Additional gantry cranes would be necessary to stack Starship back on top of Super Heavy. Starship may feasibly be able to land on the helipad. The derrick is certainly capable of catching Super Heavy. Top of the derrick to sea level is approximately 300 ft. The moon pool at its narrowest is 9.14 m. The derrick on this semi-submersible is rated to 2 million pounds. Given these platforms were one of the main technical obstacles to E2E service, which Shotwell claimed to much amusement would be a thing by the end of this decade, maybe they're actually doing it? With a bit of towing, SpaceX now has the capability to reach any orbital inclination, even without land overflight approval Their near-term (2-3 years) achievable launch rate is somewhere between 2 and 3x higher than expectedīased on current tests, SpaceX is still confident enough that Starship will fly often enough (and be cheap enough) to actually need these platforms, that they are willing to pay hundreds of millions to buy and refit them SpaceX is not so strapped for cash they have to focus on the bare minimum Sure, theres been rumors for a while, and Elon hinted they might be far enough along to use for the first orbital flight, but surely you can't take those seriously, right?įrom a competitive standpoint, these purchases mean: As far as anyone at any other launch provider knew a week ago, ocean launch platforms were a pure fantasy, and if SpaceX chose to develop them at all it wouldn't be for decades. SpaceX did a similar thing in Boca Chica with names of companies like "Dogleg Park" and other names to keep people from trying to hold out for a big payout.Īlso, just competitive secrecy.
Walt Disney did that when he started buying up land in central Florida in part to conceal that it was Disney who was buying up the land. Given the record of the petroleum exploration companies, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some environmental damage caused by the previous owners that SpaceX now needs to address including oil spills and federal environmental superfund charges that are better off kept from the rest of the SpaceX assets.Īnother reason for separate companies is to keep those selling these assets from jacking up prices unreasonably beyond normal market prices. I would presume it is similar with these platforms, where you can isolate and separate out the financial risk involved and if a problem comes up that it won't necessarily bankrupt all of SpaceX if Elon Musk wants to simply walk away from dealing with these oil platforms. Originally the SpaceX HQ building (where the Falcon 9 is manufactured) was purchased and owned by SpaceX itself, but for tax reasons, liability, and insurance purposes it was spun into a separate company who manages that building.
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