker 1: It can hold eighty three cube feet of cargo, which
Speaker 1: is twenty five cube meters on at least on the
Speaker 1: way up. And it has a mass of six thousand kilograms,
Speaker 1: which means it weighs thirteen thousand, two hundred twenty eight pounds. Now,
Speaker 1: the return payload when it comes back to Earth is
Speaker 1: three thousand krams or six thousand, six d fourteen pounds,
Speaker 1: and the return payload volume for the Dragon spacecraft is
Speaker 1: three eight cube feet or eleven cube meters. And you
Speaker 1: might say, well, why why is the difference? Where where's
Speaker 1: the difference with the volume when it goes up versus
Speaker 1: the volume when it comes down. And so part of
Speaker 1: the capsule when it's going up is a connector that
Speaker 1: connects the capsule to the launch vehicle right and in
Speaker 1: that in that area you have an unpressurized chamber, and
Speaker 1: inside the unpressurized chamber. You can have certain types of
Speaker 1: cargo stuff that does not need to be protected in
Speaker 1: that way. So let's say that you have some extra
Speaker 1: satellites that you can just you know, throw in the back.
Speaker 1: It's in the back of your truck. Essentially you go
Speaker 1: up into space. Well, when you get up into space,
Speaker 1: the capsule, when it's going into re entry, will disconnect
Speaker 1: from that connector that originally had it next to the
Speaker 1: launch vehicle, and so the capsule itself will come down,
Speaker 1: which means that you can't carry as much back down
Speaker 1: as you could carry back up. Now, why would you
Speaker 1: want to carry stuff down in the first place, But,
Speaker 1: like we mentioned in the first episode, occasionally stuff aboard
Speaker 1: the I s S needs to be repaired or maintained,
Speaker 1: and they can't necessarily do all of that on the
Speaker 1: station itself. Or maybe they want to send little bits
Speaker 1: of scientific experiments back down to Earth, right, and in
Speaker 1: that case you would need to have exactly so that's
Speaker 1: what that would be used for. So the pressure I section,
Speaker 1: which would be the one that would carry humans if
Speaker 1: we ever sent any up in a Dragon Space capsule UH,
Speaker 1: can also carry cargo and it has something called draco thrusters.
Speaker 1: So these are these are thrusters. They're meant to provide uh,
Speaker 1: propulsion and some maneuverability in space, developed by SpaceX. So
Speaker 1: since it's the Dragon Capsule, of course it's the Draco thrusters.
Speaker 1: There are eighteen of them spread across four pods, So
Speaker 1: two of the pods have four thrusters, two of the
Speaker 1: pods have five thrusters. Now, the thrusters provide all this
Speaker 1: maneuverability whenever they're needing to to dock with the I
Speaker 1: S S or whenever they're they're trying to reposition themselves
Speaker 1: for re entry um and each individual thruster is capable
Speaker 1: of creating nine pounds of thrust. Now, the Dragon also
Speaker 1: has this unpressurized trunk that was talking about. That's the
Speaker 1: part where it'll disconnect just as you start to go
Speaker 1: into re entry. And uh that's also why you're able
Speaker 1: to carry more stuff up than down. As I said before,
Speaker 1: on May thirty one, the Dragon Capsule returned to Earth safely,
Speaker 1: completing that first test mission of the capsule. And it's
Speaker 1: the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: So in August of two thousand eleven, SpaceX would send
Speaker 1: a Dragon spacecraft up again to pick up return earned
Speaker 1: cargo to bring back to Earth, and Elon must champion
Speaker 1: the mission as a demonstration of America being able to
Speaker 1: deliver cargo and to take cargo from the I S
Speaker 1: S for the first time since the space Shuttle program
Speaker 1: was shuttered. Now keep in mind that particular capsule had
Speaker 1: not actually carried anything up to the station, It just
Speaker 1: brought stuff back down. But in October the Dragon capsule
Speaker 1: would be the first private spacecraft to complete a resupply
Speaker 1: mission to the I S S. So by the end
Speaker 1: of two thousand eleven, it had done it all. They
Speaker 1: had done a successful test stalking, they had returned cargo
Speaker 1: safely to Earth, and they brought stuff up supplies back
Speaker 1: up to the I S S in order to support
Speaker 1: all of this. Meanwhile, that McGregor, Texas testing facility that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the first episode was running at eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day, six days a week. Wow, And you
Speaker 1: know I have actually heard I didn't include this in
Speaker 1: the notes, but recently we're recording this in in August
Speaker 1: of two thousand fourteen, and very recently there have been
Speaker 1: some news reports of former employees who are laid off. Uh.
Speaker 1: This happened very recently at SpaceX, who have also laid
Speaker 1: allegations that they were not allowed to take breaks that
Speaker 1: they would have legally been um allowed to do, uh,
Speaker 1: and that they were not being paid sufficiently for overtime.
Speaker 1: So whether or not any of that is true, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but that that that is an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1: But when you hear something like this about these facilities
Speaker 1: running these crazy amount of hours per day, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when I think McGregor only employs some two fifty
Speaker 1: people today. I'm not sure what the employment rate was
Speaker 1: back then, although I think that that's the that's just
Speaker 1: about the working team that they that they hire out.
Speaker 1: So SpaceX, Yeah, exactly, space X as a as a
Speaker 1: full company as like three thousand employees. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that that's an ongoing situation.
Speaker 1: So we don't have a lot to report about that
Speaker 1: particular issue. But you can imagine that there are people
Speaker 1: who are working really, really hard and I hope it
Speaker 1: turns out that they're being compensation. Okay, But also in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, SpaceX would test something else called the grasshopper.
Speaker 1: This is a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's a rocket that can take off and land vertically.
Speaker 1: So here's the reason why they want to test this
Speaker 1: other thing while the Falcon nine is working. It's really
Speaker 1: kind of testing a proof of concept that they could
Speaker 1: build a rocket that they could launch up into wherever,
Speaker 1: and then when it starts coming back down, they could
Speaker 1: maneuver it so it could land safely upright exactly the
Speaker 1: way it had taken off. It's got landing you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's got struts essentially that act like landing gear.
Speaker 1: And the reason you would want that is if you
Speaker 1: sent any one to someplace like Mars, it would allow
Speaker 1: them to, you know, come back would be nice. We've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot about Mars, both on this show
Speaker 1: and on Our Sisters show Forward Thinking, and some plans
Speaker 1: don't involve the return ticket. I I prefer the plans
Speaker 1: that involved the return ticket. Everyone collective sanity. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: even people who think it's exciting to go to Mars,
Speaker 1: even if there's no way back. I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: you're going to feel the same way. It's a five
Speaker 1: years on Mars or ten years or forty years or
Speaker 1: forty minutes. Who knows. I mean, it might be like, wow,
Speaker 1: I really underestimated how boring it is up here and
Speaker 1: how deadly. So yeah, this would be a way of
Speaker 1: creating a vehicle that could potentially visit a distant surface
Speaker 1: and then take off again from it. Um. Now, this
Speaker 1: particular one is too, is just designed to be a test,
Speaker 1: but it would hopefully be built into the Stage one
Speaker 1: Falcon nine rockets, which would also make them reusable, uh
Speaker 1: in the sense of being able to actually land them
Speaker 1: so that you could recover them, and the actual reprocessing
Speaker 1: phase would be much shorter than if it were you know,
Speaker 1: if you had to go out into the ocean and
Speaker 1: retrieve it from you know, crashing in there. So now
Speaker 1: we move up to two thousand thirteen, SpaceX announced a
Speaker 1: plan to launch a satellite into geo stationary orbit, which
Speaker 1: is different from low Earth orbit. Geo stationary orbit is
Speaker 1: one in which an orbiting body holds the same position
Speaker 1: in the sky relative to an observer on the ground,
Speaker 1: which means that if you're standing on the ground for
Speaker 1: a week, I mean, you know, I guess you're having
Speaker 1: people bring you snacks, but and look up the the
Speaker 1: satellite would be there the entire time and maintain its
Speaker 1: relative position to you that whole time. Uh. And in
Speaker 1: order to do that, you have to actually put that
Speaker 1: out a little further than your low Earth orbit. Also,
Speaker 1: I should all clarify that geostationary orbits are a subset
Speaker 1: of geosynchronous orbits. A geosynchronous orbit is one in which
Speaker 1: an orbiting body will return to a given position along
Speaker 1: its path after a given amount of time. So you
Speaker 1: might say that you have a satellite that has kind
Speaker 1: of a figure eight type orbit over the southeastern United States,
Speaker 1: and then every three days the satellite is over the
Speaker 1: same point of reference along that pathway. That's a that
Speaker 1: one is a geosynchronous orbit. Geostationary is very specific and
Speaker 1: that it maintains that's that particular location. So we would
Speaker 1: have like a geostationary satellite directly above Atlanta, that would
Speaker 1: be an example. Um. But yeah, in order to get
Speaker 1: it out there, you gotta get it pretty far out
Speaker 1: into the orbit. It's it's your your your local ones
Speaker 1: are much closer in uh. Yeah, lower orbit satellites might
Speaker 1: be some one thousand, two hundred miles that's one thousand
Speaker 1: nine kilometers out from Earth's surface. Uh, GEO stationary satellites
Speaker 1: are something like twenty two thousand miles or thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers out. And just for perspective, because I don't
Speaker 1: know about you guys, but but those ranges of numbers,
Speaker 1: my brain starts to go, I don't have no idea
Speaker 1: what that means. I can't compare that to things that
Speaker 1: means stuff to me. A thousand, two hundred miles is
Speaker 1: something like driving from New York City to Miami. Great
Speaker 1: road trip, Uh, it can be, it can pleasant through
Speaker 1: certain parts shirt um and uh, two thousand miles, by contrast,
Speaker 1: is like eighty percent of the circumference of the entire planet.
Speaker 1: So a longer road trip is what you're saying, A
Speaker 1: very much longer road trip than trip. Yes, you would
Speaker 1: have to have a submarine or jet skis. Well, I'll
Speaker 1: hold off on planning that trip. But yeah, So that
Speaker 1: that same year, SpaceX would put in a bid to
Speaker 1: lease one of the Katy Space Center's launch pads, right,
Speaker 1: you were talking about this earlier. Yeah, they the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Space Center finally opened up one of their launch pads
Speaker 1: thirty nine A to be specific, which is like the
Speaker 1: historic Apollo Mission launch pad out to a private company,
Speaker 1: and SpaceX put in one of the bids. The other
Speaker 1: bidder was Blue Origin, which is Amazon founder. Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: is space Company. In this corner, we have Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and in this corna Jeff Bezos. I love the thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've done episodes on both of these people, right,
Speaker 1: We've done We've done a Bezos episode, We've done a
Speaker 1: Musk episode, and they're both these very dynamic, wonderful personalities
Speaker 1: that have these big dreams and all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: So you know, will come out the winner either way.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, the story ends ends up
Speaker 1: with with a single entity winning that bid, right. Well,
Speaker 1: that was actually part of the bidding war here. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a bidding war as much as it
Speaker 1: was just a general political and legal kerfuffle because Blue
Speaker 1: Origin and Jeff Bezos were really aiming for this pad
Speaker 1: being opened up to multi company use. They wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: many people to be able to come in and use
Speaker 1: this thing, and you know, under the argument that leasing
Speaker 1: to a single company would put that company in basically
Speaker 1: monopoly territory as far as space launches go. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, SpaceX was really the only company that was
Speaker 1: prepared to actually use a launch site like that. Even
Speaker 1: Bloor Origin had never had a successful test at that point,
Speaker 1: so SpaceX might be saying like, well, that's all well
Speaker 1: and good, but we're the ones doing stuff and if
Speaker 1: it just lays dormant that it's not doing anyone any
Speaker 1: good anyway. Yeah, and they would eventually win that bid
Speaker 1: in December. Sadly, it was not the way I had
Speaker 1: proposed when we were talking about this before the episode,
Speaker 1: where I said all all all disagreements among entrepreneurs should
Speaker 1: be settled in the thunder Dome, as as our ancestors
Speaker 1: would have had it. Yes. Yes, in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: you bust a deal and you face the wheel, and
Speaker 1: that's no way. That's a different part of the movie anyway.
Speaker 1: Two two thousand fourteen, So we're up to this year,
Speaker 1: at least the year were recording this. For those of
Speaker 1: you in the future who are listening to us, I
Speaker 1: hope you found it quaint. But in May of two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, SpaceX would unveil the design for the
Speaker 1: Dragon version to spacecraft, and we all thought it looked
Speaker 1: gorgeous because it is. It also has the crew capacity
Speaker 1: for seven crew members. Yeah, it looks it looks like
Speaker 1: Apple designed the interior of this thing. Right, if you
Speaker 1: ever look at the controls, all right, if you get
Speaker 1: a chance, go on Google image search and look at
Speaker 1: what the Apollo spacecraft control panel looked like. It looks
Speaker 1: kind of like the Millennium Falcon. It's all these little
Speaker 1: switches and buttons and things like nothing. Nothing looks like
Speaker 1: it would control a spacecraft in the sense of, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to manually take control of this thing. The
Speaker 1: the one that was unveiled. The concepts at least for
Speaker 1: the Dragon version two console look like it was designed
Speaker 1: by Apple. You have these enormous flat panel displays, this
Speaker 1: very elegant looking control scheme set up. It looks the
Speaker 1: way you would think a science fiction spacecraft control would look.
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty beautiful. Now, again, these are concepts, so
Speaker 1: we wait to looks. But anyway, it will according to SpaceX,
Speaker 1: and it will be able to and propulsively almost anywhere
Speaker 1: on Earth, so you don't have to worry about a
Speaker 1: window opening up for you to be able to land
Speaker 1: at a specific location. Yeah, that was one of those
Speaker 1: big limiting factors for the Shuttle program, right, like if
Speaker 1: you missed that window, you had to wait until you
Speaker 1: came back around around so um, which is important because
Speaker 1: it's meant to be reusable. Yes, uh, you know, after
Speaker 1: being processed and refueled, it can go right back into service. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is kind of crazy. And it will have eight
Speaker 1: Super Draco engines built into the sidewalls. I just talked
Speaker 1: over the fact that they're they're building these right into
Speaker 1: the side walls of the spacecraft. Absolutely. Yeah. The idea
Speaker 1: being that if there's a problem during launch, the Super
Speaker 1: Draco thrusters can actually allow the capsule to detach from
Speaker 1: the launch vehicle and potentially save the lives of the
Speaker 1: astronauts inside. That would be, you know, amazing, would be
Speaker 1: a really important development in this kind of spacecraft. They
Speaker 1: can produce one twenty thou pounds of axial thrust uh
Speaker 1: and m. Also, the Super Draco have engine chambers that
Speaker 1: were created in a three D printer. It's the first
Speaker 1: time that an actual working part of a space engine
Speaker 1: has been built by a three D printer, not a
Speaker 1: not a prototype. That'sn't then that's normal, right, that's that's
Speaker 1: part of the course. No, but the actual bits that
Speaker 1: are going into this space. Yeah, it's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: and amazing and one of those. And again it really
Speaker 1: brings home the fact that three D printing is playing
Speaker 1: a very large role in in multiple industries. So it's
Speaker 1: I was really blown away by that when I heard that,
Speaker 1: I thought, surely they mean that they just printed the
Speaker 1: prototype and tested it. No, these are the actual chambers themselves.
Speaker 1: In July two thousand fourteen, SpaceX received approval from the
Speaker 1: Federal Aviation Administration with the f a A to build
Speaker 1: a launch facility in Texas, which would be the first
Speaker 1: purely commercial launch site. This is different from relying on
Speaker 1: that Air Force facility the or leasing the launch pad
Speaker 1: at the Kennedy Space Center, and they're hoping to support
Speaker 1: twelve launches per year. It's a pretty impressive site, all
Speaker 1: you know. It's not huge. It's just seventy acres. It's
Speaker 1: in a town called Boca Chica Beach, which is about
Speaker 1: twenty miles outside of the larger town slash area of
Speaker 1: Brownsville in Texas, near the Mexican border. The US Census
Speaker 1: has identified this area as being the poorest in the
Speaker 1: entire country. Six percent of its residents live below the
Speaker 1: poverty line. Um, the spaceport is going to be an
Speaker 1: eighty five million dollar project, or is projected to be
Speaker 1: so right now, which is gonna be bolstered by fifteen
Speaker 1: point three million dollars in funds from to Texas organizations,
Speaker 1: one being the Texas Enterprise Fund, which makes perfect sense,
Speaker 1: and the second being the Spaceport Trust Fund, which apparently exists.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing, um and uh and yeah, local
Speaker 1: government is pretty excited about the some three hundred jobs
Speaker 1: at the construction is likely to create in the area,
Speaker 1: and the hundred fifty or so staff members that it's
Speaker 1: likely to hire once it's complete. Also all the tourism
Speaker 1: and stuff like that that it's going to bring hopefully,
Speaker 1: and then you also have to have the businesses just
Speaker 1: to support the existence of this thing. Sure, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to build a lot more Starbucks or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, which is that's great news for this town.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, but the potential for some some real
Speaker 1: rejuvenation of that town's economy is pretty exciting. Uh. And
Speaker 1: of course Texas and Elon Musk have a standing, if
Speaker 1: slightly to multious relationship. You know, in addition to housing
Speaker 1: that that testing facility. Texas was also one of the
Speaker 1: first states to have Tesla charging stations um, although as
Speaker 1: if this recording, it can't actually sell Tesla vehicles in
Speaker 1: the state due to car sales laws that preserve dealerships
Speaker 1: being the sole distributors of consumer vehicles. You can't have
Speaker 1: a company sell directly to its customers. Um. And for
Speaker 1: more on that, you can check out our two part
Speaker 1: or the Tesla Tale, which published in March. And rumor
Speaker 1: has it that Stay Governor Rick Perry is really trying
Speaker 1: to change this whole thing because it would be pretty
Speaker 1: good for the economy of the state, many people argue,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the laws have not budged quite yet. And
Speaker 1: also Texas is on that shortlist of states that may
Speaker 1: eventually house Tesla's giga factory battery plant. Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: that would be making the Just like Musk wants the
Speaker 1: space industry to be something that the United States can
Speaker 1: really focus in on internally, same thing for producing the
Speaker 1: batteries that would go into electric vehicles and improving the
Speaker 1: batteries and improving the working conditions around all of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so important stuff. Yeah. The only confusing thing about this spaceport.
Speaker 1: For me is that the announcement about it really only
Speaker 1: came a couple of months after SpaceX signed that lease
Speaker 1: for that Kennedy Space Center a launch pad, but that
Speaker 1: was for a lot, like, you know, six months or
Speaker 1: something twenty years. Who alright, so they're gonna have their
Speaker 1: own space and they're leasing the other like dormant space.
Speaker 1: Maybe they are like kind of edge and everybody else out.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm yeah, I'm not sure what's going
Speaker 1: on there. I mean, you know, it's sub lease of Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm figuring that maybe they're going to try to use
Speaker 1: their own launchpad for for commercial purposes, for helping other
Speaker 1: companies get into space using that infrastructure and maybe preserve
Speaker 1: the Kennedy area for their own stuff or maybe for
Speaker 1: their NASA related trips or something like that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a possibility. Well, and and maybe it'll be one of
Speaker 1: those things where certain types of launch vehicles will be
Speaker 1: able to use their one facility and others might need
Speaker 1: a larger one. For example that you know, there's we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the Falcon Heavy at the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: and that one makes the Falcon nine look like a
Speaker 1: junior just as the Falcon nine dwarf, the Falcon one,
Speaker 1: the Falcon Heavy dwarfs, the Falcon nine right makes it
Speaker 1: look like a paper airplane. Yeah, I mean, you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta do this. You have to keep on making
Speaker 1: larger and larger vehicles so that we can finally get
Speaker 1: to start destroyer. I mean, we've all seen where this leads.
Speaker 1: Is that the reason scientifically. One of the other things
Speaker 1: that is kind of interesting about this and and this
Speaker 1: is one of those things. I just came across this
Speaker 1: while I was doing some research on SpaceX, and this
Speaker 1: may or may not indicate anything in the in the future,
Speaker 1: but we've also talked about the hyper loop, uh, this
Speaker 1: concept of this enclosed train system that would be able
Speaker 1: to move it really super fast speeds. Apparently SpaceX is
Speaker 1: now the company that owns hyperloop dot Com. At least
Speaker 1: from what I was able to find. It used to
Speaker 1: belong to someone else. That ownership has apparently transferred to
Speaker 1: space X. I have not completely fact checked this, so
Speaker 1: this could be wrong. But if that is possible, can
Speaker 1: you just imagine that the commute to go to work
Speaker 1: at your space factory is on the hyper loop and
Speaker 1: you live in some other town in Texas and you
Speaker 1: just in like fifteen minutes there would be pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder if company employees, if you know,
Speaker 1: they actually could buy Tesla vehicles in the state of Texas, Uh,
Speaker 1: if they would get like an employee discount on it.
Speaker 1: It's funny because this description just makes us us think
Speaker 1: that this, this very tiny town, this this town that's
Speaker 1: been struggling with poverty, could transform into like a super
Speaker 1: future tech place in a span of like a decade
Speaker 1: or so, like the the center of the new space Age.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy. Well, meanwhile, to to kind of conclude
Speaker 1: this conversation, there's some other things we have to talk about.
Speaker 1: One of those is that SpaceX has run into some
Speaker 1: political opposition, and there are a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: of looking at this. But some politicians are claiming that
Speaker 1: the company should be accountable to taxpayers, which is a
Speaker 1: little odd because it's a private company. It's not it's
Speaker 1: a contractor, it's not a government organization. And some folks
Speaker 1: like fill the bad astronomer plate, have hypothesized that the
Speaker 1: politicians are actually trying to protect interests in their home
Speaker 1: states because the states involved happened to be the same
Speaker 1: states that have large manufacturing facilities owned and operated by
Speaker 1: companies like Lockheed and Boeing. So when the representatives of
Speaker 1: those states happen to be the ones who are raising objections,
Speaker 1: it does raise questions about, Okay, well, where are your
Speaker 1: objections coming from. Is it from just an honest place
Speaker 1: of concern or are you trying to protect a large
Speaker 1: company that falls in your constituency. Yeah, so tough questions.
Speaker 1: On top of that, the company SpaceX has actually sued
Speaker 1: the US government specifically over military contracts between the US
Speaker 1: Air Force and United Launch Alliance, that being the organization
Speaker 1: I guess that both Boeing and Lockheed belonged to in
Speaker 1: order to preserve their own best commercial interests for space
Speaker 1: technologies exactly, And so SpaceX as that those contracts were
Speaker 1: awarded unfairly in the bidding process, was non competitive. In
Speaker 1: other words, that the Air Force went ahead and stuck
Speaker 1: with its longtime partner, United Launch Alliance rather than going
Speaker 1: to the lowest bidder. Now, if those suspicions are true,
Speaker 1: that would imply that the politicians are playing favorites and
Speaker 1: potentially that the Air Force would be wasting money on
Speaker 1: another company with the expensive contracts that they could they
Speaker 1: could be they could be doing the same thing for
Speaker 1: less money. And since that money ultimately comes from the
Speaker 1: United States taxpayer, this is this should be a big
Speaker 1: deal to citizens. And it's even more complicated than that though,
Speaker 1: right because Russia and and the Russian technology companies come
Speaker 1: back into it. That's right, because ULA ends up getting
Speaker 1: some components from Russia, UH specifically from a company that
Speaker 1: is largely owned by the Russian government. And as we
Speaker 1: have relations between the United States and Russia become more
Speaker 1: common implicated. The situation in the Ukraine obviously is an
Speaker 1: example of that. Then you also have these these complications
Speaker 1: that arise their their concerns about UH security, their concerns
Speaker 1: about fairness. It's it's all wrapped up into this big
Speaker 1: political mess. Right. So again, another argument SpaceX makes is,
Speaker 1: if you go with us, it's all in the United States,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about funding a government that
Speaker 1: you may have disagreements with, unless you're disagreeing with yourself,
Speaker 1: in which case we really can't help you. Um, But
Speaker 1: at any rate, it's messy, is what we're getting down to.
Speaker 1: And then on the government side of the issue, right,
Speaker 1: because it's certainly not one sided. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: have to look at all sides of the I always
Speaker 1: try to look at all the sides of any given
Speaker 1: issue and not just try to jump onto one or
Speaker 1: the other. So on the government side of things, you
Speaker 1: have to understand, first of all, the politicians are citing
Speaker 1: that there are anomalies and SpaceX tests and launches so far,
Speaker 1: which may or may not hold merit. It all really
Speaker 1: depends upon your point of view, because space launches are
Speaker 1: potentially really hazardous, so you don't want anomalies obviously. You
Speaker 1: want it to be as predictable and rough replicatable as possible,
Speaker 1: so that way replicable, but you want to make sure
Speaker 1: for that for the safety of the astronauts, right and
Speaker 1: the cargo, I mean everything, oh, Sharon, and just the
Speaker 1: money that you've poured into it, exactly. So uh. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, you know, space launches are also really complicated,
Speaker 1: and even companies that have been in the industry for decades,
Speaker 1: way longer than SpaceX can have anomalies. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the question is are the anomalies that are the quote
Speaker 1: unquote anomalies that are in these SpaceX launches, do they
Speaker 1: fall inside that same sort of set of parameters as
Speaker 1: what you would find in any other business exactly. So
Speaker 1: I don't have the answers to those questions. I don't
Speaker 1: know really, Like this is not so simple as to
Speaker 1: say SpaceX is right and the government is wrong, or
Speaker 1: the governments and space X is wrong. It's there are
Speaker 1: a lot of factors you have to take into consideration,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I don't have all the information, so I
Speaker 1: can't really come down on it. I hope that SpaceX
Speaker 1: is able to to be really in the mix for
Speaker 1: these competitive projects because I would love to see that.
Speaker 1: I think competition is always a good thing. Oh of course, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And and I think that the thing is that nobody
Speaker 1: has that information right at this very moment. This is
Speaker 1: all very much ongoing and uh and but but hopefully
Speaker 1: it'll come to a resolution for the best of all
Speaker 1: of us soon absolutely so, speaking of the future, since
Speaker 1: we're talking about soon, this is soon and not so soon.
Speaker 1: But next year two thousand fifteen, SpaceX plans to do
Speaker 1: a test launch of a super powerful rocket. This is
Speaker 1: the Falcon Heavy that we talked about earlier. This would
Speaker 1: be the launch vehicle that would allow us to to
Speaker 1: actually go to places like the moon or march with
Speaker 1: people with people exactly now this one. You know, the
Speaker 1: first stage of the Falcon nine was a rocket that
Speaker 1: had nine engines. The first stage of the Falcon Heavy
Speaker 1: is made up of three Falcon nine engine corps for
Speaker 1: a grand total of twenty seven Merlin engines, ye creating
Speaker 1: nearly four million pounds of thrust seventeen thousand kilo news
Speaker 1: and capable of launching a payload that would weigh fifty
Speaker 1: three metric tons into orbit. The second stage of the
Speaker 1: Falcon Heavy launch vehicle same as the Falcon nine. So
Speaker 1: once you get up there, Yeah, if you ever look
Speaker 1: at pictures of what this is going to look like,
Speaker 1: it looks like a it looks essentially like a Falcon
Speaker 1: nine rocket with two other Falcon nine stage ones strapped
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it. And so it's really fat
Speaker 1: on the bottom and skinny on the top because you've
Speaker 1: got a regular Falcon nine stage two and the payload
Speaker 1: at the top of it. Pretty amazing if they are
Speaker 1: able to actually make this work, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: a feat of engineering that I am so far out
Speaker 1: of the comprehension of I would I would love to
Speaker 1: see the first launch of this, right, I would love
Speaker 1: to be present for the test launch of the Falcon Heavy.
Speaker 1: I am sure it's going to be an awesome site,
Speaker 1: and I mean that in the classic sense. Yeah. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: there's some rumors that have been around pretty much since
Speaker 1: SpaceX started that the company will go public, but as
Speaker 1: of this recording that has not yet happened. That doesn't
Speaker 1: stop the rumors from going around. I mean they've been,
Speaker 1: They've really picked up since two thousand thirteen. Musk says
Speaker 1: that he has no near term plans to go public,
Speaker 1: and likely he would wait until SpaceX is Mars Colonial
Speaker 1: Transporter is in service. That would mean the actual vehicle
Speaker 1: that would be capable of taking people to Mars, whether
Speaker 1: or not it would actually be people would probably be
Speaker 1: you know, unmanned missions at first. But I can see
Speaker 1: where I mean, you know, Musk is such a such
Speaker 1: a personal driver of all of his businesses, and so
Speaker 1: I can absolutely see where he would want to retain
Speaker 1: that kind of control everything that they're and not have
Speaker 1: to answer to a board, to a board that does
Speaker 1: not necessarily have him is the head of it, because
Speaker 1: he is on the board of directors, right now as
Speaker 1: is the president and CEO. Uh, she is also on
Speaker 1: the board. But yeah, when you have stakeholders, when you
Speaker 1: have we have uh, you know, stockholders, I should say,
Speaker 1: then you've got to answer to a lot more people,
Speaker 1: And often you may if you're in an industry that
Speaker 1: requires as much risk as the space industry, you may
Speaker 1: have stakeholders who say, I'm not really I think can
Speaker 1: we make money some other way? I can see you
Speaker 1: getting pressured pretty easily into, you know, not doing these
Speaker 1: crazy things like retiring the Falcon after one successful mission. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So it is interesting. We'll have to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on it and see if, in fact, SpaceX ever does
Speaker 1: go public and become a publicly traded company. But um,
Speaker 1: it's it's been a fascinating journey just to learn more
Speaker 1: about this company and what what goes into it and
Speaker 1: uh and what their plans are. And I have to
Speaker 1: tell you, before I started researching US, I was a
Speaker 1: skeptical is probably not strong enough a word for it,
Speaker 1: but very doubtful that we'd be ever able to get
Speaker 1: anyone to Mars by twenty by the mid twenty twenties.
Speaker 1: Even now, I'm I'm skeptical, but I'm more willing to
Speaker 1: believe it based upon the incredible accomplishments this company has
Speaker 1: done so far, and it seems like they're gearing up
Speaker 1: for something pretty big. Yeah, yeah, that's I mean. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to find out what happens next. So for
Speaker 1: those of you out there who also cannot wait for
Speaker 1: us to cover yet another interesting topic on tech stuff
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