SpaceX Spreads Out
SpaceX expansion could add 300 jobs locally, Waco Tribune
“In a report prepared by the city of Waco’s economic development staff, SpaceX is proposing to invest $46.3 million in the site during the next five years. That will consist of about $32.4 million in real property improvements and $13.9 million in personal property improvements. SpaceX will add 300 new jobs by Dec. 31, 2018, with employees receiving benefits and an average hourly wage of $28.85, or about $60,000 a year. To receive incentive money, the company must fill 240 positions with people living in McLennan County, and 120 must reside in Waco.”
That seems like an oddly specific structure for economic development incentives. What happens if Waco-residing employee #120 moves from Waco to Temple, down the road? Does SpaceX lose their money, or do they have a window of time to go employ someone else within Waco city limits?
Agreed it seems unusual. Commonly these types of incentives give out money simply for moving to or expanding in the area that is targeted for economic development (often areas that are economically depressed). Sometimes there is also an additional requirement that a specific minimum number of new jobs are created. But even in those cases it is apparently not always enforced because the city/county doesn’t have the manpower to verify it, so it’s basically self-reported by the company receiving the incentive. And apparently some companies don’t even bother self-reporting if the local government doesn’t follow up.
However this Waco deal goes even more extreme with the requirement that a certain number of the new jobs must be filled by locals. That seems virtually impossible for the city or county to verify without a whole lot of manpower. But those details don’t really matter anyway as the only real goal of the local governments is to attract companies or keep them from moving away. All of the fancy looking requirements which look good on paper (and in the local papers) I suspect are mainly just to justify it to the local taxpayers who are the ones footing the bill for these incentives.
That includes transplants correct? They can bring people in who will move to those areas?
As long as they’re paying local taxes and shopping local businesses it’s good for the area.
I think they’ll need to redefine “louder than normal test”
Vladislaw
You get around to other sites
I think this would help some people.
http://justatinker.com/Future/
I dropped the link on some of my facebook spacegroups… thanks for the link.
They can either allow or disallow transplants, we’ll find out when the details are released. I found online a requirement of Burnet, Texas (about 80 miles SW of Waco), which interestingly allows transplants to the county, but not the city. It states:
“At least 25% of the jobs provided will be made available to residents of the City of Burnet”
“At least 50% of the jobs provided will either be made available to the residents of the County of Burnet or be composed of existing employees that relocate to the County of Burnet”
“Compliance with the requirements of local hiring will remain in effect for the entire period that economic development incentives are being offered.”
For the SpaceX deal just insert Waco, McLennan County
and 2018 and that could be what the deal will be, or something similar.
I’m dreaming of gaint tanks full of methane π
Ad astra… per cow farts. xD
Mars will be Baptist!
Must be a stupendous culture shock for southern Californians to take up lives in Texas. Mars would be more familiar territory.
Southern Californians by the way have culture shock moving to New York, assuming you are referring to native Southern Californians. Was there a point to your comment?
None, just we have a nation that has incredible range of lifestyles. As an upper Midwesterner I find California Dreamin’ like Neptune.
I think the culture shock of a Californian would be less severe in NY than in the South (but less of a temperature shock).
I could pick any number of scales, but here is “Church Attendance” :
I grew up in Southern California and there was more disparity at least at the time between California and New York. New Yorkers thought Californians were – well you probably know the granola joke. Meanwhile Californians thought New Yorkers were rude and inconsiderate. My sister (born in Southern California) moved to New York twenty years ago and I have been there many, many times and really enjoy going there. I have also spent quite a lot of time in Texas where I have several relatives scattered all over the state, since both of my parents were born and raised in Texas. I also like Georgia where I have lived for several years. I realize not everyone adapts moving from one culture to another but that’s more individual I think.
Get this, a co-worker that I originally worked with in Southern California (he grew up there), transferred to Philadelphia for a year, then to Atlanta where I now am and he worked here for a few years, then he worked in Holland for three years, and then from Holland he moved back to Southern California. He told me the culture shock of trying to live in Southern California after being gone for so long was too great and he and his family moved to Chicago where they have lived happily for several years now.
So. Majority of the cost of any space hardware, either launcher or spacecraft is purely personnel cost. I.e. man-months spent on designing and building the thing.
How does adding 300 jobs help keeping the costs low, without drastically increasing the volume/revenue of the product, i.e. flying a lot more ?
It is not adding extra jobs. It is a requirement that jobs spacex needs must be hired from local residents..
New jobs, extra jobs, isn’t that the same thing?
“an expansion that would create 300 new full-time jobs”
“SpaceX will add 300 new jobs by Dec. 31, 2018”
They get incentive money if local people are hired for the new jobs
not the same thing at all. “extra jobs” implies the jobs aren’t needed. “new jobs” implies that, well, what the article says, the business is expanding, there’s work that needs to be done, and more people are needed to do that work.
I was just about to say that! lol
Thanks I understand Yales comment now and agree with it
How many of these jobs will be for normal operating costS?
How many will be for R&D?
Wont there be a lot of testing of used boosters soon to learn how improve reusabily?
How many of these jobs will be testing raptors and gaint boosters for MCT?
Or is this all to test the Dragon 2?
At a high level, it actually doesn’t matter exactly if these are ops or R&D people. You see, everyone gets a monthly paycheck regardless of what they are doing.
300 people on payroll is approximately a $50M a year expense, give or take, so that much extra revenue has to be made from a product/service to stay even.
I’m just very curious what this addition is for. Dragon2 testing, increasing falcon flight rate, or MCT development?
SpaceX wins a big one.
Congress bans the Atlas V.
http://www.latimes.com/busi…
For more than a decade, the United States military has depended on buying Russian-made rocket engines to launch its most crucial satellites. On Friday, Congress said no more.
Despite lobbying from a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the Senate voted 89-11 to approve a bill Friday that would ban the Pentagon from awarding future rocket launch contracts to firms using Russian engines.
The ban is a blow to the Boeing-Lockheed venture called United Launch Alliance, which has relied on using the Russian engines under an exclusive and expensive deal it has had with the Air Force since 2006.
Really? Just where does it say “Congress bans the Atlas V”?
My sentence was a bit truncated. It should have read “Congress bans the Atlas V for Pentagon launches dooming the rocket”
The bill will “prohibit the secretary of defense from buying launch services using Russian rocket engines other than those already under contract as of February 1, 2014.”
There is only a 2 year supply of Russian engines in the pipeline.
This year Atlas V flew 9 times – 8 flights had pentagon funding.
The Atlas V can only mount the Russian RD-180 (and potentially the Russian RD-181- export model name of the RD-193)
Any replacement engine, such as the ULA/Blue Origin new methane engine design are for an essentially brand new rocket.
Only the upper stage would be salvaged for reuse.
There is no way under that bill that using an Atlas V for a future Pentagon contract can comply with the clause to ban the Pentagon from awarding future rocket launch contracts to firms using Russian engines
I suspect that the 1 or 2 other launches a year cannot support the production.
Can NASA continue to purchase the Atlas with Russian engines for the Commercial Crew program?
It was not part of the Defense appropriation so I would assume, yes. (typo – left out the “NOT”)
i believe he’s referring to this sentence: “the Senate voted 89-11 to approve a bill Friday that would ban the Pentagon from awarding future rocket launch contracts to firms using Russian engines.”
this would be a de facto ban of the Atlas V, as it uses the RD-180 engines on its first stage.
I agree, but his headline is a little dubious.
“United Launch Alliance succeeded at weakening the bill so that it is allowed to use the Russian engines already in its inventory”
“The bill also allows the joint venture to use the Russian engines β known as the RD-180 β it previously ordered from its Russian supplier. The company said Friday that it had 29 engines on order, including five that have already been delivered”
A good law starts from the current state and ends at the desired end state. It also gives a path between the two. This law allows Russian RD-180 engines to be used during the transition – whilst the new US engines are developed.
I agree and this is a good thing. ULA was looking into a new engine, now they will have to look a little harder.
This law allows Russian RD-180 engines to be used during the transition – whilst the new US engines are developed.
No, not really.
There are only 2 years worth of rd-180s in the pipeline that are legal now. last flight at presumed pace is about 2017.
The target date for an American engine (BE-4) is 2019 (earliest). That is a 2 year gap.
In any event, it won’t fit the Atlas V which is doomed. And when ULAs new engine is ready it will then need a rocket with a 2 year certification process, like Falcon.
So, the law leaves a 2-4 year gap of no Russian rocket engine flights. The only way to stretch it is for ULA to lose contracts to Spacex. ULA is screwed either way.
Do you really think that is the way it works?
Not sure what you are asking.
yeah, i get what you mean. however, that will give the Atlas V about two years of operations under its current design. after that, they will have to come up with something else.
Seems like they got a nice parachute deal.
How exactly is it a “parachute deal?” The law as written is necessary. There is no company that could take all of the Atlas V planned launches over the next two years. SpaceX doesn’t have the capacity to do that yet. Neither does OSC. I rather doubt that switching the payloads to Deltas would cover every thing (I don’t know what leeway exists in Delta schedules and build capacity). Necessity is not a parachute deal.
Makes sense. No state income tax. Waco has Baylor University and is 90 miles south of Dallas and 90 mile north of Austin.
All those great rocket tests and the only observers are a bunch of cattle. ;-). How about some bleacher seats SpaceX? π
SpaceX functions just like russians, no news or witnesses until they are successful
They function like a private company. SpaceX is as transparent as Bavarian Crystal compared to Blue Origin, for example.
There are videos of their launch tests available from cameras at neighboring ranches.
With billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on the line, I would be a control freak on spin also.
Who cares – they do more with less and actually get… I mean stuff, done.
Too many whine and complain. I wish people would show some intellectual honesty and integrity and scrutinize SLS/Orion like they do tCap
http://justatinker.com/Future/
VERY clear explanation of Spacex reusable technology
@dtarsgeorge
That’s three hundred jobs Florida lost because the government didn’t care about meeting SpaceX priorities. But no worry. Lockheed/Boeing has pledged to bring 300 tax-funded jobs to Florida to assemble the Orion, a deal which probably cements Nelson’s support for SLS/Orion.
For launches from Texas the barge might be even more useful. In the calm water of the Gulf use of the barge landing would be limited far less often by rough seas than in the Atlantic.
Check this out π
I think this demonstrates how hard it is to find that barge.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
What if a sounding rocket could chase the booster and catch real video like this π
Will two falcon boosters be close enough to video each other?
Heh, sometimes I kind of wish that we had “get to the moon in KSP” as a hiring/promotion criteria in the agency.
This article on the lack of good jobs at Downey, with a heavy emphasis on the areas Space history, makes a good bookend to the SpaceX jobs news. Highly recommend. It’s been going around today as well.
http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Not just Downey, of course. The American middle class is being eaten alive and it’s not good for anybody: for the middle class, for the ΓΌber rich, or for the country.
That rising tide missed a lot of boats, right Ronnie?