Posted on 04/25/2014 9:19:00 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Elon Musk, the business mogul who dreams of colonizing Mars, wants a bigger piece of the space market, and he’s willing to sue his biggest potential customer to get it.
SpaceX, his California-based rocket company, announced Friday that it plans to file a lawsuit protesting the award of a lucrative space contract by the Air Force, saying it should have been competitively bid.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Competitive. Haha very funny, since when do labor unions want that!
Need government cash to survive?
He has enough on his plate right now with private and government contracts (CRS - cargo re-supply missions to the ISiS) to move satellites and cargo.
Look at the Falcon 9 launch manifest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_launches
Falcon 9 will be man-rated by the end of this year or some time early next year.
Falcon Heavy will be able to lift 53 tons and is scheduled for it’s first launch later this year. It’ll lift more than anything the other launch companies have in their inventory.
http://www.dvice.com/2014-3-17/spacex-preps-mars-capable-falcon-heavy-first-launch
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/most-powerful-space-rocket
He’s had his first success with landing the first stage of the Falcon 9 back to Earth.
he’s used to getting tons of money from the govt for his cars, now his rockets. yeesh.
he may actually have a good delivery system but to bitch about this seems small. let him get other customers by merit, if the govt doesn’t want him for some launches let them be the ones that suffer if who they go with, fails.
He does not get tons of money for his cars.
Tesla received a $465M loan for advanced cars from the DOE which it repaid in full last year.
Ford received a $5.9 B loan under the same program and will pay it back over 20 years.
Rebates and credits offered for hybrids ,electrics, and fuel cell cars go to the customer not Tesla. Those programs were lobbied for by GM, Nissan, Toyota and GE before Tesla existed.
SpaceX has 1/3 NASA contracts and 2/3 civilian.
Boeing is using Russian engines that can be cut off by Czar Vladimir II.
It is not the government that suffers by overpaying by 40% or so but the TAXPAYER.
I have the impression that ULA only launches for Military/NASA.
Is SeaLaunch still in business? They were operating out of Long Beach, CA. (Though they have Russian co-ownership and use Russian launch vehicles)
Sea Launch emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. Energia Overseas Limited, a Russian corporation, is majority owner of the reorganized entity, with Boeing and other American companies retaining minority shares.
United Launch Alliance (ULA) is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. ULA was formed in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. U.S. government launch customers include both the Department of Defense and NASA.
Commercial and international launches aboard Atlas V and Delta rockets are managed by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services and Boeing Launch Services.
Blue Origin is a privately funded aerospace company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal of dramatically lower cost and increased reliability. It is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight. The company motto is “Gradatim Ferociter”, Latin for “Step-by-Step, Ferociously”. Blue Origin is developing a variety of technologies, with a focus on rocket-powered Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space.
Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight, the company has built and flown a test bed of its New Shepard spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas facility. According to company statements, it initially planned on placing the New Shepard in commercial suborbital tourist service in 2010 with flights about once a week. In 2008 the publicized timetable stated that Blue Origin will fly unmanned in 2011, and manned in 2012. As of 2013, the company website makes no statements about the date of its first flights.
No other American companies launching now.
That applies to both SpaceX and ULA.
Thanks - Interesting stuff!
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