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Texas & Florida Vie For Private Lunar Company Golden Spike's HQ
MarkWhittington writes "The Denver Post reported on July 12, 2013 that Texas and Florida, already embroiled in a fight over which state will be the venue for SpaceX's commercial space port, are now vying to be the site of the headquarters of a company that, while smaller, has much loftier ambitions. Golden Spike, the Boulder, Colorado based company that proposes to start commercial space flights to the moon with paying customers, is being courted by Texas and Florida to leave Colorado and to relocate its headquarters in either state."
I'm sure Cape Kennedy will be up for auction shortly.
(Truly, truly wish I could laugh at the absurdity.)
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Does that sentence really characterise what is going on?
"a company that, while smaller, has much loftier ambitions"? Do you really consider lunar tourism a loftier ambition than Martian colonisation?
Completely insane state.
Or.
Completely insane state.
I'd pick texas i guess.. I like guns with my insane.
I'd go with Florida - they don't seem to share Texas's uber-macho cowboy thing. No-one ever put a 'don't mess with Florida' bumper sticker on their car.
What sane legislator would seriously want to associate themselves with the hucksters at Golden Spike?
They've as much chance of getting you to the moon and back as the YMCA.
Look at the linked site, it's mostly full of invitations to contribute cash and otherwise "contribute"...
On the overall cost and technology, it's suspiciously thin, apart from saying it can pretty much be done with available, commercial technology. Kind of. Yeah right.
I'd love to go to the moon, but I don't have a spare 20 billion lying around, (the rough cost of each previous moon landing).
My guess is few people do.
It's not coincidental that Texas and Florida are the home of some of the worst land speculator rip-offs in history.
But I'm sure we'll see a lot of cheerleading around here. From the same people who want to tell us that solar and wind power are just too "out there" to be considered.
Please line up for your deeds to Actual Moon Real Estate!! and HOTELS IN SPACE!1!!
You are welcome on my lawn.
Try this one out for size. You need employees. You need customers to visit your company. Now do you think that the Treasure Coast of Florida just might attract people like a magnet whereas Texas, with its difficult climate and barbaric legal system, will attract next to no one at all. And it doesn't hurt one bit that from the Cape to Disney is a minor drive.
But they're doing their best to keep up, what with their "shoot a black guy - get a coupon" laws and all.
Remember, once you get about a mile off the East Coast, Florida becomes Alabama right quick. You'll see more Confederate flags than there are spots on an Ocala stripper's butt.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Florida is a good choice for launching over the ocean if something blows up it hopefully does not fall on land...
Florida does however have hurricanes, sinkholes, and may be swallowed by the ocean the way we used to joke California would be...
If this is not a legitimate company, i.e. innovates and produces products that must be marketed, then they will probably get some corrupt tax deal by bribing the appropriate officials. Few livable wage paying jobs will be created, the taxpayer will be screwed once again, and several high ranking conservative officials will get new vacation homes.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I never understood the practical reasons for locating mission control in Houston. Seems to me it was a purely political play by Johnson. Wouldn't you want to be as close to the equator as possible to maximize the benefits of the earth's rotation? Wouldn't that mean Key West? And why wouldn't you consider Puerto Rico?
On a strictly physics basis Hawaii would be the best State. Closer to the equator to get maximum boost from the spin of the earth, and you can get some altitude if you use one of the mountains. Less hurricanes too.
You'd have to be crazy to leave Boulder as long as Ball is still based there--not to mention Lockheed Martin's rocket-building headquarters, Raytheon, and Sierra Nevada. Florida and Texas wish they had the manufacturing base to handle commercial launch. At best the company would expand into Florida or Texas just for logistical reasons.
Sure is easier and more profitable than going to the Moon
And neither Texas nor Florida have something that makes Colorado the best US state for space travel activities.
Ezekiel 23:20
Ya, but nobody in texas has tried to eat anyone either. (that we know of).
Florida has had that happen a few times now.
We KNOW not to mess with florida. they're batshit fucking crazy pants on a zebra.
On a strictly physics basis Hawaii would be the best State.
True. But on any other basis it would be a terrible choice. There is no industrial infrastructure, a shallow labor pool, and a sky high cost of living. Nearly everything would need to be shipped from the mainland, adding delay and cost.
you can get some altitude if you use one of the mountains.
Velocity is important. Altitude is not. To escape earth orbit, you need to be going eleven kilometers (seven miles) per second. A few thousand feet of altitude is going to make almost no difference.
A landlocked state further from the equator? A smaller industrial base? Smaller population?
Why on earth would anyone move to either state. They are like 4th world countries filled with willfully ignorant people, christian jihadis and pitbulls. Ugly to boot. Colorado is much nicer. If they really need to be near the equator, I'd suggest Ecuador, Cuba or Venezuela.
Although, if Golden Spike is a scam, they'd fit right in in FL or TX and deserve to suffer life there.
Your other arguments are valid, but the mountain launch does actually have merits. It's the same reason Colorado itself is a less-terrible launch site than you might think (Denver cuts a nice mile off the hardest portion of the launch, though the inclination is still a pain).
I'm guessing you're not *that* familiar with space launches... the higher you launch from, the closer you are to space. The number you quoted is based on instantaneous velocity at the Earth's surface, with no additional thrust (and no drag from air). If you're already at the gravitation midpoint where the attraction from earth equals that from the moon, the velocity needed to reach the moon approaches positive zero.
It's true that the few thousand feet (or a bit more, once you factor in equatorial bulge) from launching off an equatorial mountain doesn't substantially reduce the effect of Earth's gravity - we're already a few thousand miles from Earth's center of gravity - but it's that much less distance you have to carry the fully loaded (fuel is heavy!) spacecraft up through. Also, you really can't ignore drag; starting where the atmosphere is already thinner helps (and it thins rapidly).
Oh, and to put it in terms of escape velocity, the velocity needed to reach two kilometers (not a terribly impressive mountain) from the surface is approximately 200m/s. That's a couple percent saving in launch fuel, or that much more cargo you can carry. At the start of the launch, a bit less distance is a big deal.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
A landlocked state further from the equator? A smaller industrial base? Smaller population?
You forgot good diplomatic relations with the Tok'ra.
Ezekiel 23:20