So either Elon Musk can see the future or he is truly brilliant, and is Tony Stark

"mr_gofast" (jake_berenshteyn)
05/14/2014 at 12:20 • Filed to: TESLA

Everyone recalls Tesla's Elon Musk petitioning to the US gov to use his rockets for space missions and not Russian made ones - and the US gov turned him down

**to be noted ULA has Delta rockets and Atlas V rockets, the Delta series uses American rockets, and the Atlas V use the Russian boosters, and for whatever reason ULA insists on using the Atlas V's**

Currently the US gov uses the United Launch Alliance - a alliance of Boeing and LM who use Russian made boosters for their shuttles.

Now the situation has changed and perhaps he saw this coming or he just has good timing.

The Russians have now their own 'sanctions' of sorts. The Russian made boosters that they continued to sell to the Americans for their space program in spite of the mess in Ukraine. However now the Russians have placed a condition on the sale of the boosters - that they not be used for any military application. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a concern since space exploration is neutral and not necessarily a military operation, but NASA is by work volume roughly 70% military contracts and the rest is public stuff. This new rule means until the sanction is removed by the Russians - there are no more boosters available anywhere to launch space missions - except perhaps SpaceX

so what do you think? Is this his new cash cow if he plays his cards right? or is SpaceX not going to fly

Russian news; !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Elon Musk; !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-…

DISCUSSION (21)

HammerheadFistpunch > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:23

third option, musk is a super viilian and this whole russia thing is musk related.... Jut sayin

Cherry_man1 > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:23

Or what if Musk is truly a super villain and rules Russia and made this all happen?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:23

Third option: Our government, as per usual, has the sharpness and ability of foresight of a bag of very damp rocks.

For Sweden > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:23

Mr. Musk has money, but he doesn't have Boeing-Lockheed Martin money. ULA will be fine.

Jeff-God-of-Biscuits > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:24

To be honest, it never makes sense to have your "enemies" (even if they are friendly these days) control your ability to do things.

mr_gofast > For Sweden
05/14/2014 at 12:27

he doesn't need money -heres a quote from the first elon musk article

He's offering to send a 10,000-pound payload into geosynchronous orbit for $60 million, compared with a United Launch Alliance Delta flight cost of $300 million (a space shuttle flight cost upward of $1 billion

mr_gofast > Jeff-God-of-Biscuits
05/14/2014 at 12:28

yup and space missions arent just a small part of the US it affects everyone..

mr_gofast > HammerheadFistpunch
05/14/2014 at 12:29

read the bloomberg article i linked up there - its reads exactly like that.

PCD > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:29

the FT has a story on it this morning too. http://on.ft.com/1v0gA2i I wouldn't bet against Elon Musk.

Anima > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:31

Related: The Russian Deputy Prime minister made quite a funny tweet 2 weeks back:

"After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline,"

mr_gofast > Anima
05/14/2014 at 12:33

yup Musk even went with it and tweeted back :!

mr_gofast > PCD
05/14/2014 at 12:34

im considering tesla stock..the guy is like a contemporary tony stark.

PCD > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:44

I'm continuously impressed by the guy. But I'm in equity trading and while I believe in the company, valuation of the stock is tricky and it is volatile because of all the headlines. I just urge anyone to make sure they talk to their financial advisor with stocks like this to make sure risk is appropriate if they aren't well versed in trading.

mr_gofast > PCD
05/14/2014 at 12:46

im used to it, ive been dabbling for almost a decade.

Vince-The Roadside Mechanic > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
05/14/2014 at 12:48

A bag of damp rocks that sucks a bag of juicy dicks.

PCD > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 12:48

Ahh, cool.

Spoon II > For Sweden
05/14/2014 at 12:59

ULA will take years to ramp up production of their own rockets. That's a lot of downtime when it comes to this kind of stuff.

mr_gofast > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 13:28

bump

vicariousILive > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 13:53

The Atlas V boosters are made here in the good ole US of A. Its the rocket engine RD-180 that made in Russia, note "made" in Russia. The design was designed by us at Pratt & Whitney even though we did a joint venture with Russia to have them built there they are P&W's design so we can have them built here if we wanted to would take some time though.

It's a good argument by Musk to have the Gov use his system but I think it's stupid reason for the government to change. Everyone has such a hardon for Musk that they think everything he does is the shit and everyone elses way sucks. He is just trying to get more government money for his so called "private" company.

Some of our beloved "American" cars are assembled out of the country. Hell some of the Jeep Wrangler 3.8L engines are made in Mexico. Chevy transmissions are built in mexico. Are we going to petition the government to stop buying Chevy fleet vehicles for government use?

mr_gofast > vicariousILive
05/14/2014 at 13:56

true, thanks for clarifying that - however without those rd180 boosters - nothing else in the inventory can hoist the heavy payloads that shuttle missions require. However here is the argument Musk makes.

Even with the American Delta config by ULA hes still 5x times cheaper

vicariousILive > mr_gofast
05/14/2014 at 16:50

If he is doing a full on private service, which I mean that he is charging simply for transport then I can see it being 5x cheaper. Then in this case all liability is on him. Well Elon is not going to carry all of the liability so the government is going to have to procure some kind of insurance which equates to mucho-$$ from the US government. If you look at the big picture I don't think it will be cheaper.

I have seen this in my industry because I currently work as a contractor for the DOD. My company recently lost a contract simply because we were out bid by our competitor. During the proposal review the government said that our proposal was technically superior however our costs were too high. Being the incumbent on a contract you have insight to what a system really needs and you fully understand all of the systems requirements. The request for proposal requirements did not specify all of the details that we already knew so the competitor bid to the requirements as specified in the request for proposal(RFP).

For example, 1 year later the government goes to ask the new contractor for a task that my company would normally do. The new contractor states they do not have the capability to do the task because it was not specified in the RFP. "Well shit" the government says, "We better make a mod to the contract." Right then and their prices go up and it it is continuing to happen. When the contract is fully transitioned I bet their costs will be as high as ours were.

Same thing happened on F-16. Skunk works proposed their design GD proposed theirs. GD was faster and lighter than Skunk Works. Skunk works lost. Well by the time the plane was built the F-16 was what Skunk Works proposed in the first place.

But that's what I see Elon Musk doing. He is looking from the outside and he thinks he can do it but when its all said and done it's going to cost a shit ton of money because it's work for the government. They demand a lot and they are very conservative because they don't want their billion dollar NRO satellite to get blown up. I am a huge proponent of making things cheaper but after being in this business I am very skeptical about it.