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Bolden and Musk at SpaceX Facilities

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 12, 2012
Filed under , ,

NASA Administrator and SpaceX CEO to Address Media at SpaceX Facilities In Texas Wednesday and California Thursday, NASA
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk will participate in a media availability at 11:30 a.m. CDT Wednesday, June 13, in the SpaceX facility at 1 Rocket Rd. in McGregor, Texas. Bolden and Musk will be there to view the Dragon spacecraft that returned to Earth May 31 following the first successful mission by a private company to carry supplies to the International Space Station.

Bolden and Musk also will participate in a media availability at 9 a.m. PDT, Thursday, June 14, in SpaceX’s headquarters at 1 Rocket Rd. in Hawthorne, Calif. They will view the first Dragon spacecraft recovered by SpaceX following its December 2010 orbital test flight. On this mission, SpaceX became the first commercial company to recover a spacecraft after it orbited Earth. Bolden and Musk also will view a prototype Dragon spacecraft being designed to carry astronauts to the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Media representatives wishing to attend either availability should email [email protected] for information on access.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

28 responses to “Bolden and Musk at SpaceX Facilities”

  1. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    I’m assuming that this will be the official confirmation of the cargo contract with NASA considering the focus on the Dragon capsule.

    When does NASA decide on next round of the commercial crew development agreements? It’s too early for that, right?

    I hope there’s more talk about Falcon 9 v1.1 and Grasshopper.

    tinker

    • DTARS says:
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      And red dragon
      http://www.lpi.usra.edu/mee

       and Mars-One

      http://mars-one.com/en/

      A mission plan we don’t have to pay through the nose for. And we win whether Mars-One succeeds or fails just by helping commercial in what ever way we do.

      Obamas mission Plan

      Mars-One

      Pluses

      No cost direct cost to the American Tax Payer

      A do able goal for this decade. Building it. There is the next rover we should build. The one that helps set up the base.

      Humans land 2023 Maybe 🙂

      Goal and mission plan 🙂

      Most hardware developed for mars-one creates inner solar system architecture. That can be reused. 

      Safety 

      We don’t need to spend billions and billions to return them to get started. Only get them their safely.

      Those dragons in their video look like reused repurposed ISS cots dragons to me 🙂 Hey we have already started building the Mars base 🙂

  2. DTARS says:
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    Mars-One

    What country will go to the moon or Mars first?
    None.

    Isn’t mars-one the example of how we earthlings go to other rocks.
    It’s a private venture.
    But countries could put up money in the form of prizes or grants HIRE them for missions.
    What’s the model for Antarctica. Isn’t that similar?

    Why should we the USA tax payer,be paying for expensive Rockets and hardware for science missions when there are people on mars we can hire to do this research???

    Tinker,
    You suggested others buying Spacex hardware to do projects on the moon. And you explained  Spacex moon landing hardware using dragon trunks as you have before but this time in more detail. The picture keeps getting clearer and clearer 🙂 Mr. Cs lander.

    Ok new question. Mars human return using Spacex architecture.

    Not knowing if the mars-one model will work, media reality show plus. Let’s say it does. You want to do science on mars. Just call them up and send supplies. 🙂

    USA hires mars-one team to search for Martian life.

    Anyway even though they are planning it as a one way trip.

    Obviously they will want to do return trips in the near future.

    Please paint me a picture of how Mars-one Martians might be able to fly to earth in the near future using Spacex architecture. 

    USA pays Martians trip to earth to study Martian gravity effects on humans after 10 years exposure to mars atmosphere.

    In the Mars-one video I saw that their transfer vehicle had a dragon with a heat shield on it. Would the transfer vehicle likely use aero breaking with this heat shield and go into orbit around mars to reduce velocity before dropping the capsule in for a landing. Seems to me with heat shield aerobraking you could dive pretty deep. Into the mars atmosphere and get to a circular orbit pretty fast?? I remember you must keep a close eye on the weather thou. What’s the velocity difference between earth direct and mars orbit to the Martian surface.

    Also their transfer vehicle looked a lot like central core booster with two tugs though smaller.

    Is the transfer vehicle a recycler?? Can a recycler do a faster trip there and longer slower trip home?

    Imagine if Mars-One gets support and stays on schedule and we have humans on Mars in 2023 🙂 I wonder how Spacex’s plan differs.
     
    Old idea of mine to throw up.

    Wouldn’t it be better if it were possible to make mars-one a caravan wouldn’t that create more interest for the viewer or Maybe outposts at new interesting sites that they dragon hop to.

    Why should we waste our tax payer dollars on SLS, Orion when we could just find ways to support commercial space and programs like Mars-One and have humans on the moon and mars by 2025 anyway, then hire them to do lots of science since they are there.

    The Mars-One chronicles

    United States Lands on Mars!

    2045 
    Martians fly up to Orbit to meet the maiden voyage of Americas First Orion Mars exploration travelers. They will dock with our Apollo looking space capsule named porker transferring our 4 space heroes and carry them down in their lander, to one of their colonies, they will act as guides to ensure our heroes  SAFETY. The our courageous  American astronauts will have to endure primitive living facilities, as well as eating all the locally grown food, but they shall survive.

    The Orion mission was launched on the mighty SLS booster Rocket, the most expensive rocket ever built. After many starts and stops in it’s development it was finally successfully test flown two years ago.

    This is a GREAT moment in USAs mighty Exploration Space  program!!!!

    Chapter 5

    United States, President Wolf Jr. declares war on Mars.

    • DJBREIT says:
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      This will solve some of the problems.
      http://www.youtube.com/watc

      If they have all this developed and in operation, modifying a falcon for Mars lift would not be much of a problem. Just ship a couple to Mars.

      For the Moon I am wondering if the dragon capsule has enough power to make it to orbit by itself or would it need to be modified for more fuel. No need for heat shield for the ones used for the Moon.

      • DTARS says:
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        Copied this from Obama thread hope that helps. I doubt tinker would mind.

        justatinker
        3 days ago
        DTARS:

        For Dragon, powered landings on Mars would be easier than the same feat on the Moon. If Spacex masters powered landings on Earth with Dragon then landing on Mars should be no problem. You see, for both Earth and Mars, Dragon can shed most of it’s velocity through atmospheric drag. in both cases they end up at some sort of terminal velocity and can also use parachutes for stabilization and/or slowing down. Not so with a lunar landing. No atmosphere, no drag. So, for a lunar landing, all your velocity is shed by rocket thrust. Obviously more fuel is needed.

        OK. here’s what you do. Make a Dragon trunk with landing legs and extra fuel tanks. Still use the Super Dracos on the capsule to land with (maybe you get dust plumes to the sides but at least there’s no torch under your vehicle). To go back to orbit or L1, use the trunk as a launch pad for the capsule. It doesn’t even get destroyed like the Apollo decent stages. Using the same engines for both the decent and accent phases saves weight and improves safety.

        If accent is not necessary or the Dragon can be refueled on the surface, then you have a ready made cargo carrier. The Dragons trunk left behind could be a habitat (make it longer because it’ll be lighter) or it could be a squat heavy canister of fuel or other volatiles. If the Dragon can get refueled on the lunar surface then maybe a trunk won’t be needed, just the capsule, for crew ferry flights.

        I think L1 would be the best transfer point for this type of lunar landing. It’s a straight dive down to any point on the lunar surface without the limitations of any particular lunar orbit.

        So, the Moon could be within the grasp of anyone wanting to contract Spacex the way Mars One is thinking of doing.

        tinker

        hide 1 reply reply

      • Paul451 says:
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        [redundant]

  3. DJBREIT says:
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    It is nice to see the first company to step throw
    that door.
    I hope some more will follow soon. That if congress does not slam
    the door shut.

    And hopefully in time this will open up all destinations
    and not just one path.  Since with the commercial
    providers “Money talk bullshit walks and all the rest whine to the hand”

  4. mattblak says:
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    DTARS, you have clearly fallen for the Mars One concept, I get that. But you are starting to go a little OTT with pushing it in various threads: including ones that have nothing to do with it. Please restrict that to ‘Mars One’ threads, friend.

    • DTARS says:
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      Mars-One has to do with commercial Spacex hardware. I did delete this comment from the rover thread after thinking about it. I’m not for Mars-One. I’m for anything that really looks possible.

      I will strongly consider your comment

      Thanks

      PS with all these used dragon capsules laying around. Don’t you think bolden should talk to Elon about refitting one for the moon to do a cheap water search. Or the moon group should call Elon and the google guys or some private group to get that going on the cheap??

      If there have been any Mars-One theads on NASA watch lately I have missed them. 

      I just saw the puzzle pieces all starting to fit.

      Sorry for my excitement.

      Friend

    • Nox Anonymous says:
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      mattblak, I have also fallen for SpaceX, but I try to not post it everywhere here.

      I am a relatively young contractor engineer working for NASA.

      But after working with NASA as it exists today for half a decade, I don’t think it will be NASA that puts a human on Mars first.

      I think it will be a commercial company like SpaceX (possibly in collaboration with NASA) or the Chinese.

      I like NASA it does many great things, but it is degraded and broken in so many ways. It’s human spaceflight program is not really capable of doing anything exciting in my lifetime.

      • Nox Anonymous says:
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        I just turned 30 this week. And my private birthday cake wish – Some human from planet earth to land on Mars before I die.

        • mattblak says:
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          I’m 47 and I’ve been waiting most of my life to see a human walk on Mars. I’d just about settle for seeing a Lunar Outpost instead, but I sure hope it doesn’t end there…

          • Stone says:
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            I’m 67.  Fourty-three years ago in Mission Control as the Eagle landed I would have bet my life that I would live (statistically speaking) to see a lunar base and a manned landing on Mars before I retired!  If I can last in retirement another 20 years, I might see that Mars landing.  But only if NASA gets out of the way, except with prize money and/or seed money,  and lets private enterprise have at it!

          • mattblak says:
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            Largely agree, though I’ll say that although your viewpoint is shared by many, its more of a ‘faith based’ one than concrete proof they are capable of doing it technically or financially. The meme of ‘NASA getting out of the way’ has only grown because NASA, partly through poor management and partly through political interference – including poor funding – has dropped the ball too many times to have much credibility any more.

            A more streamlined, innovative and far less ‘porky’ version of Constellation might have had a chance to succeed. Er… Then it wouldn’t have BEEN Constellation would it?! No; too much emphasis on Ares 1 & V and throw-away Altairs were the prime culprits for its demise – followed by lack of topline political support. Upgraded Delta & Atlas MAYBE coupled with a far simpler ‘Shuttle Side-Mount Cargo HLV’ using up the remaining engines, boosters and External Tanks from Shuttle would have been all the boosters ever needed. With a re-usable Lunar lander based at a Lagrange point, fairly soon the Shuttle-based HLV could’ve been phased out in favor of the EELVs. And some years later, fully reusable launchers developed by private industry could’ve taken their place. Opening up Cislunar space and making a concrete foundation for Mars and the Asteroid belt…

            As I said: missed opportunities. Although I fear I wont live long enough to see people on Mars, I refuse to give up hope just yet.

    • DTARS says:
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      Mr. Mattblak

      Not disagreeing with you that I got a little OTP with my rediscovery of the Mars one idea.

      But I do take issue with the fact that I brought it up Mars-One in threads that were completely unrelated.

      I believe I first brought it up in the MSL risk thread. Which is about spending 2.5 billion on a risky rover science mission. Well instead of spending that kind of money on future one off missions isn’t Mars-One better way to spend our future money.

      Then the thread about MER which suggested going back to bouncing ball delivery systems. Well I brought up Mars-One to make the point that we should develop a rover delivery systems that use future landing technology that helps us to build future human landing vehicles.

      Then in the Obama thread, Didn’t Mister Obama support Spacex early on when he went to their launch pad first and do his capture the ISS flag race to make commercial cheaper space exploration possible??
      I have criticized Mr. Obama some for not having NASA make a near  term mission plan. Well I see now that programs like Mars-One, I think are what he realized could happen. And I’m pretty sure he knows SLS and Orion will tank well before it ever sends 4 guys in at tiny capsule go to some deep space astroid. And the tanking of those projects will be cut by congress, not his fault.

      So now I’m in the Spacex thread and I see that Mars-One will use  left over NASA ISS junk to build a Mars base 🙂

      So again sorry for bringing it up so much, it does seem TO ME to be related to all the threads I brought it up in. 

      Again I went a little over the top when I realized that it is really possible to have humans on mars in a little over a decade instead of several decades or Never.

      A year ago only understanding arsenal Space the idea of people traveling to mars to die seemed crazy! 
      Be now after seeing that the cost of launch may soon drop dramatically I realize that it will soon be possible to go to mars to Live!

      Sorry again for being OTP 🙂 

      But I see a real mission plan FINALLY!

      Spacex is the critical path to Mars lolol 

      • mattblak says:
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        “So now I’m in the Spacex thread and I see that Mars-One will use left over NASA ISS junk to build a Mars base”.

        Huh?! How did you get that? Mars One has nothing to do with NASA or any official government-funded space program. This private plan/consortium program could not buy unfinished ISS modules & equipment from NASA even if they wanted to. The unfinished and ‘spare’ ISS modules are under serious consideration to build a small ‘Gateway’ space station at a Lagrange point. Your quasi-religious enthusiasm for these well-meaning but probably over-optimistic Mars One folk may be clouding your judgement. But at least their concept has got people talking.

        • DTARS says:
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          “But at least their concept has got people talking”. you are a very perceptive man lololol

        • DTARS says:
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          Mr. Matbak

          I have no idea if Mars-One is a workable idea or not I think I even said so. 

          Point is with cheaper launch it is now a Possible idea.

          All others including EELVS as you suggest are not affordable! Old space exploration is just pie in the sky.  The Spacex new space future is the only choice

          Come take a leap! Lolol

  5. FallingWithStyle says:
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    I wonder if Neil Armstrong of Eugene Cernan will take up Musk’s offer and visit SpaceX?

    • Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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       – if I were Elon , I would give Armstrong, Cernan, and any other astro-skeptic a ticket good for one free ride up and back to ISS , compleat with a wheel of cheese ( a SpaceX tradition)  and some fine California wine served in fight . The inflight movie will be ” Space Cowboys”.

  6. Matt says:
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    This commercial venture sure has a lot of government involvement and $$$.  Guess we’re continuing the socialization of space, but privatizing the profits for the folks steering the cash towards companies guaranteeing jobs for officials giving them to funds after their terms are over.

    • Christopher Miles says:
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      So instead of handing profits to Big Arsenal Space, like the old days, we are (wisely) now seeding a few smaller, more nimble competitors. Lower cost launch is better for the taxpayer, period.

      Don’t blame Space X for the 100 Billion Dollar Space Station- be glad some capable entity (or two) will exist in 2017 to get us up there in a cost effective manner, without needing the Russians.

      Orbital’s test Cargo trip to the ISS is up next, and I believe Orbital also successfully launched NuStar on a Pegasus today. (Again, in a (relatively) cost effective manner)

      So we are lowering the cost of Launch. A good thing! 

      Socialization of Space?
      Is Bigelow, or Virgin or Planetary Resources or Stratolaunch somehow each a Government program rather than a private sector endeavor?

      AHA!

      Perhaps by “Socialization of Space” you mean the Nelson/Hutchison
      3 Billion Dollar/Year Senate Launch System? (On Top of the 10 Billlion spent on Constellation)

      Constellation,  comrade, reminds me most of the Old Soviet State. Big government program, little hardware to show for it.

  7. James Lundblad says:
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    What about modifying Dragon for a Lunar Landing?

    • John Gardi says:
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       James:

      Although Elon Musk says he’s not interested in lunar exploration, I’m sure that Dragon could be modified for lunar landings. If it was a one way trip, like for an unmanned science platform, it could probably land virtually unmodified. Tons of room for extra fuel tanks in the ‘cabin’ which wouldn’t have to be pressurized anyway. You could ditch the heat shield to save weight too.

      tinker

      • Jeff Havens says:
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        Hmm… I wonder how much more lifting power Falcon would need to lift a one-way Dragon capsule (more than likely heavier, even with ditching the shield) + the booster to get it there.  Falcon 9 vs. Falcon Heavy, and modified or brand-new 2nd (or even a 3rd) stage?

  8. DTARS says:
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    Multipliable  mission plans for dragons sent to mars.

    Sky-crane salvage operation on mars.

    What if the MSL sky crane had been designed to be reused on mars by Martians after it delivered it’s rover.

    Could it be used for something useful???

    Will it crash land after it drops the rover or soft land??

    Martians hired to salvage MSL sky-crane to turn it into a rover hopper delivery system. The sky-crane will have large fuel tanks and landing gear added and will be used deliver and pickup science and resource searching rovers which will be remotely monitored by the Mars-One team.

    If they do dragon missions shouldn’t they give a little thought of future reuse of them after their mission, as salvage.

    Martians send mission to dragon ice drilling site to repurpose the lander into an outpost. The lander was sent with dragon rider life support systems 10 years ago with this possible future use in mind.
    Or
    Ice dragon will be refueled Mars-One settlers then remotely hopped to a new location for more test drilling.

    Mars Salvage Inc.

    Just trying to think smart and cheap to get the most for my Space buck.

    Joe Tax Payer

  9. Stone says:
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    NASA chief views history-making SpaceX
    capsule
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynami

  10. Littrow says:
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    One of Mr. Musk’s next demonstrations should be of the Dragon’s heat shield
    ability to stand up to lunar and planetary reentry velocity and then
    the US would be about a decade ahead of Orion, since Dragon is a fully
    functional spacecraft demonstrating the one capability that Orion is out
    to show in 2 or 3 years.