Yesterday, I took a tour of the new (well, new to me — I hadn’t seen it because they moved while I was in Florida) SpaceX facilities in Hawthorne. They are quite impressive, as are all the rocket parts being manufactured there. No cameras were allowed, unfortunately. It’s even more impressive considering how little (relative to other similar projects) money has been spent. I would say that this is the current state of the art in expendable launch systems, with plenty of room for future cost reduction (including at least partial reusability). It makes me curious to visit Decatur now, to compare it to the Delta/Atlas production process.
5 thoughts on “I Have Seen The Future”
Comments are closed.
I saw it several weeks ago and was very impressed too.
The layout in Decatur is different because of the use of liquid hydrogen in the Delta 4. This necessitates a large, shielded pressure test facility for the hydrogen tank as well as the ability to apply, cure, and shave foam that you don’t see required at the Hawthorne facility. Both facilities make extensive use of friction-stir welding and isogrid machining. Both are very impressive.
What is most impressive to me about SpaceX is their accomplishments to expenditure ratio.
accomplishments to expenditure ratio
It takes a businessperson.
So, can we look forward to a new PM article?
Probably not. They didn’t show me anything new, and PM has done an article on them recently.