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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
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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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.
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.
...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.
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?
I would like to extend this laurel and hardy handshake
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range