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SpaceX Details Its Plans For Landing Three Falcon Heavy Boosters At Once (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As part of the process to gain federal approval for the simultaneous landing of its Falcon Heavy rocket boosters in Florida, SpaceX has prepared an environmental assessment of the construction of two additional landing pads alongside its existing site. The report considers noise and other effects from landing up to three first stages at the same time. After undergoing a preliminary review by the U.S. Air Force, the document has been released for public comment. As part of the document, SpaceX also says it would like to build a Dragon capsule processing facility on the landing zone to support refurbishment of the Dragon 2 spacecraft, designed to carry crew into orbit. The 130-foot-long facility would provide a "temporary" facility for vehicle propellant load and propulsion system servicing. When it originally designed its Landing Zone 1 facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, for the single Falcon 9 first stage booster, the company envisioned the need for one main pad approximately 200 feet across, and four smaller contingency pads, each approximately 150 feet in diameter. The chosen site had enough acreage to accommodate all five pads. Improvements in the rocket's landing navigation guidance system obviated the need for the contingency pads with the Falcon 9, however. So now the company wants to use the additional space to construct two concrete landing pads, each with an approximate diameter of 282 feet surrounded by an approximate 50-foot-wide hard-packed soil "apron." This would give SpaceX three landing pads and the ability to bring back all three Falcon Heavy boosters to land while also retaining the option to land one or two on drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to the potential for a dozen Falcon 9 launches and landings each year, the document says SpaceX may eventually make six Falcon Heavy launches a year, potentially returning an additional 18 boosters to the Florida-based site. The new pads and crane sites would be configured to allow parallel processing of landed boosters. With U.S. Air Force Approval, construction could begin as early as this spring.
GPS navigation, communications infrastructure, weather forecasts that have any chance of working...
SpaceX may intend to do serious exploration and colonization with their profits, but their bread and butter are pretty much based on what they get paid for by people who care about shit here on the ground. There's not a lot of exploration in, say, upgrading the iridium network, which is the next launch on the list. Oh, and the return thing is so we can have more of those things for less money. Pretty down-to-earth considerations, that.
All of Musk's businesses lose money every year
Except that they don't. Tesla has lost money to date but periodically shows a small profit and is approaching breakeven despite investing heavily in new products and technology. So far investors have liked what they have seen. Paypal was hugely profitable. SpaceX is private but there are rumors that it is profitable from credible sources.
Where exactly do they get the funds for all this expansion, or for the Gigafactory or the Tesla 3 tooling and production?
The Gigafactory is a joint venture with several partners, primarily Panasonic. Money for Tesla 3 development and tooling comes from sales of the Model S and X as well as loans and stock sales. (you are aware that the entire point of going public is to raise money to build the company right?) Plus Musk has put a lot of his own personal fortune into the ventures. It's no mystery where all these ventures get their funding. When you've started numerous successful businesses like Elon Musk has it's not terribly hard to get funding.
Besides socialism only works if we have unlimited resources. There are unlimited resources, but they are in space. All we have to do is go get them.
On a plus side for those people who would "benefit" people who are productive members of society, that have a work ethic, intelligence, and curiosity, will finally have way to ditch all you socialist leaches once and for all. They will leave you behind to starve.