SpaceX #2: Launch Pad Stories

Eric Berger’s book on SpaceX, Liftoff, next talks of the launch pad challenges. Elon Musk’s company got permission from the Air Force base in California to conduct its tests and launches. The good thing was that it was close to their factories. But it was also close to the ocean, which meant the rocket that went so many checks and inspections prior to launch would be lashed with salt carried from the ocean by the winds for long periods.

 

But there was a much bigger problem with the Air Force base in California. To launch a satellite into equatorial orbit, the rocket would need to fly over the US. But flying over land was forbidden by US law (what if the rocket crashed or things went horribly wrong). SpaceX needed to find an eastward facing launchpad. Ideally, the launch site needed to be close to the equator, because then it could “piggyback on the earth’s rotation”, thus reducing fuel needs (and weight).

 

So they picked the Marshall Islands, a set of islands owned by the US military, located 5,000 miles away in the Pacific. At that base, unlike almost everywhere else, the Army welcomed and woo’ed visitors with open arms. Why? Because 40% of the Army’s budgetary needs for those islands had to be funded via commercial contracts that the Army itself drew up!

 

Marshall Islands was now set to be the place to send rockets to space. But until they could do that, initial tests had to be done in the California base. And in California, there was a culture clash. While the Army was bureaucratic and believed in rules, SpaceX didn’t believe in hierarchies and considered rules a waste of time. SpaceX wanted to do things quickly; whereas the Army checked every little detail before signing off.

 

One time, the California base refused to grant permission for a SpaceX test because (1) SpaceX was unproven; and (2) the military didn’t want its billion-dollar satellite sitting on the ground at the base to be put under risk if something went wrong with the SpaceX test! Even worse, the Army had no clear date when its satellite would be launched; so SpaceX got delayed indefinitely. After 6 months of waiting with no end in sight, Musk knowing he “could not wait, or sue, or protest” decided to shift operations to Kwaj in the Marshall Islands.

 

While Kwaj had little bureaucracy, it was in the middle of nowhere (remember, 5,000 miles in the Pacific). This led to ridiculous situations like the time when a problem could be fixed with a $5 capacitor but the nearest electronics shop was 6,000 miles away! Since the launch date was near, Musk lent his private jet to an intern who used it go to the place where they sold the capacitors and then fly to an airport in Hawaii, where a Kwaj employee flew in to pick it up.

 

Such were the kinds of launch site challenges in the world of rockets.

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