Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
While currently private and not traded, I figure they will do an IPO at some point and I often like to talk about SpaceX so decided to finally create a thread for it.
I wouldn't count on an IPO in the next 2 years minimum, 5 years if I had to guess. Tesla has kind of burned his fingers some so to speak I believe.
Edit to add - the rocket launching business is a very risky business. Risky business does not lend itself well to the emotions of the stock market. But at the end of the day I am betting on the fact that it will go public. If it does and follows in Tesla's footsteps I will be a very happy person
A travesty indeed ... but would result in lawsuits. I have a hard time believing the Wall Street Journal though as well. If you look on the outside NASA would be dumb to not award multiple contracts. I think the main thing is what the % split or splits would be not necessarily who is winning it. But I have an obvious bias so what do I know
NASA will make a major announcement today at 4 p.m. EDT regarding the return of human spaceflight launches to the United States. Whoever is chosen will have the goal to achieve certification of the system – including a test flight to the International Space Station with a NASA astronaut — in 2017, returning a critical capability to America and greatly expanding the scientific research potential of the orbiting laboratory. Watch the announcement live on NASA TV at NASA Television | NASA and find out details throughout the day on the Commercial Crew Program blog.
The following user says Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
well like Boeing or not, it got the lion's share of that contract with NASA
This chart shown the stock ripe for a major breakout with the BBwidth down low in range, the SLOW Sto is bullish and the MACD is flat after a long rise.
This chart is on the cusp too...CMF is high, the RSI is rising and the DI+/- which has been crossing/recrossing is potentially ready for a real bullish cross rather than the indecision in the last few weeks.
Yep, come tomorrow's trading looks like a fair bet the stock price will break out.... certainly to the next resistance at $138 and potentially to challenge the all time high of $142
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
I for one put more money behind Elon than the company. Yes, Elon is the CEO, but it's Elon's drive and character that have created success. Steve Jobs is revered as a visionary, but I think Elon makes Steve look like he is standing still. And Elon is also very philanthropic.
I will buy SpaceX IPO the day it goes public, and it is something I will be proud to own because I want to believe in a future where mankind colonizes space. In this case, I believe you are truly buying the symbolism.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
I think there are likely a large number of people the feel the same way. Is there another publicly traded company that has a clear agenda for colonizing space (Mars)?
I mean the closest thing I can think of is Virgin with their million dollar per seat trip to "space" on a fancy 747. It's just not the same thing.
Virgin is a pipe dream compared to Space X. Don't get me wrong space tourism is exciting, but the prospects of a private company launching missions to another world? Now that is exciting.
Although when I was 3 I wanted to be a Space Airline pilot flying people to the moon and back.
I could be off base here but from what I understand Virgin has two programs running, one that is tourism and one that is a legit actually get to space program. There is obviously a huge difference between getting to 100 miles up and having zero air speed (relative) and be traveling at 12,000 mph. A lot of space x (exers) have quit and gone to Virgin. I can count at least 7 people off the top of my head. They don't have the same push/drive whatever you want to call it that Space X does though. But Space X will wear on you after a while too, trust me on that one ...
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
When I watch Elon Musk do interviews, I feel like he has so much to say, so much knowledge, he struggles greatly to boil it down into simple thoughts and put them in a sentence.
When I watch Richard Branson do interviews, I feel like he is basically the exact opposite. I don't want to call the man stupid. But, well, yeah, he seems stupid?? Clearly he is a smart business man. But it seems like he is better at creativity, and then has surrounded himself with the team to make it possible.
Whereas with Elon, he is also creative, and also surrounds himself with the team to make it possible, but I definitely picture Elon being a hands-on guy in the thick of things offering up very specific guidance on how to proceed, instead of just a big concept overview.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
I wish I could find an interview with both Bill Gates and Elon Musk in it where they are working together on some future ideas for the betterment of humanity.
I enjoyed the TED talk(s?) from Bill and he has great vision, but lacks some of the knowledge that Elon could deliver. Bill clearly has a great infrastructure in place to execute on his ideas though, so it would be a really great partnership for these two to sit down and work together to help the human race.
That's funny as Elon is/was a pilot. He used to own some very nice equipment until he realized he shouldn't be flying himself. Now he just has the Falcon 2000 jet for transportation.
The following user says Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
It depends on the task at hand but this is pretty much spot on. Some things he is very very involved with and others he will trust the brains that he hired.
I work a ways underneath him. Structures Test Engineer but some projects he is involved with daily, others not as much. He really likes to be involved on the structures side. Although things have changed, I think we are around 5,000 people, I definitely don't see him as much as I used to. I am employee 500 ish so I have been around for a while.
He used to have an assistant, she left maybe 1.5-2 years ago. Not sure if he got another one, but she was more personal assistant style from what I saw, managing schedules, lunch, meals, travel etc. He has to have something now as things have only got more crazy with Tesla and Space X but I honestly don't know what anymore. Like I said, place is crazy now. I used to know a huge majority, now not so much.
The way he strikes me is like this, my thinking (even for my age ) is not about just today or tomorrow, I think about 5 years from now and 10 years from now. I try to live and make life go the way I want it to in the future not only living for the moment. I worry about things out to the 10 year mark or so and thats it. He seems to look at 10-50 years in the future. He doesn't say "IF" we will get to mars we can do whatever, he says "WHEN" we get to mars we will do whatever. There is no doubt in his mind that we will get there. So he thinks about what we will do when we get there, I am still thinking how will we ever get there.
And case and point the reason he makes the calls, the water landings we have made and the "technique" we have used sounded to me like an absolute crap shoot that would never work ... well I am eating my words on that one and I don't mind eating my words either, my options are worth more money now
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
We started taking bets as to where it would land in relation to the barge yesterday so far the two bets that are written down both have it landing on the barge at least
The following user says Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
From reddit
I was thinking about how much is going on at SpaceX. I wrote this to get my head round it. These are all the things I can think of that are in progress or on the horizon. I have not included anything speculative or old. I've tried to not get too fine grained and included lots of little things; just the things I think are noteworthy events. It's amazing how many things there are going on in parallel atm.
Everything spacex is doing.
Landing a Falcon9 first stage on a barge
Landing a Falcon9 first stage back at launch site
Reflying a Falcon9 first stage
Falcon9 Luna mission - Xprize (2016)
Building another more stable landing barge
Falcon Heavy maiden launch
Falcon Heavy maximum payload mass mission with crossfeed
Landing all 3 Falcon Heavy cores on one flight
First Falcon Heavy payload to Mars
Developing launch facilities at Boca Chica
Developing launch facilities at Spaceport America
Developing launch facilities at KSC 39A
Developing rocket engine test facilities at Stennis
Opening satelite RandD officies in Washington
Developing a several hundred LEO satellite ISP
Applying for Air Force approval to launch military payloads
Dragon2 Launch abort test from pad
Dragon2 Launch abort test from Falcon9 during maxQ
Dragon2 first flight to orbit
Dragon2 first propulsive landing test
Dragon2 first maned flight and WITH propulsive landing
Development of Raptor engine
Test firing of Raptor engine
My favourite.. Reused Falcon first stage flight, returning to launch site, with fully crewed Dragon 2 and return to propulsive landing.
And..Oh yeah.. and then the Mars Colonial Transporter architecture announcement.
Is there anything I missed?
EDIT: (Stuff I missed) Vendenberg Falcon Heacy launch facilites Production of spacesuits Super chilled LOX and Kerosene densification
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
My favorite part was the Falcon 9 (with the cows). It looks so surreal it's hard to accept. Would have been better with a longer clip showing coming back down
I happened to be on Bloomberg when the shot went off. Immediately flipped over to NASA.gov.
I glad to see somebody really pusing the envelope of what's possible. The landing had a low probablity of success, but each time the attempt gets better. It'l happen soon and will be a game-changer in my mind.
You can see the thrusters at the top of the rocket trying to keep it upright. A software tweak to make that thruster fire earlier would have just about done the job. Damn impressive even getting back to the barge!!
The following user says Thank You to Treggs for this post:
I need to start trading again!! Thank you for the reminder haha
@tturner86 - completely automated. Initial data reviews are complete so we know "what" happened but it hasn't been made clear to me the "why" yet. Basic assessment though horizontal speed was too high when we hit the deck thats why you see the little thrusters at full blast trying to make things straight. Winds were pretty low in comparison so if I had to venture to guess the trajectory 3 or 400 feet up wasn't quite right. Possibly because the legs don't deploy very evenly? Purely a guess on my part ... Rocket at the last second said "oh shit I need to hit the barge not half off" kicked over but didn't have enough room to actually stop the horizontal movement. All my guesses and nothing official and I hope I haven't said anything I shouldn't have
End of the day though we are pretty flipping close which is still amazing to me. Landing on a barge is not very ideal as its just a postal stamp in the middle of the hay stack but its the stepping stone for going back to the cape.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
I know fuel is an issue, but is it simply not technically possible or feasible for the rocket to slow down much more before the actual touch down? Like hover 5 meters above ground for say 2-3 seconds to get its bearings for a gentle touch down, would it use that much fuel to do so?
@Big Mike
I don't think fuel is actually much an issue with the profiles we are flying. LEO mission so 2nd stage doesn't have to have a lot of delta V, so that means easier for 1st stage and not as much delta V needed there either. The big issue is that we are taking a decent sized rocket engine (only 1 in this case but still big issue) and you fire it right into a bunch of steel that has pretty much nothing for thermal protection on it. No thermal protection is kind of on purpose, if your idea is to make a reusable vehicle you don't want to have to be putting a bunch of thermal protection on every time you launch. We could hover the vehicle easily IF we wanted to.
If you look closely at the progression of grasshopper and super grasshopper flights you see that we are starting to learn this as well as try to feel out more limits at the edges of the envelope of the vehicle. Basically if you take off from a concrete pad (grasshopper case) you light the engines and go to max power to get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible. When coming back in you do the same thing but in reverse, come in hot hit the engine just enough to be able to slow to so the "impact" is low enough the vehicle can handle it. Think of it like a jet landing on a carrier, they set themselves up into a 5-700 FPM descent and just fly it into the deck. Effectively we are doing the same thing here so that we can minimize the heating on the barge or landing pad or whatever you are landing on.
The flame ducts at all the launch pads (including ours) is amazing. The idea is to just redirect the plume 90 degrees and shoot it off to the side. If you start to erode things then you just start throwing more water at it. Brute force approach at its finest
Now when we start talking about very high delta V missions AND a return to launch site vehicle ... ya fuel is going to be a very very close one. But one step at a time haha
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Ya clapping hands is actually a decent comparison. The barge stays in a programmed spot and stays in place via some sort of thruster. The vehicle is headed toward that same spot, regardless of whether there is a barge there or not. The last soft landing we did where the barge wasn't around was because of the storm and that the barge couldn't maintain position in those winds and currnets. And the swells were like 25-30 feet ... way over what we predict we could do ... Poor dudes stuck it out a for long time but when the final delay came they said screw it we are going home.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
Interesting, I would have figured there was a real-time uplink of GPS data for the precise location of the landing coordinates, in the event it moves due to currents?
The link between vehicle and barge is tough to rely on though and it is also tougher to test with all hardware in the loop. It's not perfect that is for sure but like mentioned it's an easy corner to cut as the barge is just temporary thing (I think it is anyways). It works really well actually until the currents become too large or a storm comes through. The barge cannot react quickly speed wise (just a big boat). The vehicle can react but only within a small window as well.
Ya ocean is much safer. Looking at how to deal with landing back on land is pretty interesting. All vehicles launched have an auto destruct command on them (brick of C4, really high tech haha) so they can keep it from gong over populated areas etc. The problem with coming back into the launch site is your trajectory is towards the land. If you blow the vehicle your debris field could still be areas that aren't restricted or cleared. So do you run an auto destruct? Or do you just fly it into the ground? More issues that Space X is bringing to the forefront lol. It would also suck to blow up someone else's pad with our vehicle ...
I still say this had to have been a hair brained idea that just got out of hand. 5 years ago I would have said BS edit .. correction I DID say it wasn't going to work* .. no way we will be able to recover it like this. The retro burn is amazing ... supersonic speeds and fire a rocket engine with supersonic gases right into one another ... all I know is that it is working
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
Posts: 50,004 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,468 given,
98,280
received
I am grateful we have Elon to think outside the box, and to do the impossible. No one else is doing anything for the betterment of society like he is on the same scale.
I have my own opinions about that but really the rocket industry has been stagnant since the shuttle was developed. The X-37 is the only newish thing out there but we also don't know anything about it. NASA has been a complete dud since the 80s when it comes to launch vehicles.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tgibbs for this post:
Bill gates is up there helping third world countries fight health related issues with innovative techniques, but not with space. Honestly, I think there needs to be more advancement with the aspects of living in space for there to be more money funding it. I'm talking about technology regarding self sustaining bio-domes, creating rare elements from not so rare elements, fusion energy, robotics etc. I think once the threshold has been crossed regarding people knowing it's completely feasible to colonize other planets, as oppose to it being questionable, they'll be more willing to stand behind it. As of right now, the average person probably thinks it's an interesting field, but there's more urgent problems that need fixing down here on earth. Anyhow, rocketry is one of the integral elements of life in space.
R.I.P. Joseph Bach (Itchymoku), 1987-2018.
Please visit this thread for more information.
The following user says Thank You to Itchymoku for this post:
Not exciting ... always hate to see rocket launches not go as planned. Russians have seem to be on a bad roll as well lately. Doesn't put the US in a great position either ... much to our own darn fault.
This ticks me off so much, he keeps claiming that this is the third failure of Space X to land a rocket. As far as I am concerned the landing test doesn't matter if the rocket doesn't get off the pad and into orbit. This is Space X's first major loss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches). They didn't fail to land a rocket, they failed to launch a rocket, one of their first launh failures since the first Falcon 1 rockets.
Also they keep talking like 3 strikes and your out... Really? If the Wright brothers, Edison, and others had quit after 3 tries we would have nothing right now.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tturner86 for this post:
) is not about just today or tomorrow, I think about 5 years from now and 10 years from now. I try to live and make life go the way I want it to in the future not only living for the moment. I worry about things out to the 10 year mark or so and thats it. He seems to look at 10-50 years in the future. He doesn't say "IF" we will get to mars we can do whatever, he says "WHEN" we get to mars we will do whatever. There is no doubt in his mind that we will get there. So he thinks about what we will do when we get there, I am still thinking how will we ever get there.
and I don't mind eating my words either, my options are worth more money now 
