I did not realize that the CCC had any authority over what happens on US Air Force property that has been there decades before the commission was established. According to this recent article in the issue, the commission cannot limit the number of launches.
CCC may not even have the jurisdiction to do anything. I think it would be more effective to go after SpaceX as a company violating local ordinances. Set up a fine schedule such that either SpaceX stops hitting local communities with overpressure, or they compensate the communities for each launch. Either way, SpaceX should be performing their commercial launches from Canaveral. Surely they can pack more launch sites into the available real estate.
arstechnica.com
Thanks, saw that article. I would have phrased this sentence in the article differently:
Better would be:
Send a Starship (refueled in LEO) to LMO with the Mars Descent/Landing/Return vehicle as payload. The Starship is expended. The booster is reused.
It has the delta-V to do a lot more than drop off the retrieval lander. The lander is only 25 tons. Starship can do that to Mars as a rideshare as part of a 100 ton payload. So Starship could try its first entry, descent and landing. That would require some kind of appropriate landing system, which certainly can't be tail first on a Raptor. The ship could take a prototype methane production plant and any other experiments or supplies appropriate to Mars colony building.
I think that's what we're all wondering. "Where will Starship be in 2034?"
That statement is inadvertently hilarious. It is anppears impossible for ULA to launch Vulcan 25 times in the next year and a half, and the next launch is the second certification mission and won’t carry one of the 25 contracted payloads. In fact the next launch is NET September, with Dream Chaser, but it may well launch with a mass simulator just to get the mission completed.
It also seems likely that BO is unable to produce BE-4 engines at anywhere near the pace to make those Vulcan launches even if ULA could somehow build that many vehicles.
That Air Force decision was a disaster. Should have been 80% SpaceX.
Two and a half years from now
It may yet, but there's no way to know what will happen. ULA and Blue Origin may be completely on top of this and Vulcan may be flying at a reputable rate by the end of 2025. Not Falcon 9 rates, nor with reusable boosters, but at least they'd be on their way to satisfying their contract requirements. They need to walk before they can run.
Well, that would be on Sierra Space.
Three and a half, right?
The smart move, if they are ready, is to pull a SpaceX and do a discounted launch for someone. I don't think they can pivot like SpaceX can though.
Their Huntsville plant is supposed to be capable of 42 engines a year with 300 employees. But Blue Origin shortly afterwards staffed to double that number of employees. That means either that they want to double the output to 84 a year, or they were only getting perhaps half production on the first line and needed to do two lines to hit their desired production rate. I'm assuming the latter given that everyone there would be new to mass producing rocket engines. I'm sure SpaceX didn't hit their current rate of engine production right out of the gate.
Elon has fooled a lot of people into thinking that the stuff his companies do is easier than it is. Certainly the web is rife with people asserting that he's just riding other people's coattails and using other people's money.
There are some of the NROL/Space Force launches that can't be done by SpaceX because of the size of their fairing. SpaceX was supposed to increase the size of their fairing and set up a way to load payloads vertically. As far as I am aware. that hasn't happened.
