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I have a lot of problems with SpaceX and I think it's severely overhyped. Of course a big part of the reason for the hype is the PR arm of Musk, which puts in a hell of a lot of spin to make it seem like his companies are god's gift to the world. I have a strong suspicion that they are more so a scam than a set of legitimate business ventures that actually have a good chance of succeeding. I made the same claim a while ago upthread but it seems that right now there are more people willing to listen, so I want to put out a few thoughts on the matter.
First, on Musk's companies in general, to try to understand how SpaceX works in context. They all basically have the same idea: build an older but government supported and strongly hyped product - electric cars, solar panels, rockets, vacuum tube railways. Now these projects are all expensive, so you have to raise a lot of money without making profit. So Musk makes a rather convenient claim in all cases: there is an economy of scale just WAITING to break out, and if enough money goes in then magic will come out. A reasonable claim, but also one that should always be taken with a pitcher of salt by investors. Then he does a whole lot of hype, playing governments and investors hard by advertising ideas with great optics to convince all of them to give him money, lax regulation, lax interpretation of financials (which are frankly dismal in all the companies he has that are public), and so on. My prediction is that there is a lot of funny money, and the end result will be that the ventures all more or less fail (but that he will cash out a long time before they do and will remain a billionaire).
Enter SpaceX. One issue with the company that makes it hard to make comparisons is that it isn't public. One might wonder why, but of course it's a business decision. The real issue is that we don't really know anything about its finances; for all we know their low prices could just be a loss meant to win market share and the rockets are more expensive than they are advertised to be. It makes a lot of the same moonshot pie-in-the-sky claims as the other companies he has: economies of scale, ridiculous promises (Mars! Fully reusable cheap rockets!) and works on technology that has fantastic optics, but isn't all that groundbreaking. If SpaceX is all it says it is, then it managed to reduce the cost of rocket launches to half of what it was in the early years of space travel. Impressive, but also far from groundbreaking. All of the moonshot ideas haven't really bore fruit from what I have seen.
To give SpaceX credit, it does have a pretty decent launch record. Not as good as the most expensive and reliable options (ULA, Arianespace, etc) and obviously nowhere near the number of launches or risky attempts as Russian or US government programs (which have lower success rates by virtue of launching rockets before it was safe). But nevertheless, by all means a decent mid-price option that seems to be reasonably reliable. However, there is plenty of indication from within the company that there are poor dealings that can end badly. Most employees say they are overworked, that the company has pretty substantial turnover, and that it has weak safety standards. It also isn't public so we have no damn clue how profitable the company is. But there are already good reasons to doubt its long-term viability.
So why should we care? Isn't it just some company that can do whatever the hell it likes? Not quite. The problem really comes in with the new direction NASA has been heading - or rather, its lack of direction. Without much thought as to what would follow, Obama axed both the Space Shuttle and Constellation. The Space Shuttle was of course a problematic and fundamentally flawed program, to be sure, and it did need to be replaced eventually - but as it happened the program was cancelled without a replacement. The Constellation program was pretty expensive, but it was also a much more comprehensive, and realistic goal that had milestones, missions, and craft that would get the US back to the moon, through a few midpoint goals, and finally to Mars. That was all scrapped in favor of the privatization of space travel, with the goal being to make that for just routine missions but the reality being that NASA has to buy Soyuz seats from Russia because they can't ferry their own into space. And the government has given SpaceX a hell of a lot of favorable treatment - help building rockets from NASA, some leeway on regulation, that whole RD-180 block that helped them secure a few launch contracts, etc.
What I'm worried about is that politicians, who are very much neither scientists nor engineers (nor experts on matters of science/engineering projects), will fall for the same hype that they did with Tesla and the Gigafactory, and invest actual money into unsubstantiated hype like the SpaceX "dreams of Mars." As always, the optics can be spun to look good, but it's a foolish idea to give that sort of project to a private company that isn't anywhere near as impressive as it hypes itself to be. There was already a viable Mars program, but it died because no one wanted to spend money to do it right.
Long story short, a company of average results, unknown stability, and substantial hype costs tax money and is a poster child of the poorly planned privatization of space.
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By the way, as I've linked before, SpaceX is heavily reliant on Solar City/Tesla because it has loaned them lots of money.
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Any space venture is going to be obscenely capital intensive before it can imagine to show a profit. And there is a economic of nearly unlimited scale waiting for it in space. It probably isn't profitable and anyone can see that it won't be profitable for decades probably if they're really targeting what they say that they're targeting. It can save a lot of tax payer money in the short term and more money in space exploration is always a good thing for the economy.
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looks like manned flights on Boeing and SpaceX vehicles are set to be delayed to late 2018. The SpaceX delays were evident before the Falcon9 problems on September 1.
The two companies developing commercial crew transportation systems for NASA are experiencing problems that will likely push back the beginning of regular flights until at least late 2018, an agency report warned.
The report by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG), released Sept. 1, also concluded that those delays may force NASA to purchase additional seats on Russian Soyuz flights to and from the International Space Station, the cost of which has grown significantly over the last decade.
The report argued that while previous delays in the overall commercial crew development program could be blamed on funding shortfalls, more recent delays have their roots in technical problems both Boeing and SpaceX are experiencing in the development of the respective vehicles, the CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon.
“While past funding shortfalls have contributed to the delay, technical challenges are now driving schedule slippages,” the report stated. “Notwithstanding the contractors’ optimism, based on the information we gathered during our audit, we believe it unlikely that either Boeing or SpaceX will achieve certified, crewed flight to the ISS until late 2018.”
As of June, Boeing had completed 15 of 34 milestones in its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with NASA, valued at $1.067 billion, according to the report. The company has experienced problems, though, with the CST-100’s development, including mass growth and aeroacoustical loads on its Atlas 5 rocket during launch. Earlier this year, Boeing delayed an uncrewed test flight of the spacecraft to December 2017 and a crewed test flight — likely to carry one NASA astronaut and one Boeing test pilot — until February 2018.
SpaceX, according to the report, has completed eight of 21 milestones under its CCtCap contract and received $469 million. Its issues with Crew Dragon stem in large part from a design change from a spacecraft that would land on dry land to one that will splash down. “This resulted in significant challenges, including complications with vendor components and the effectiveness of the integrated landing system designed to ensure parachutes work and the capsule does not take on excessive water after landing in the ocean,” the report stated.
The report added that SpaceX, which was planning uncrewed and crewed test flights in mid-2017, was encountering issues with several other vehicle subsystems, including the spacecraft’s parachutes and the tunnel allowing the crew to move between the Dragon and the ISS. SpaceX also hadn’t completed all the milestones associated with a critical design review. “Accordingly, we anticipate additional schedule slippage and do not expect certified flights by SpaceX earlier than late 2018,” the report stated.
That assessment came before the Sept. 1 pad accident at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its satellite payload and damaged pad infrastructure. While commercial crew missions will launch from Launch Complex 39A here, the investigation into the failure could delay upcoming launches, including commercial crew test flights.
SpaceX argued in the report that a prior Falcon 9 launch failure in June 2015 did not have a major effect on its commercial crew work. “Although SpaceX officials told us that the [2015] mishap has not delayed its crew development efforts because it had built sufficient margin into the schedule,” the OIG report stated, “they also noted the lack of margin remaining to accommodate any additional unexpected issues that may arise.”
A delay to late 2018, and the possibility of additional delays, could require NASA to purchase additional Soyuz flight services, which currently run through 2018. The report noted that the price of Soyuz seats charged to NASA by Roscosmos has increased by 384 percent since NASA first acquired seats in 2006, to nearly $82 million for six seats in 2018.
The NASA Advisory Council, meeting in Cleveland in July, expressed similar concerns about needing to buy additional Soyuz seats, adding that NASA would likely need to make a decision soon.
“Due to the long lead time to procure Soyuz seats, a decision must be made really very shortly — before the end of 2016 — to guarantee access to the ISS in 2019,” said Wayne Hale, interim chairman of the council’s human exploration and operations committee, at the July 28 meeting, “or we may be forced to reduce or possibly eliminate its crew complement.”
NASA had planned to hold a commercial crew update here Sept. 6 in advance of the Sept. 8 launch of the agency’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. Media arriving at the center for the event were told the event was canceled, without explanation.
http://spacenews.com/report-warns-of-additional-commercial-crew-delays/
On September 07 2016 13:35 LegalLord wrote:
I have a lot of problems with SpaceX and I think it's severely overhyped.
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Long story short, a company of average results, unknown stability, and substantial hype costs tax money and is a poster child of the poorly planned privatization of space.
+1.
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On September 07 2016 15:21 Sermokala wrote:
Any space venture is going to be obscenely capital intensive before it can imagine to show a profit. And there is a economic of nearly unlimited scale waiting for it in space. It probably isn't profitable and anyone can see that it won't be profitable for decades probably if they're really targeting what they say that they're targeting. It can save a lot of tax payer money in the short term and more money in space exploration is always a good thing for the economy.
You completely miss the point. Yes, there will be money to be made in space in the future - not unlimited money because we should talk reality rather than pipe dreams, but money nonetheless - but that isn't what we have here. What we have is a man who has been known to make bold claims of economies of scale all over the place, has yet to deliver truly useful profitable results in any of those places (mostly just reinventing old technology with good optics but that have never been profitable and may not be for a long time or ever) and who promises the moon (or, more literally, Mars). In the case of Tesla and SolarCity, we have government and stockholder subsidized ventures with questionable potential that are hemorrhaging money while getting more on their hype. With SpaceX, we have a company that has so far managed to take a lot of resources from capital influx and NASA favoritism, and deliver decidedly average results without having true proof of profitability on their sales. And their biggest source of sales, money-wise, is obviously the government so it's not exactly "real" profit as much as it is outsourcing of government functions. If profitable applications are a long way off then that's a pretty good indication that the government is the party that should lead the way in investment in that field.
Call me suspicious of a company founded by an unproven hype artist who made his fortune in an easier environment (software and duping gullible stock buyers) and has promised the same thing everywhere but has not proven profitability in any of his moonshot ventures.
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On September 07 2016 16:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote:looks like manned flights on Boeing and SpaceX vehicles are set to be delayed to late 2018. The SpaceX delays were evident before the Falcon9 problems on September 1. Show nested quote +The two companies developing commercial crew transportation systems for NASA are experiencing problems that will likely push back the beginning of regular flights until at least late 2018, an agency report warned.
The report by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG), released Sept. 1, also concluded that those delays may force NASA to purchase additional seats on Russian Soyuz flights to and from the International Space Station, the cost of which has grown significantly over the last decade.
The report argued that while previous delays in the overall commercial crew development program could be blamed on funding shortfalls, more recent delays have their roots in technical problems both Boeing and SpaceX are experiencing in the development of the respective vehicles, the CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon.
“While past funding shortfalls have contributed to the delay, technical challenges are now driving schedule slippages,” the report stated. “Notwithstanding the contractors’ optimism, based on the information we gathered during our audit, we believe it unlikely that either Boeing or SpaceX will achieve certified, crewed flight to the ISS until late 2018.”
As of June, Boeing had completed 15 of 34 milestones in its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with NASA, valued at $1.067 billion, according to the report. The company has experienced problems, though, with the CST-100’s development, including mass growth and aeroacoustical loads on its Atlas 5 rocket during launch. Earlier this year, Boeing delayed an uncrewed test flight of the spacecraft to December 2017 and a crewed test flight — likely to carry one NASA astronaut and one Boeing test pilot — until February 2018.
SpaceX, according to the report, has completed eight of 21 milestones under its CCtCap contract and received $469 million. Its issues with Crew Dragon stem in large part from a design change from a spacecraft that would land on dry land to one that will splash down. “This resulted in significant challenges, including complications with vendor components and the effectiveness of the integrated landing system designed to ensure parachutes work and the capsule does not take on excessive water after landing in the ocean,” the report stated.
The report added that SpaceX, which was planning uncrewed and crewed test flights in mid-2017, was encountering issues with several other vehicle subsystems, including the spacecraft’s parachutes and the tunnel allowing the crew to move between the Dragon and the ISS. SpaceX also hadn’t completed all the milestones associated with a critical design review. “Accordingly, we anticipate additional schedule slippage and do not expect certified flights by SpaceX earlier than late 2018,” the report stated.
That assessment came before the Sept. 1 pad accident at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its satellite payload and damaged pad infrastructure. While commercial crew missions will launch from Launch Complex 39A here, the investigation into the failure could delay upcoming launches, including commercial crew test flights.
SpaceX argued in the report that a prior Falcon 9 launch failure in June 2015 did not have a major effect on its commercial crew work. “Although SpaceX officials told us that the [2015] mishap has not delayed its crew development efforts because it had built sufficient margin into the schedule,” the OIG report stated, “they also noted the lack of margin remaining to accommodate any additional unexpected issues that may arise.”
A delay to late 2018, and the possibility of additional delays, could require NASA to purchase additional Soyuz flight services, which currently run through 2018. The report noted that the price of Soyuz seats charged to NASA by Roscosmos has increased by 384 percent since NASA first acquired seats in 2006, to nearly $82 million for six seats in 2018.
The NASA Advisory Council, meeting in Cleveland in July, expressed similar concerns about needing to buy additional Soyuz seats, adding that NASA would likely need to make a decision soon.
“Due to the long lead time to procure Soyuz seats, a decision must be made really very shortly — before the end of 2016 — to guarantee access to the ISS in 2019,” said Wayne Hale, interim chairman of the council’s human exploration and operations committee, at the July 28 meeting, “or we may be forced to reduce or possibly eliminate its crew complement.”
NASA had planned to hold a commercial crew update here Sept. 6 in advance of the Sept. 8 launch of the agency’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. Media arriving at the center for the event were told the event was canceled, without explanation.
http://spacenews.com/report-warns-of-additional-commercial-crew-delays/Show nested quote +On September 07 2016 13:35 LegalLord wrote:
I have a lot of problems with SpaceX and I think it's severely overhyped.
...
Long story short, a company of average results, unknown stability, and substantial hype costs tax money and is a poster child of the poorly planned privatization of space. +1.
I rather it go to Musk than the shill of congress we have.
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I dunno, ULA is pricey and definitely political as it gets, but its track record in general is rock solid. Musk meanwhile is an unproven hypester who launched a few rockets with a moderately strong success rate but a far above average hype rate.
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By that logic ULA has blown up more rockets and NASA experiments that SpaceX has even when they were still developing the Falcon 9.... All the while charging over 10x the price and refusing to even spend their own money on R&D on reusable craft. Hell the Shuttle is still more advanced that anything ULA has.
Damage of the launchpad:
https://imgur.com/a/se8bK
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On September 08 2016 05:30 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Hell the Shuttle is still more advanced that anything ULA has.
ULA currently employs more sophisticated computer software and hardware than the 1970s Space Shuttle Enterprise and the 1981 Columbia Shuttle.
i don't think you intended "anything" in the way it can be interpreted though.
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Not really sure what "more advanced" means either. The best craft right now (by process of elimination) for getting people into space is the Soyuz which is ass backwards by modern technology standards.
ULA has a lot of faults and it is rightly criticized by many. But it does have a great track record right now, so I'm not understanding your statement.
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The next Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off in the wee hours of September 20th from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. This gives SpaceX a chance to put this past failure behind them.
since 2014 Russia conducted 82 launches with 2 failures
China conducted 48 launches with 1 failure
ULA is at 100%
since 2014 commercial (SpaceX + OSC) conducted 27 launches with 3 failures
since 2014 governments are more reliable than commercial.
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Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
The problem I have is NASA paying for the R&D for essentially a private business. By now the US taxpayer should have like an 80% equity stake in SpaceX
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United States24741 Posts
On September 08 2016 16:10 cLutZ wrote:
Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
Not everyone will agree with you here. If the timeline requires people to die, perhaps the timeline is not reasonable. I'd rather it take an extra lifetime for us to get to Mars but for death to be a mere risk rather than part of the space travel process. I recognize that I am treating space travel much differently than other forms of human exploration in history, but space is much different than Earth.
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And now we're back to 2014 being the goalpost..... -.-
Luigi on a cracker folks. Ffs.
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On September 08 2016 16:10 cLutZ wrote:
Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
The problem I have is NASA paying for the R&D for essentially a private business. By now the US taxpayer should have like an 80% equity stake in SpaceX
If SpaceX has the track record it does and everything with its finances is as in order as an optimist could hope (it profits off all its rockets, no secret extra influx of cash, moderate but not ridiculous engineering support from NASA), then it's by all means just a reasonably progressive budget space company with good research goals (not necessarily results), a reasonable success rate, and some delusions of grandeur. Which is perfectly fine. I don't like their boasting but space is important enough that I'd be willing to suck it up.
What I actually think it is, is one more of the same mess that Musk's other companies are, and that it's private to hide that fact. And the problem with that is it's a horrible bet to bet on these companies rather than on real science projects like Constellation.
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On September 08 2016 15:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
The next Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off in the wee hours of September 20th from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. This gives SpaceX a chance to put this past failure behind them.
since 2014 Russia conducted 82 launches with 2 failures
China conducted 48 launches with 1 failure
ULA is at 100%
since 2014 commercial (SpaceX + OSC) conducted 27 launches with 3 failures
since 2014 governments are more reliable than commercial.
ULA is commercial.
On September 08 2016 16:10 cLutZ wrote:
Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
The problem I have is NASA paying for the R&D for essentially a private business. By now the US taxpayer should have like an 80% equity stake in SpaceX
They're paying for the development of the things that they are buying. It's not like they're spending $10 million on a pipe dream engine. Do you want the US taxpayer to have a stake in Boeing, too? Because if NASA wasn't there to use the CST-100, they would not be building it.
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On September 09 2016 03:13 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 15:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
The next Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off in the wee hours of September 20th from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. This gives SpaceX a chance to put this past failure behind them.
since 2014 Russia conducted 82 launches with 2 failures
China conducted 48 launches with 1 failure
ULA is at 100%
since 2014 commercial (SpaceX + OSC) conducted 27 launches with 3 failures
since 2014 governments are more reliable than commercial. ULA is commercial. Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 16:10 cLutZ wrote:
Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
The problem I have is NASA paying for the R&D for essentially a private business. By now the US taxpayer should have like an 80% equity stake in SpaceX They're paying for the development of the things that they are buying. It's not like they're spending $10 million on a pipe dream engine. Do you want the US taxpayer to have a stake in Boeing, too? Because if NASA wasn't there to use the CST-100, they would not be building it.
Here is the difference. Boeing exists on its own. The US government contracts are a luxury for Boeing, and the US Gov does what ti does with Boeing because it wants to leverage the decades of institutional expertise of that company to do things they don't know how to do. SpaceX is a startup that relies on speculative government contracts, doing things that the government itself (NASA) actually has greater expertise in.
They are, essentially, a privately owned "Fermilab" that as about the same funding sources as the real Fermilab. We already have Fermilab, why are we funding a second Fermilab that will keep all its patents, discoveries, etc secret then sell them to us?
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On September 09 2016 04:00 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2016 03:13 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 15:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
The next Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off in the wee hours of September 20th from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. This gives SpaceX a chance to put this past failure behind them.
since 2014 Russia conducted 82 launches with 2 failures
China conducted 48 launches with 1 failure
ULA is at 100%
since 2014 commercial (SpaceX + OSC) conducted 27 launches with 3 failures
since 2014 governments are more reliable than commercial. ULA is commercial. On September 08 2016 16:10 cLutZ wrote:
Reliability is only 1 part of the equation. Cheapness is also very important. Just as an aside, which sounds callous (because it is), but we are going to have to lose a lot of people in the process of exploring space if we don't want to spend half the budget and get to Mars, the asteroid belt, etc within a reasonable timeline.
The problem I have is NASA paying for the R&D for essentially a private business. By now the US taxpayer should have like an 80% equity stake in SpaceX They're paying for the development of the things that they are buying. It's not like they're spending $10 million on a pipe dream engine. Do you want the US taxpayer to have a stake in Boeing, too? Because if NASA wasn't there to use the CST-100, they would not be building it. Here is the difference. Boeing exists on its own. The US government contracts are a luxury for Boeing, and the US Gov does what ti does with Boeing because it wants to leverage the decades of institutional expertise of that company to do things they don't know how to do. SpaceX is a startup that relies on speculative government contracts, doing things that the government itself (NASA) actually has greater expertise in. They are, essentially, a privately owned "Fermilab" that as about the same funding sources as the real Fermilab. We already have Fermilab, why are we funding a second Fermilab that will keep all its patents, discoveries, etc secret then sell them to us?
Are you trying to downplay the skills of the engineers at SpaceX? I'm positive ex-ULA engineers, ex-NASA employees are working at SpaceX. Even the programmers they have are top notch. This isn't some "start-up", it's a monster in the making, these are people with dreams on progressing the space industry. NASA has been limited by budget to progress our space industry, but if a few private companies can do all their R&D and payload for way cheaper, why not? As mentioned, I rather have my money go to Musk or SpaceX than my own Congress, but that is a different story on it's own.
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WSJ with some details about how the investigation works...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-leads-probe-into-falcon-9-rocket-explosion-1473376404
"Despite damage to the launchpad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, last Thursday’s high-profile accident didn’t involve a government payload or mission. That puts it outside the direct purview of federal investigators and into this novel category of company-led probes."
i'm not sure what they are getting all worked up about regarding a possible conflict of interest. Even if SpaceX BSs through the investigation justt to get their next launch approved by the FAA... if SpaceX keeps blowing up rockets the invisible hand of the free market will take care of them quickly.
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EPT
