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Construction At SpaceX's New Spaceport About To Begin
schwit1 writes: SpaceX has begun prepping the construction sites at its private spaceport in Brownsville, Texas. The county has begun work on a road to where the spaceport command center will be, and SpaceX has established its construction headquarters in a double-wide trailer there. It is expected that actual construction of the command center will begin in August, with the launchpad construction to follow. The expected cost for building the entire spaceport: $100 million. Compare that to the billions the Russians are spending for Vostochny, or the billions that NASA spends on comparable facilities.
Vostochny isn't finished yet either, so in that case, they're comparing estimate to estimate.
Billions of roubles doesn't count.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I don't see any point in looking at the estimated cost of a project that hasn't even begun yet.
What if it comes in on budget?
This is not a spaceport.
It is actually a secret ICBM (Intra Continental Ballistic Missile) base that is being built to defend Texas* from the likes of the Jade Helm 15 plans**.
* Although if Texas has Chuck Norris, why would they need a secret ICBM base for defense?
** Jade Helm 15*** being the plans that were dictated to the chief KIO (Kenyan-In-Office), by the UN in order to suppress opposition when the veil is finally lifted off the global climate change deception. And I am pretty sure that the Illuminati dictated those plans to the UN.)
*** 15 in base 23**** is 28 in decimal and Texas was the 28th state - so Iowa better watch out for Jade Helm 16!
**** 2+3=5 and there are 5 permanent members in the UN security council.
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They are already building the system to make sure your luggage gets lost at least half the time. Sorry, it looks like your bag was accidently put on the 7:05 flight to Venus.
The bigger problem I see is that in the budget for Vostochny isn't just the bare bone cosmodrome, but whole supporting infrastructure, including city for 30,000 people. If Musk is able to build the same thing for $100 millions, that would be indeed interesting. However, I'm not holding my breath.
I don't see any point in looking at the estimated cost of a project that hasn't even begun yet.
Speaking as someone who does such cost estimating professionally, I can assure you that EVERY project like this has the costs evaluated long before anyone breaks ground. A company would have to be insane to not have conducted the due diligence on every aspect of a project of this scale. They have to evaluate if there is a satisfactory ROI. They have to have some sort of idea what it ought to cost so that they can know how things are going. They have to budget the money. Of course there will be cost variances but you can't even begin to manage a project like this unless you have some idea what it should cost.
The expected cost for building the entire spaceport: $100 million. Compare that to the billions the Russians are spending for Vostochny, or the billions that NASA spends on comparable facilities.
Well, Vostochny is a 551sq km site. That's bigger than the city of Brownsville, let alone Boca Chica.
I don't think it is prudent to compare them, the facilities are likely to be quite different in scope. You might as well comparethe cost of the Vehicular Assembly Building to whatever they build in Texas.
It will be like comparing Grapes to Watermelons.
The tornado risk has tripled at the site. At least until permanent structures replace the doublewide.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
In Soviet Russia, rubles count you!
...you have so many funny units to pick from over there.
875 miles from Brownsville to Las Cruces, which has no ocean/gulf into which to drop things that fall off.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
And this of course would be their anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I don't see any point in looking at the estimated cost of a project that hasn't even begun yet.
Construction is not the actual beginning of a construction project.
I don't see that SpaceX is trying to build a Vostochny-scale complex. Nor do they need one at present.
If I could quit my job and follow SpaceX around like the old dead heads followed Grateful Dead I would. I've said it before but anytime I feel like hot shit I go watch some SpaceX videos and then I'm back to my humble self. Those guys are badasses.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Oh my god! The space port is to let them in, not us out!
I would like to extend this olive branch and a hardy handshake to our new...Lizards?
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
left the US with no manned launch capability and no heavy lift rockets Let's hope history will not repeat itself.
What is to compare here? This is a private launch facility that will likely never see any crews launch from this location, as it will be mainly commercial communications satellites and a few other commercial payloads that will be flying from Texas. It is also being built with mostly (but certainly not exclusively) private funds with the idea that the company building this facility will use it to earn a healthy profit from its activities.
There is no history to actually repeat in this situation, other than following the history of other commercial launch endeavors that simply went bankrupt. SpaceX, on the other hand, seems to be profitable and doesn't show signs at the moment of even struggling to make payroll. Far from struggling to make ends meet, they are doing some serious capital expenditures to expand their existing business. This launch facility in Texas is proof that SpaceX plans on increasing their launch rate considerably over the next decade or more.
Luckily SpaceX didn't have to build Brownsville.
Because SpaceX is using the New Mexico spaceport.... too!
That facility is mainly going to be used for R&D testing of their recoverable rocket systems, such as what they've been doing at their Waco facility with the Grasshopper series of flights. At the moment, they are hoping to use one of the rocket cores built for a regular flight and doing the reuse testing in New Mexico... with the much higher altitude flight clearance they can get in New Mexico which simply isn't permitted in central Texas.
Besides, the spaceport in New Mexico is mainly built for sub-orbital flights and doing stuff like launching the Virgin Galactic space planes. Who said it isn't in use?
in the desert. And it should be a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Might add some nice fireworks to the South Padre Island spring break.
Right, then in the case of projects receiving public funding, they subtract a percentage to make it palatable before presenting it. :)
Oh they're much more clever than that. They'll tinker with the underlying assumptions, cost of capital, expected returns, net present value, and more. You'll find it stuffed with more BS than a cattle farm. Government budgets are notoriously full of bogus assumptions and outright fabrications because they know nobody who gives a damn is really going to read them and even if they did most wouldn't understand it anyway. Pretty much every financial projection you have ever read about is wrong - the only question is whether their model was even close. I've done my share of them and it's really hard to get them right - borderline impossible really. You're really just hoping to get a model that is close enough to be useful.
Sad thing is that good financial analysis is super important and really hard to do well. Some of the brightest people I know do it for a living and are pretty good at it but unfortunately even a talented and honest person will come up with inaccurate models because the real world is just that hard to predict. Unfortunately a lot of people doing financial modeling are neither talented nor honest.
Why Texas? ZERO REGULATION. Hell, your fertilizer plant can nearly wipe out a town, and the fine ends up being about the same as a speeding ticket (as workers are as expendable as LOx).
Oh, there will be plans. Realistic plans?
You'll note I never mentioned realism or accuracy. Those things are not always possible and frequently are dis-incentivized. There will be plans and financial projections but only an idiot would take them at face value. The ONLY thing that will be completely correct to say about the plans is that they will be wrong. Maybe by a little, maybe by a lot but they will be wrong.