Talk:SpaceX/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Paragraph on other ventures

I find this revert rather curious:

If the intention of the said paragraph was purely "aggrandizement by association with famous successful ventures", then I could understand why the moderating sentence was reverted. In such case however I would think the entire paragraph to be unjustified.

If however the intention of the associated paragraph was to show that SpaceX appears to be well funded (a valid reason to write the things in the paragraph), then why revert a sentence saying just that?

This issue is also mentioned in a related discussion at Talk:Falcon I. Ropers 14:31, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wrote the paragraph to be professional biographical for Elon Musk, the founder and CEO/CTO of the company. The reason why I reverted the article was the information that has been released by Musk and SpaceX has been ambiguous on the subject of the funding of the Falcon V -- we do not know whether he is taking on additional investors for the program or parts of the program. Further, we don't know Musk's pain threshhold. He might have had it with this program and is about to pull the plug on funding. While I have no reason to believe that's true, we just don't know. More neutral language than "well funded" is warranted, in my opinion. Dschmelzer 17:01, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article needs serious reworking. It reads like a company brochure. Some one other than Dschmelzer needs to rewrite it or else give it the axe. –Floorsheim 04:55, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I will answer any specific criticism on the text. I don't think the question of who edits the text is of any importance. Dschmelzer 16:52, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've streamlined a small amount of language more appropriate to a NASA press release than an encyclopedia, without altering objective meaning. 24.130.18.36 (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Neuron. That quote definitely helps tie things together. It seems like there is a looming suggestion that there is something profound about this whole SpaceX and Falcon rocket thing. Could you guys do more to point out what that is to someone clueless like me? For example, is SpaceX the only privately owned company to get involved with the space industry? What are the potential consequences of improving the cost and reliability of space access by a factor of ten? And if SpaceX is not the only company involved in space, who are its competitors and what are their plans? –Floorsheim 18:26, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(My personal off-the-cuff view, which I'll probably try to make NPOV and integrate into the article later) Historically, space launch has been the domain of large government-contracted defense companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, who really haven't been inclined to design a launch vehicle with low cost as its goal; indeed, they've arguably been inclined to do the exact opposite, since it results in greater profits. In the past few decades, many people have tried to make low-cost rockets. This was particularly the case in the 90s, with many companies trying to do this. In an interview Musk mentions that he thinks these companies failed for one or more of the following reasons: lack of critical mass of technical skill, lack of funding, and a reliance on non-existent technology. I agree with his assessment.

In the past few years we've seen something very interesting: folks who got rich off technology in the 90s and are also interested in space. Such people are similar to past endeavours, in that they have plenty of desire and ideas about getting into space cheaply. Unlike people in the past, however, they also have the funding to actually pursue their goals, and often have experience with managing successful technology companies and thus know how to attain a critical mass of technical skills. Elon Musk with SpaceX is one example, with his company working on cheap orbital unmanned launch. Paul Allen (with Burt Rutan) and (arguably) John Carmack are other examples, working on cheap manned suborbital launch. I'm not aware of any other sufficiently-funded groups working on cheap launch, with the possible exception of the enigmatic Blue Origin (owned by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos).

Many have claimed that cheap access to space is the main thing blocking a lot of interesting space applications. Musk himself was planning on personally funding a Mars Oasis mission with the goal of putting a small greenhouse on Mars, but cancelled/postponed that and started SpaceX when he discovered that launch costs would be the primary cost of the mission. It's been claimed that lack of cheap access also keeps us from having (or putting funds towards adequately developing) things like orbital hotels, solar power satellites, off-world mining, etc.

Hmm... perhaps a lot of what I just wrote would be better off in private spaceflight. --NeuronExMachina 08:35, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree with all of this and add two things -- Russian and Ukrainian rockets (e.g., the Dnepr, with which the Falcon V will compete head-to-head) have been by far the price leaders up to this point and have been able to take market share from the big US contractors for non-governmental launches. There is some discussion about how much of a subsidy these Russian and Ukrainian rockets enjoy because they are derived from military hardware, so the cost comparisons are controversial. The Falcon I and Falcon V are competitively-priced against these rockets, even though arguably SpaceX does not enjoy subsidies on the costs side.

I think a large part of the US space establishment (especially military space) is hoping for SpaceX success. However, a lot of iron rice bowls will be destroyed in the US if SpaceX succeeds, so we can expect this SpaceX article to be controversial after the first successful launch. Kistler's ox has been gored already. Orbital Sciences will lose a lot if the Falcon I succeeds. Boeing will lose a lot if Falcon V succeeds. Dschmelzer 14:23, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the "BFR", I think it was around in rocket circles well before the Doom game. That said, I guess the SpaceX folks are of an age where it could be both a reference to the BFRs of old and an homage to Doom. --Dschmelzer 10:48, 09 Feb 2005 (UTC)

One precendent that come to mind is Beal Aerospace. They too promised to develop a new launcher that would cost a fraction of the price of existing rockets.

Big Falcon / F*cking Rocket

Does anyone have a reference for this?, I've removed it pending a source--Duk 16:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Reverted; citation added. Source document was linked at the bottom of the article, but citation made explicit now. Dschmelzer 18:03, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

On a related note, should we self-censor "fucking" as "f*cking" or something like that? I personally don't mind it, but I imagine that there may be many people who don't anticipate seeing a curse term when looking up information on rocket companies. --NeuronExMachina 06:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with NeuronExMachina, we should self-censor curse words. If we don't, God knows what could happen! I think "f*cking" is an acceptable substitute. --Dogman-x 13:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I have replaced it with F*****g. please can we do that on this page as well.

It's been put back, I see. Here's my beef. The cite given to justify it says "F---ing" with dashes. I think unless we can find a verifiable cite that it is indeed spelt out explicitly, we should mirror what the cite says. ++Lar: t/c 02:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• • I have removed it as it is unencyclopediatic. --GW_Simulations 14:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Since when has it become 'encyclopedic' not to tell exactly what every new, unusual, or uncommon abbreviation stands for? Not explaining what the initialism stands for leaves the reader wondering "Why BFR? Why not Q7;p?" I have much more sympathy for the reader whose curiosity includes wanting to know what initialisms are short for than I have for the reader who is insulted by, or runs away from, 'profanity' in an article. If there is verification that the thing is known by an initialism, and that the initialism stands for something specific, then both the initialism and what it stands for should be included. Doing anything less is poor encyclopedia-keeping.

My vote is that, as soon as we have verification, we restore the explanations of the initialisms. An undefined initialism in an encyclopedia is a glaring omission.

And a note to the user who asked whether "Big Fucking Test Stand" was necessary: Wikipedia is a great resource; I'm glad that your siblings are using it. If you are concerned about the vocabulary or topics that they may encounter in Wikipedia, then I suggest that you not allow them to use it, or that you supervise their use of it, or that you be available to explain to them anything that they may have questions about. It seems that your concern is what information they are exposed to; it can be hard to prevent their exposure to it—but you can be there to give them your opinion and interpretation of such information, to give them your take on it and what they should think of it. I offer you that same suggestion about the Internet as a whole, not just Wikipedia. If they continue to use Wikipedia and the Internet, especially without your constant supervision, it will be just about impossible for you to keep them from seeing things that you don't want them to see. You might find that, for many purposes, a good substitute is the World Book Encyclopedia, which you can get on CD-ROM, or in book form, or online. It will cost money, but will be largely free of the things that you're concerned about stopping your siblings from seeing. Your local public library almost certainly has a recent World Book. ... Oh; also, be sure to mention to your brother and sister that, like any source, but even more so than some other sources, Wikipedia is not to be trusted 100%. It is subject to unintended error, and intended vandalism, a gazillion times every day.

President Lethe 03:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Produce a verifiable reference citing a company employee using the term spelt out, for either or both, and I'm all for either or both being spelt out. But as it stands right now, it's hearsay that it actually stands for anything in particular. We don't do hearsay. Sorry if this seems a little terse but the above reads like you've set up a straw dog and then happily knocked it down (that may not be the case, but that's how it reads), because *I* certainly didn't say we need to censor. I just said it's not cited. ++Lar: t/c 04:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that we agree but that the agreement didn't quite come across. I did write "If there is verification" and "as soon as we have verification". I didn't advocate "re-including" the term any sooner than we had citable verification. My post was in response to the general idea of censorship, especially when it results in not defining a term that is worth defining. The pro-censorship "straw dog" was not set up by me, but was brought up by the first poster in the "Big Fucking Test Stand" section, immediately below; and I will happily try to knock down pro-censorship things. The truth is that I wrote my post for the "Big Fucking Test Stand" section of this Talk page, with the "Big Fucking Rocket" section as only a secondary thought—and then posted it in both sections. In some sense, my post was better for the BFTS section than the BFR section; you're right about that. It's also possible that I misinterpreted the meaning of GW_Simulations, who deleted the stuff as "unencyclopediatic". Maybe GW_Simulations was talking only about the question of verification; for some reason, my first interpretation was that it was a pro-censorship deletion. I hope this clarifies; sorry about the possible misunderstanding, and sorry if I misinterpreted GW_Simulations's reasoning. And, yes, I understood that you, Lar, weren't for censorship. And sorry I tend to be wordy in making my points. And you're right that I should've just said to see my comment in the following section. (Do note that my reply to you, Lar, in this section is being posted AFTER my reply to you in the next section.) President Lethe 04:51, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

• • The reason that I believe it to be unencyclopediatic is because I am yet to come across any official proof. Assumptions and hearsay are not encyclopediatic. If it can be proven, I have no objection --GW_Simulations 18:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Understood and agreed. I'm sorry I misinterpreted your reasons earlier. President Lethe 18:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

OK I think we're all back on the same page again, thanks! (whew!) One of the coolest things about WP is that it is NOT censored. I would dearly love to put "Big Fucking x" (for multiple values of x) in the article if we can only find a cite, as I think it really conveys the character of this company. They're cool, they're not staid and BS-ey and covered in triplicate paperwork, and they just want to get shit done instead of pussyfooting around with 10 M USD design studies like the big guys. No other encyclopedia could do that. So if we can do it, we should.

The article needs to be POV free, of course, but I will say here in talk, unconstrained by the need to be NPOV, that I love this company a great deal (just as I do Scaled Composits, Orbital Sciences, Bigelow, et al) and terrifically want them to succeed. I cried a little when this launch failed because it would have been cool if it had worked right on the first try. But it's not the end of the world... They'll be back. SO then, anyone have a cite? It might be hard to find but maybe it's out there? ++Lar: t/c 21:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Reason for discussion topic heading update. This interview of Elon Musk on 9/24/2007 by nasaspaceflight.com indicates that BFTS now stands for Big Falcon Test Stand.

http://nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5237

Thus this topic heading has been updated to reflect SpaceX’s own definition for this acronym. No content has been removed from this discussion topic.ProSpace 20:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Much better way to handle it than deleting the section, thank you. Still, I don't know if it was really necessary to change the section title vs just putting in the link and analysis in the discussion thread. Hopefully it will keep our anon friend from repeating his/her antics. --StuffOfInterest 00:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Big Falcon / F*cking Test Stand

is "Big Fucking Test Stand" necassary? My little brothers and sisters dont need to see this.I just got them to start using Wikipedia. Sorry to be a prude but its not very proffesional and some find it offensive.I apologize in advance if I have posted this in the wrong place.24.1.207.27 23:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it may not be necessary, just as spelling out BFR and other engineers' "locker room" talk may not be necessary. However, BFR and BFTS are internal SpaceX designations, which do stand for those things, or can be reasonably assumed to stand for those things. Does anybody know if there is guidance from Wikipedia on this question? Dschmelzer 00:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• • I have removed it as it is unencyclopediatic. --GW_Simulations 14:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Since when has it become 'encyclopedic' not to tell exactly what every new, unusual, or uncommon abbreviation stands for? Not explaining what the initialism stands for leaves the reader wondering "Why BFR? Why not Q7;p?" I have much more sympathy for the reader whose curiosity includes wanting to know what initialisms are short for than I have for the reader who is insulted by, or runs away from, 'profanity' in an article. If there is verification that the thing is known by an initialism, and that the initialism stands for something specific, then both the initialism and what it stands for should be included. Doing anything less is poor encyclopedia-keeping.

My vote is that, as soon as we have verification, we restore the explanations of the initialisms. An undefined initialism in an encyclopedia is a glaring omission.

I concur with this sentiment, and have re-removed the speculative meanings of BFR and BFTS, as the only supporting reference to the meanings was a single article by a third party interested in the "better faster cheaper" aspect of the company, and had no supporting reference or quote to support that the meaning is the official one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yoooder (talk • contribs) 01:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

And a note to the user who asked whether "Big Fucking Test Stand" was necessary: Wikipedia is a great resource; I'm glad that your siblings are using it. If you are concerned about the vocabulary or topics that they may encounter in Wikipedia, then I suggest that you not allow them to use it, or that you supervise their use of it, or that you be available to explain to them anything that they may have questions about. It seems that your concern is what information they are exposed to; it can be hard to prevent their exposure to it—but you can be there to give them your opinion and interpretation of such information, to give them your take on it and what they should think of it. I offer you that same suggestion about the Internet as a whole, not just Wikipedia. If they continue to use Wikipedia and the Internet, especially without your constant supervision, it will be just about impossible for you to keep them from seeing things that you don't want them to see. You might find that, for many purposes, a good substitute is the World Book Encyclopedia, which you can get on CD-ROM, or in book form, or online. It will cost money, but will be largely free of the things that you're concerned about stopping your siblings from seeing. Your local public library almost certainly has a recent World Book. ... Oh; also, be sure to mention to your brother and sister that, like any source, but even more so than some other sources, Wikipedia is not to be trusted 100%. It is subject to unintended error, and intended vandalism, a gazillion times every day.

President Lethe 03:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Repeating this comment, verbatim, instead of saying "see above", seems unnecessary. ++Lar: t/c 04:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Some make a comment in one section and don't take a look at related sections. I don't think the reason for having separate sections for these two related points is a strong reason in the first place. But, because someone else made two separate sections, I followed the thorough path of allowing readers of either section to see the same comment. That's all. President Lethe 04:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

We do need to make this clean for children. I put in some hyphens and explained the reference to the Big F---ing Gun in the Doom game. SpaceX may use colorful names internally, however I am sure all their employees would want us to talk about SpaceX with the same degree of appropriate language as their PR department would use. I don't think we will see BFR or BFTS in their press statements. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.4.170.255 (talk • contribs).

They do use it on their website. Also, Wikipedia is not censored. Finally, please sign your posts. --StuffOfInterest 14:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Your link to the google cache fails to provide a page, researching their site for references results in this one result which they use the BFTS abbreviation but refer to it as their "very large test stand." If they were to explicitly call it the Big Fucking Test Stand it could be said to be the proper name for it, however it is possible the acronym is for something entirely different and the phrase was coined as an alternative. I don't think censoring Wikipedia is correct, but I think it is more correct to make obscene phrases from acronyms that may be entirely innocent. I say leave the Doom reference in (as a possible source of the acronym name) but strip the claims that it is explicitly the Big Fucking Test Stand.Yoooder

They mention just the acronym. F could stand for anything. Big Fun Test Stand? Is removing the f-bomb really censorship or just avoiding controversy? I mean after all we all know what F stands for. Do we really have to spell it out? Don't you think at least one version of wikipedia should be suitable for children? If you oppose censorship why did you remove my reference to the BFG 9000 weapon in the Doom game. If you remove that a second time than it is YOU who is censoring. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.208.169.230 (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Reason for discussion topic heading update. This interview of Elon Musk on 9/24/2007 by nasaspaceflight.com indicates that BFTS now stands for Big Falcon Test Stand.

http://nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5237

Thus this topic heading has been updated to reflect SpaceX’s own definition for this acronym. No content has been removed from this discussion topic.ProSpace 20:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Images

Has SpaceX or whoever shot the photo that we are using explicitly given us permission to use the photo? If it was added under the principles of fair use as opposed to SpaceX releasing this to public domain, we will need to make sure this is noted. Dschmelzer 18:09, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

SpaceX has released these pictures under the GDFL. See The image talk pages on commons. --Duk 18:34, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you. Dschmelzer 19:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

True for all pics or just those? The pics of Kwajalien receding from the camera are tres cool... ++Lar: t/c 22:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Relating to this, it would be nice to know if the graphic comparison of the various Falcon models was released under GFDL. I see that the image which had been used here since last year ([1]) has now been deleted. It would be nice to get it back if legality can be determined. --StuffOfInterest 18:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming launches

The “upcoming launches” section should be rewritten as there has been another attempted launch and therefore a reschedule of the next launch. Due to extensive nature of this rewrite I would request that someone with more writing skill than me do this task. 24.18.102.77 20:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Launched (apparently successfully at least leaving the pad) at 5:30 PM eastern today ++Lar: t/c 22:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

MSN has a story: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11997932/ I saw the webcam cutout but before the cutout the pics were amazing.. the atoll shrunk in the distance (the camera was onboard, looking down) ++Lar: t/c 22:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

story updated, rocket lost.

It looked like a guidance problem; the webcast feed from the vehicle (before the feed failed) seemed to show the rocket spinning rapidly. Allenc28 23:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

SpaceX reported that the rocket and its satellite were destroyed during the ascent. "We did lose the vehicle," said Gwynne Shotwell, the company's vice president for business development to reporters via a telephone link. "Clearly this is a setback," she said, "but we're in this for the long haul." ++Lar: t/c 22:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

• Shame. --GW_Simulations 22:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Musk had said 3 failures in a row would convince him to quit. I'd count this as only one... This is a cool pic: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060324/060324_rocketLaunch_hmed_2p.hmedium.jpg which I would like to see if SpaceX would allow usage of hence my question above.. ++Lar: t/c 23:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Champagne glasses clinking in Denver, Huntington Beach, Evry, ...

Can anyone tell me what's the connection between the Ariane flight and the SpaceX flight mentioned at the end of the paragraph? This sentence should be eliminated, since it does not contain any information about SpaceX. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.162.163.144 (talk • contribs) .

Both rockets failed on their maiden flight. The Ariane mention could be better integrated, but it is definitely worth having there. --StuffOfInterest 11:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

references

We probably should consider using <ref>link or footnote goes here</ref> (in the body) and <references/> (at the bottom) tagging. There are a lot of references at the bottom now but not much tie in to the article body. This is an emerging standard here, now that mediawiki supports it, as I understand it. Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 15:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

props to those who are cranking these out, the article is changing nicely. Great work! ++Lar: t/c 21:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.136.16.3 (talk • contribs) .

Video, second launch

From watching the video, it appears the rocket had successful first-stage separation (at about T+02:58) and second-stage ignition, reaching an altitude of over 161 Km by around T+04:00. At about T+04:45, there's obvious circular wobbling. "Telemetry lost" by about T+05:00. Damn. At least they've got another shot at this, and they've proven much of the system works. -Kris Schnee 04:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

During stage separation, the first stage struck the second stage nozzle. No visible damage. The nozzle had some material around it that came loose after ignition (protective bumper?). A circular oscillation began a little way into the second stage burn which increased in amplitude until loss of signal. Near the end of the video the craft rotated, in addition to the oscillation, at which point transmission ended. Musk says the second stage engine shut down due to a roll control issue. --Duk 04:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

After looking at the video again, I'm wondering if a Helium leak or malfunctioning roll control jet caused the first stage to hit the second stage engine bell. The craft rolled during separation when the engine bell was struck. Once the second stage was under power, it corrected course. --Duk 16:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I watched it a few more times myself and I tend to agree. It takes a bit to adjust your perspective as the camera is on the second stage body which is pitching over. It is really a testament to the engineering how quickly the second stage corrected course and that the Kestrel nozzle survived such a deformation! I'm really looking forward to hearing the analysis of what happened. I'd hoped we would see an update today on the first stage recovery and preliminary investigation on the problem. --StuffOfInterest 21:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Looked like a coning motion. Poor fuel tank baffles -> swirling fuel? Can't wait to see the analysis. --Duk 06:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

... we believe that the slosh issue can be dealt with easily by adding more baffles, particularly in the LOX tank. [2] --Duk 16:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Redundant Launch coverage

There is redundant coverage of the launches at this and the Falcon 1 page. I think we should make a Falcon 1 launches page similar to the Delta IV launches to avoid duplication and for better organization. (cross posted at Talk:Falcon 1). --Duk 02:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Spacex logo.gif

Image:Spacex logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 08:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

F is now for Falcon

Elon refers to BFTS as Big FALCON Test Stand in this recent interview at nasaspaceflight.com

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5237

So we should all just forget the sordid past of F. LOL. SpaceX is a great company and we can best support them by putting this behind us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.61.116 (talk • contribs)

Please do not remove other discussion threads when making your contribution to the discussion. I've restored the previous threads and moved your addition ot the bottom. Also, plesae sign your posts so people will know who said what in the discussion. --StuffOfInterest 11:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, "stuff of interest" F is for Falcon now. I am cleaning up all the talk of when F is for *** because it is just a bunch of profanity from the past and is no longer needed. Your profile shows an interest in Bigelow and the DC-X. If you are a new / alt space guy I assume you want SpaceX to succeed. Let us all help them by keeping their image profanity clean. - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.61.116 (talk • contribs) 20:25, 25 September 2007

I have reverted this as it is vandalism. If you continue to remove other people's comments, you risk being blocked from editing. Thank you. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 21:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You guys are concerned about my "vandalism" of your deep ananysis of the F bomb usage? Let me paint a little picture for you. If you want to see launch costs go down and humanity colonize Mars before our society declines into the next dark age I think this may concern you even more than my "vandalising" your coverage of profane language.

It is the summer of 2009. The decision to continue COTS funding comes accross President Clinton's desk. She passes it off to some staffer who happens to be a man hating feminist. For starters this lady views rockets as phallic shaped symbols of male power with flames coming out one end. A lot of people read wikipedia and your embarrasing discussion is only one click away from the main article. She soon learns from the bold headlines that these are not just rockets, they are Big FUCKING Rockets. Big FUCKING Phallace shaped flame shooting rockets made by a male dominated industry. She makes her recomendation to Clinton and Bye Bye COTS funding. Now is that what anyone hear wants. Why don't you guys go ask your wives if they think the wrong kind of woman might be offended by this.

Elon is now calling it the Big FALCON Rocket and I suggest we go along with this and clean up the discussion. I don't want to have to wast my time deleting this over and over but I will under differnet IP address if I have to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.61.116 (talk • contribs)

So, you now say you will conduct trolling? Thank you for the preadmission, it will make justifying quick blocks of your addresses much easier. --StuffOfInterest 21:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The official SpaceX definition of their acronyms BFTS and BFR is covered in the above discussion sections. This section adds no value and should be removed.ProSpace 22:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Which I have reverted. It is vandalism to remove other people's posts. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 22:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The other posts were aparently from one anonymous poster. They can add a signed comment to the above apropriate section if they wish.ProSpace 22:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The posts still show how they feel about this topic. Their techniques may not be desirable but you are no better than them as you are using the same methods - vandalism - to suppress other people's comments. I've given you both final warnings, and if either of you vandalise this page again, then I will request a block. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 22:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm well aware that this discussion ended a year ago, and have no intention of reigniting it (no pun intended), but FWIW: multiple media articles by multiple, respected news organizations cite usage of fucking among SpaceX staffers. And to speculate about presidential opinions is ludicrous; AFAIK the final decision is down to NASA, not the current (future) presidential administration of the US; the current president has already authorized COTS, and despite Barack Obama's seemingly (for now) unfriendly approach to Constellation, I doubt he plans to interfere with COTS. But that was just speculation anyway. But since the actual claims of fucking being used in acronyms cannot (AFAIAA)be cited (and, as has been stated, SpaceX staff nicknames aren't exactly encyclopedic info), we probably ought to leave it out. But it turns out that's exactly what did happen. --79.70.215.83 (talk) 23:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC) (I'm Jatkins not signed in)

Note that I omitted reference John McCain because I'm not aware of an objection of his to the space programme. --79.70.215.83 (talk) 23:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC) (Jatkins again)

Columns in table

I see that someone decided to split Falcon 1 into three columns in the rocket model table. I don't think this is a good idea as the three models are so similar. The separate sub-variants would be better discussed on the Falcon 1 page. If we add another column every time the rocket receives any kind of upgrade, the table will quickly become unusable. Please combine this back into one column. Also, as this is very technical information, wherever it is included there needs to be good references provided. Otherwise it will be hard for anyone to know if this is fact, original research, make believe. --StuffOfInterest 21:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• There are all Falcon versions included into this table since its beginning, so it is just accurate to split the three Falcon versions since the Falcon 9 versions are splitted too. I even erased one column that split the Falcon 9 into the 3.6 and 5.2 fairing! If we keep the table in this article, there is no other way as this table. But I too would consider a transfer of the different columns into seperate tables at the Falcon 1, Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 article. The Falcon 1 splitting however is needed as they are in no way similar! But as said, the hole table could be seperated into 3 different tables into each of the Falcon version articles. So a three column table for the Falcon 1 article (Falcon 1 [Merlin A; 2006-2007]; Falcon 1 [Merlin C; 2007-2009]: Falcon 1e [2009 and later]) a table with one column for the Falcon 5 article (Falcon 5 [cancelled]) and another table with three columns (Falcon 9; Falcon 9-S5 [cancelled]; Falcon 9 Heavy [Previously Falcon 9-S9]) for the Falcon 9 article. As you like. But a decrement of information would be the wrong way as wikipedia is designed to expand. The data source for the table is given at the and of the table (reference 3) as well as the spaceX website itself and other external links and references in this article. ColdCase 00:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The original table was based on information provided on the SpaceX website, including the two fairing configurations. Perhaps the table should be simplified down to the three marketed models by SpaceX, the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon 9 Heavy? Fairing sizes, engine options, performance enhancements, and naming history can be covered in the individual rocket articles. This will keep the main article cleaner yet still preserve information which researchers may find interesting. --StuffOfInterest 12:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, if ok, I will do this in the next hours or days. One simple table for this article and more detailed tables in the articles of the articles of Falcon 1, Falcon 5 and Falcon 9. So I think we have resolved this issue afterwards. ColdCase 13:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I have now scaled down the table in this article to the three essential Falcon versions and added a table with detailed sub-versions of each Falcon to their according article (Falcon 1, Falcon 5 or Falcon 9). I hope the problem is now resolved in satisfaction for everyone. ColdCase 13:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Looks better! Only change I would make now is to drop Falcon 5 out of the table all together than split the F9 and F9-Heavy into separate columns. Being that the Falcon 5 never made it off paper, I don't see a need to have it in the table. Keeping mention in the article of it as a canceled variant should be enough. As for F9 and F9-Heavy, the specs on the two are so different that having two columns will make it more readable. Thanks for being flexible and putting so much work in on these tables! --StuffOfInterest 14:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
          • No problem! The suggestions you made are ok. But for me the acutal version is ok to. So I'm neutral at this point. If anyone else has an opinion on this, please post it! I'll do the changes if you like after a discussion have taken place. But at the current state I'll leave it as it is. If anyone changes it on its own to the suggested version, ok, I won't intervene. But a discussion before would be better. So anyone else out there who has an opinion on this? Let us now! ColdCase 16:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Success rate of Falcon 1

THe first two flights of Falcon 1 were test flights. As such their primary goals weren't necessarily to get a satellite successfully to orbit. While all involved agree that flight one was a failure, flight two met all of its primary mission objectives plus a few additional mission objectives. As such, SpaceX considers it a success, as does, conspicuously, its customer for that launch. This is convention with test rockets. I think classifying it as a failed launch doesn't do justice to the actual success of the launch. Additionally, it paints an unnecessarily bleak picture of the outcomes of an organization that has lost no customers, is in the black for the fiscal year, and has cleared NASA safety hurdles in record time in its COTS bid. I feel if its customers are looking at it as a success and SpaceX considers it a success, it really should not be represented any other way. Heck it even got to the right altitude and velocity, they only thing it really failed to do was deploy its test payload into the proper orbit.

aremisasling 03:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

But was the payload lost/destroyed? +sj + 08:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it was a test, not operational, flight - so the payload was also just a test, and did not therefore automatically deem the launch a failure since it was lost. --J. Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 16:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

This was discussed ad nauseum after the second flight, and the outcome of the discussion was to consider it a failure. Looking back, most independent sources now agree that it was a failure. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 16:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Manifest

Hi. I noticed that the SpaceX "launch manifest" is being used to cite launch dates for future missions. The manifest shows targeted delivery dates, not launch dates. The first F9 won't fly until early 2009. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 08:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

NanoSail-D

How does Aviation Now: NASA To Try Solar Sail On SpaceX Falcon 1 fit in? 91.104.164.145 (talk) 20:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

One of two nanosat subpayloads on flight 3. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 23:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

There was an issue in the separation stage. A glitch resulted in the engine exploding.

I suppose this won't go in the wiki, but an engineer at SpaceX launch control reports that "There was an issue in the separation stage. A glitch resulted in the engine exploding."

208.116.128.48 (talk) 04:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the payload? when the rocket was lost, what did that include? (and where are the rocket remains expected to end up?) +sj + 08:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All the pieces are likely to fall near the location planned for the first stage. An undamaged first stage could be recovered, and spacex has indicated a recovery ship was positioned in the area for this purpose. But even an intact second stage (and payload) might be difficult to recover successfully. (sdsds - talk) 09:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand the "First operational flight (third flight)" section was written as it happened, but now the verb tenses are a mixture of past, present and future of an event in the PAST; It needs clean up.BatteryIncluded (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The video does not show the dramatic events described by user Awltral. Rather than placing {fact] templates, it will be deleted. BatteryIncluded (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC) The code of the video shown here is:

<embed src="http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1425923369" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=1705722012&playerId=1425923369&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="510" height="610" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed>

Kwajrco edit

This edit, apparently made by a first-hand observer, does not meet Wikipedia's standards for Verifiability, which is policy. It is nonetheless fascinating! (sdsds - talk) 07:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this edit (by Kwajrco):

The webcast documenting the launch showed, via the aft facing onboard camera, the first stage violently recontacting the second stage seconds after separation. Several seconds later, major portions of the second stage were torn away with the first stage. The second stage was observed to tumble and propellant covered the camera lens. Shortly thereafter a major explosion was observed and the video signal was lost. Telemetry data continued as the second stage re-entered on a trajectory slightly north of the first stage. The second stage appeared to never ignite.

I've removed it from the article. I watched the webcast and saw none of this, it appeared to be working flawlessly then the signal went out. Another editor who added the fact tags said the same thing in the edit notes. This needs more documentation before adding to the article. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 14:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It's possible the webcasted images where cut before the camera stopped broadcasting.--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 01:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It is also possible Kwajrco was intentionally inserting false information, just to see how long it would last, sort of a graffiti artist, some people get a kick out of it. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 01:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Now we have full video. As expected, this entry by Kwajrco is almost pure BS. Only one true thing (recontact) was known before adding this entry. Recontact was not violent. About 2 seconds late, second stage ignited (yes, ignited) in non-nonimal situation (recontacted stages). This resulted in cooking parts of stage, with camera itself. Nice try in land of fairy tales, Kwajrco, but no banana. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.206.80.6 (talk) 22:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like someone took a soap and sponge and cleaned up Kwajrco's poorly done "work". Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 01:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

James Dohan's ashes

Should the fact that James Dohan's ashes were lost on the last flight be added? I am by no means an authority on this project, but it did seem pertinent to the inventory of lost payload. LeilaniLad (talk) 13:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, if the other three notable individuals are also mentioned. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Reading carefully about Celestis it seems clear not all the ashes of any given cremated person are flown in a given payload. Instead it seems only a portion of his or her ashes are used. Thus to assert someone's ashes were "lost" might be misleading, without proper qualification. (sdsds - talk) 15:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The term "lost" in this case seems a little strange to me since the ashes were being launched into a low Earth orbit without any plan for recovery. They would have eventually reentered and been scattered in the upper atmosphere. It is sad that their remains did not reach space, but according to Celestis another portion will go up on the next memorial flight. Wronkiew (talk) 17:38, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Celestis usually fly 1 or 7 gram samples per person. The guarantee to refly samples on the next flight is interesting, as this is the second consecutive space burial that has failed to reach orbit (excluding a single sample on New Horizons). --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 18:38, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Speculation about abort

The article contains this text:

"However, according to the official SpaceX "Launch 3 Press Kit" published shortly before launch, stage separation should have taken place at T+02:39 (159 seconds into flight), but the webcast video connection already ended at T+02:13 (133 seconds into flight) and the announcement on the webcast about an anomaly with the vehicle was made around T+02:30 (150 seconds into flight), so both events happened several seconds before the time of the stage-separation according to the Press Kit"

This does not seem very enclypedia like to speculate about truth of events without links to source of speculation. Also, there is a very easy plausible explenation: The webcast could have been on a delayed channel (for example 30 seconds delayed), allowing an operator to cut the transmission before broadcasting the failure. 80.62.46.25 (talk) 18:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The references cited do not support the argument that there was a discrepancy between the flight video and the official explanation for the failure. The same text was in Falcon 1, but I condensed it somewhat and eliminated the questionable argument. I am planning to reduce the amount of text in SpaceX devoted to flight 3, and will probably eliminate the text quoted above, but I haven't gotten to it yet. If anyone else wants to clean up this section, go ahead. Wronkiew (talk) 02:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the only aspects of the flight that should be covered in the SpaceX article are that the flight was attempted, that it was the first flight of a Merlin 1-C, that the first stage of flight was "picture perfect", and that a design error caused a stage separation anomaly resulting in loss of the vehicle and payloads. Everything else can be in the Falcon 1 article.

How about adding SpaceXpla.net to the external links?

Hi! I have recently started the first SpaceX community portal, with a blog, a forum, a wiki for information (will be build up with time) and in the future also a countdown clock and a launch chat as well as latest news during launch.
It's called SpaceXpla.net and you can visit it at http://spacexpla.net (or http://www.spacexplanet.com).
I have witnessed that fans of SpaceX posted on multible blogs during launch and it seemed to me that they wanted to share their feelings and hopes and communicate with SpaceX and each other. So I put up this website for all SpaceX fanatics ;)
Since every SpaceX fanatic will at some time come across this wikipedia entry I thought it would be a good idea to add this website to the external links. It would fit to this article and would be a appropriate information for the users who read this article. It is a website fully dedicated to SpaceX, so I think it should be added here.
Do you agree? :) ColdCase (talk) 19:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I would not include it as a reference, but I don't mind it as an "external link".BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

That's what I ment ;) ColdCase (talk) 22:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe someday, but I do not think it is ready yet. After the chat/forum thing is finished and it gets more posts than NASASpaceFlight.com on launch day, I will reconsider my objection. Also, external links need to be useful to a wide variety of readers, not just SpaceX fanatics. Wronkiew (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Article structure

The article seems somehow mis-structured. I can't find a place to add a sentence about this important, relevant and notable bit of news. (Now, if I wanted to add a comment about a two-second long event during the flight 3 countdown, I could find a place for that! ;-) (sdsds - talk) 06:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. The article's poor structure is mainly my fault, sorry (I was posting updates throughout the launch attempt). I've removed the timeline and linked with Template:Main to Falcon 1#First operational flight attempt, where the same timeline is also present (which someone has cleaned up & formatted nicely). --J. Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 13:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Added info about the investment to SpaceX: Background. --J. Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 14:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Messagebox Question

The messagebox at the top of this article mentions "This article contains information regarding a LSP that is..." but LSP wasn't an abbreviation I was familiar with and wasn't defined in the article. Might hyperlink the abbreviation to the Wikipedia page: Launch Service Provider — DanDawson (talk) 02:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

SpaceX in a Post-Constellation world for NASA

Now that NASA has announced a new (post-Constellation) direction for their plans to get humans into Earth-orbit,(Private Spaceflight Goes Public, Alan Boyle, MSNBC Cosmic Log, 2010-02-01; many other sources will be published this week) and the Obama Administration is backing the new policy in the just-released budget proposal, what is SpaceX saying about how this may change things for SpaceX? (which should, subsequently, be reflected in this Wikipedia article.) N2e (talk) 16:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

In Wikipedia we cannot venture into speculation, so we'll to wait for new developments to be reported. Cheers, --BatteryIncluded (talk) 21:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. I worded my question poorly. I have edited the question, above. I want to know what SpaceX is saying about this change in government policy, and how that will/may affect their plans. Only then, and only when we have verifiable sources, should we edit this article to reflect that development. N2e (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Falcon 9 section: Cost per pound in Falcon 5?

There is a reference to the projected cost per pound of cargo in the Falcon 5, but earlier it was stated that the Falcon 5 had been abandoned, so this is confusing. Would someone (who knows more than I) fix this? I might just delete the sentence; the ones before and after flow well enough. But that would leave out the cost per pound (actual? projected?) of the Falcon 1. Plus, I just don't know enough to mess with it. --Everything Else Is Taken (talk) 13:34, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Falcon 5 was canceled quite a while back. I think even the Falcon 9 and Falcon 1 pricing is somewhat outdated. The price for a LEO mission on Falcon 9 with 80% or more of the capacity to the consumer orbit is $51.5 million and the payload for a Cape Canaveral launch is 10,450 kg, so: $51.5 million / (10,450 kg * 0.8) = $6,160.29/kg or $2,794.26054 kg/lb. That's a very rough estimate and I'm not an expert, but it gives you an idea of the price per kilogram. For Falcon 1e, the yet to be launched upgrade of Falcon 1, which is the only Falcon 1 price given: $10.9 million / 1,010 kilograms = $10,792.08/kg or $4,895.17/lb. --Jatkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 20:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Context

Wikipedia needs context for this article relating to 'Private Industry in Space Flight', most probably in a separate article. It's a very discussed matter, the "NASA vs Private money" and sources should be a lot. --195.74.255.52 (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

We already have private spaceflight, commercialization of space, alt.space, and NewSpace :-). --Jatkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 20:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent news media articles

Here are two interesting, fairly thorough, SpaceX/Musk sources (August 2010):

• Elon Musk: 'I'm planning to retire to Mars', guardian.co.uk, 2010-08-01, accessed 2010-08-01.
• Entrepreneur Elon Musk On Weathering the CEO Storm, Business News Daily, 2010-08-02, accessed 2010-08-04.

Several facts about Falcon 1, Falcon 9, SpaceX, Dragon, including the origin of the names for Falcon and Dragon, could be sourced from these articles as well. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

Today I went to visit the place and made some pics. I would say some could be used to illustrate this page, or the Falcon or Dragon ones. Pics are Creative Commons attribution, so I'd be honored to provide them. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasonurb/sets/72157625359251768/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brunosan (talk • contribs) 05:26, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for making them available under a free license. I've uploaded several of the best to Wikimedia Commons, so they can be shared across all Wikimedia projects (Wikipedias in other languages, Wiktionary, etc.), and added two File:SpaceX Dragon.jpg and File:Entrance to SpaceX headquarters.jpg to this article.

The rest I've uploaded are:

• File:Merlin rocket engines.jpg
• File:SpaceX factory.jpg
• File:Astronaut signatures at SpaceX.jpg

Thanks again.

--Jatkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 21:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Falcon 9 Heavy

There is a prominent column of information in the Launcher versions table for the Falcon 9 Heavy launcher. However, I can find no information in the body of the article that specifically explicates the nature and characteristics of this particular version. I can find a few (more vague) mentions of "heavy" rocket development thinking going back to 2004. I believe this will need to be cleaned up. N2e (talk) 05:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The Heavy is a falcon 9 with two extra first stages strapped to either side, much like the architecture of the Delta IV Heavy. No flights planned as yet. It's different to the X and XX mentioned above, and this should possibly be better explained in the article.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The reference is right there at the bottom of the table ([3]), along with the refs for the F1 and F9. It is in the same state as the Atlas V Heavy: they have designed the current core stages for the Heavy configuration loads, but are awaiting a customer to actually fly it. --IanOsgood (talk) 16:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ian for finding the citation, adding text to the article, and updating a lot of the specs in the table. I think it is important to source the tables a bit more specifically so, in keeping with Wikipedia core policy of verifiability, readers can easily verify the claims, and the table data doesn't change over time without the source changing. N2e (talk) 18:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

list of articles

This list of articles has been tagged for 5 months with concerns about it being incorporated into the article as footnotes. Any issue with removing the section ? The article is already pretty well footnoted so this section is essentially a link farm.--RadioFan (talk) 11:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

LockMart Institute attack

Somebody (most likely with the initials L.M.) paid the Lexington Institute to put out a hit piece on SpaceX

http://www.spacenews.com/commentaries/110505-lexington-institute-takes-spacex.html

Are the charges well founded enough to include here? Hcobb (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

And SpaceX response: http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2011/05/24/spacex-responds-to-forbes-contributor-loren-thompson/ Hcobb (talk) 01:56, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Thompson's comments so political in nature and based on such faulty logic that it's not worth mentioning here. I would hope that someone writing about the aerospace industry would know which administration that initiated the push towards commercializing LEO. Thompson's report was political and the response was equally political. I dont think it has much place here.--RadioFan (talk) 02:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Surrey

In the article you say that Space-X purchased a share of Surrey. But since then it seems to me that this share has been sold by Space-X when EADS Astrium purchased surrey ? Hektor (talk) 16:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I've tagged it for update. Do you have a source for the sale? N2e (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• From Surrey Satellite Technology: It then agreed to sell its majority share (roughly 80% of the capital) to EADS Astrium in April 2008.

So, I'm gonna pull the "dated" tag. It seems that SpaceX sill owns a minority share (I can't find any coverage of them selling, so... <shrug>).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge of Falcon X and Falcon XX articles into SpaceX

Deletion nominations were recently made for both the Falcon X and Falcon XX articles. The result of both nominations was a consensus to merge the appropriate content into this article, SpaceX. The archived results of the AfD discussions is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falcon X and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falcon XX.

As of 2010-09-16, the Falcon X content has been merged, and Falcon X redirects here. The Falcon XX material has yet to be merged, but I expect it will be in the next week or two. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The merge has been completed, and merge headers have been added to the bottom of the header section at the top of this Talk page with all the appropriate reference information. Thanks go to User:StuffOfInterest for handling most of the merge work. N2e (talk) 21:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

While I understand the need to merge these articles, they should have been merged into a parent article on the Falcon series rather than SpaceX. This article is getting unwieldy. The sections on the other Falcons are too long as well especially since each has it's own dedicated article. Any comments on creating Falcon (rocket family), merging the X and XX sections there, most of the detail in this article on the Falcon 1, 5 and 9 and leaving behind a paragraph or two in a single Falcon section? These sections are just going to get bigger and more difficult to maintain.--RadioFan (talk) 11:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Falcon XX heavy ?? Useles speculation and rocket fetishism. How about Falcon XXX with 1000Mt LEO and antimatter upper stage? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.248.202.81 (talk) 15:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Iron Man 2

The scenes with Hammer's Factory were filmed at in this company's headquarters in Hawthorne. Is this something that could be added?--HiroProtagonist 19:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiroProtagonist (talk • contribs)

If you've got a reliable source, it could potentially be worked in. Probably trivial in the overall scheme of the company though; that sort of thing would be better off at the film's article IMO.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 22:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Falcon 9 Merged Missions

I'm unsure of how to properly edit articles. However, there is some outdated information in this article. In the "Falcon 9" section of the article it ends with there are two more upcoming flights for the Falcon 9, flights 3 and 4. As seen here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COTS_Demo_Flight_2 - SpaceX had NASA agree to combine the missions for flights 3 and 4 into just one flight, not two. Can someone please update? Andrewv067 (talk) 03:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Updated, thanks for pointing this out! Scampioen (talk) 16:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

SpaceX new reusable Falcon 9 launch vehicle

Here, according to the LA Times: SpaceX says it's developing the first fully reusable rocket, 29 Sep 2011

This is a full-blown reusable Falcon 9 RLV, both stages, apparently much more than the "Grasshopper" empty first-stage tank and single Merlin 1D test vehicle that will be used in Texas for testing, per paperwork filed with the FAA and mentioned in the previous section on this Talk page. N2e (talk) 02:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Next-day coverage of the new project has appeared in a number of media outlets, which will provide decent sources for any improvements to the article:

• MSNBC
• Washington Post

“I wasn’t sure it could be solved, for a while, but then I think just relatively recently — probably in the last 12 months or so — I’ve come to the conclusion that it can be solved and I think SpaceX is going to try to do it,” Musk said. “Now, we could fail — I’m not saying we are certain of success here — but we are going to try to do it. And we have a design that on paper — doing the calculations, doing the simulations — it does work,” he added. “Now we need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree, because generally when they don’t reality wins.”

on costs:

Musk said a Falcon 9 costs about $50 million to $60 million but the cost of fuel and oxygen for a launch is only about $200,000. “So obviously if we can reuse the rocket, say a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket per launch only about $50,000,” he said. Musk did not detail a timeline or cost for development. “If it does work it’ll be pretty huge,” he said.

• Bloomberg
• Agence France Press
• Florida Today (a newspaper with a substantive "space" desk; so might be considered part of the "space press")
• SpaceX Unveils Plan for World's First Fully Reusable Rocket, Space.com

Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

SpaceX new VTVL suborbital rocket: Grasshopper

Lots of news out this week about the new VTVL reusable launch vehicle suborbital test rocket from SpaceX, named Grasshopper.

• MSNBC
• Slashdot
• The Register, UK
• Satellite.com — "The vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 first stage tank, a single Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs and a support structure, plus other pressurization tanks attached to the support structure, according to the FAA application document. It will stand at 106 feet tall, and use the Merlin-1D's primary fuel and oxidizer, RP1 kerosene and liquid oxygen."

"Testing of Grasshopper will take up to three years, and will require the construction of a launch pad and other support infrastructure at McGregor, SpaceX's current rocket engine test facility. SpaceX may run up to 70 suborbital launches per year, with the number assuming both potential multiple launches per day and potential launch failures."

I do not have the time to abstract this and potentially add it to the article at the present time, but did think others would want to know, and perhaps use the info to improve Wikipedia -- Cheers, N2e (talk) 22:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• More here, from Discovery News SpaceX to Build 'Grasshopper' Rocket — "The rocket is likely a test to chase the elusive holy grail for rocket scientists -- reusable launchers." N2e (talk) 04:34, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

• "Tim Hughes of SpaceX notes that they expect ... first test of F9 reusability tech demonstrator (Grasshopper) in 1st quarter of next year." N2e (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done I have now updated the article text with a brief summary of the Grasshopper RLV test vehicle. N2e (talk) 19:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Air-launched large rocket is now under development

On December 13, 2011, SpaceX announced that it would develop a 220,000 kilograms (490,000 lb) air-launched rocket as part of the Stratolaunch Systems project. Stratolaunch is funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan is involved in concept development for the world's largest wingspan aircraft; Allen and Rutan had previously collaborated on the creation of SpaceShipOne. I have made an initial update to the article with this info. N2e (talk) 01:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Split to Falcon (rocket family)

A recent split of the launcher table and development vehicles to Falcon (rocket family) was reverted because it was too large a change without discussion. I hereby vote for the split as it was implemented. The Falcon rockets are indeed a family with lots of shared technology, and there are enough of them to warrant a new article. And I think it is a good idea to shrink this article and reduce duplication by moving details from the SpaceX article to the rocket family article. --IanOsgood (talk) 16:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Old news articles section

Here are the news articles that were in the old article section. These were not incorporated into the main article as inline citations, so I moved them here in case they are needed for later research. Otherwise they should be deleted if not used.

• Rincon, Paul (December 30, 2008). "Private firms to haul ISS cargo". BBC.
• Dinkin, Sam (February 27 – March 13, 2006). "A tour/interview of SpaceX". The Space Review. Parts 2, 3,4
• Cowing, Keith (March 6, 2006). "The SpaceX Dragon: America's First Privately Financed Manned Orbital Spacecraft?". SpaceRef.
• Wayne, Leslie (February 5, 2006). "A bold plan to go where men have gone before". New York Times.
• Bergin, Chris (January 20, 2006). "Interview with Elon Musk and VP of Development Operations". NasaSpaceFlight.com.
• Foust, Jeff (November 14, 2005). "Big plans for SpaceX". The Space Review.
• Lemley, Brad (September 2005). "Shooting the Moon". Discover. SpaceX.
• "Space X, with video interviews". ScienCentral News. August 12, 2005.
• David, Leonard (August 12, 2005). "SpaceX Private Rocket Shifts to Island Launch". Space.com.
• Ray, Justin (May 27, 2005). "Privately-made Falcon 1 rocket roars on the pad". Spaceflight Now.
• David, Leonard (May 23, 2005). "Private rocketeer looks to August flight". Space.com.
• Scully, Janene (April 27, 2005). "Small firm fired up to test new rocket". Santa Maria Times.
• Reingold, Jennifer (February 2005). "Hondas in Space". Fast Company.
• Ray, Justin (January 20, 2005). "SpaceX starting small as it dreams of grand plans". Spaceflight Now.
• Livingston, David. "Broadcast interviews with Elon Musk about SpaceX". The Space Show.

End of articles.--Abebenjoe (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by the comment above. Where did these sources come from? Could you be more clear about that? —N2e (talk) 21:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

These are not my sources, these were in a section of an earlier version of the main article, which were not part of any inline reference. I just copied and pasted them here so they are not completely orphaned, if someone needs to use them in this article. If not useful, they can be deleted from here as well.Abebenjoe (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

manned vs. crewed

A change from "manned spacecraft" to "crewed spacecraft" has been reverted. Perhaps in the future this change will be appropriate but we aren't there yet. A google news search on the 2 phrases shows that the former phrase is used about 6-7 times as often in the news and about 4 times as often in published books. Space agencies generally use "manned" when referring to their human spaceflight programs.--RadioFan (talk) 18:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

"Crewed" was a rush on my part, as the article uses "human-rated" because that is also the language that SpaceX uses. As well, it is in keeping with WP:Gender stylistics. "Manned" should only be used if it is a direct quote by someone.Abebenjoe (talk) 19:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I this is based on SpaceX sources that would be perfectly reasonable, however neither mentioned of "crewed" is referenced. The first mention of "crewed" should also be wikilinked to human spaceflight to help clarify that manned, crewed, human crew, etc. are all the same thing. Crewed can be confuesed to mean multiple humans for example.--RadioFan (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Date and time formatting inconsistent

Can we come to a consensus on what the date and time format is? Currently there's about three in the main article, and more in the references. WP standard is day, month, year; but that does not have to be the case per se. I prefer it, but usually the format is decided either by which was used first in the article, or consensus on the talk page. I strongly recommend — for the reference section only — that they be just the numeric YYYY/MM/DD to keep the citations from taking up too much space, as the citations can have a different date format from the main body text. Time formatting seems to be in ET, EDT, EST, GMT, and UTC (basically the same thing as GMT). Standardizing the date time formats would be a step in the right direction to making this eventually a 'B'-class or 'Good' article. Thoughts? Comments? Questions?--Abebenjoe (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer DD Month YYYY in both main text and references for consistency and maintainability. The mixed style is much less convenient, because automatic tools don't handle it well. Conversely, if the style is consistent, I could convert all the dates in the article by one mouse click. As for citations taking much space, a lot of other pages with many more references use this style and it seems that there's no problem. Consequently there shouldn't be problems for us too.

As for the time format, I think that we should get rid of that information entirely, since it is quite unimportant and reduces readability (at least in prose). The only relevant information, which can be extracted by the reader, is the length of some operation. So another sensible solution might be something like this: "The rocket has been launched on DD Month YYYY. It entered the orbit XX minutes after launch" (note, doing this isn't WP:OR per WP:CALC). What do you think? 1exec1 (talk) 18:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll weigh in on the date format question only. I think keeping the dates closer to the ISO standard yyyy-mm-xx is best, especially for references. If per WP:MOS they ought to be different than all numeric date format in the prose, then I will support whatever the MOS specs for the in-prose dates. As for the time question, I'm agnostic. N2e (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOSNUM says that either Month DD, YYYY ( Month DD in short form) or DD Month YYYY ( DD Month in short form) are acceptable for prose. For references, it says that either YYYY-MM-DD or the format used for prose are acceptable. Other all-numeric formats such as YYYY/MM/DD or DD/MM/YYYY are not allowed. See also section on citation style. To sum up, WP:MOS doesn't prefer either of the formats for references. My own opinion is that using the same format as in prose offers consistency and maintainability, so I support this option.1exec1 (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. If WP:MOSNUM says that "either Month DD, YYYY ( Month DD in short form) or DD Month YYYY ( DD Month in short form) are acceptable for prose," then I support the more internationally sensible DD Month YYYY over the alternative. I continue to think that ISO standard yyyy-mm-xx is best for references. I remain agnostic on how to handle the time issue, and will leave other editors to work that out. N2e (talk) 23:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that using time breaches WP:OR, but it might start getting a little bit tedious if excessively used. Space launch articles routinely use specific times, because they are reported as such both in the media, or by the Space Agency/Company that launches them, thereby making them relevant. For a general article like this, getting into too much detail regarding each aspect of each flight, is beyond the scope of this article and should be modified. I think all launch times should be included in UTC format, which will make all the dates consistent as well, since SpaceX's first launches were in the Pacific Ocean near the International dateline.--Abebenjoe (talk) 19:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

As for citation formatting, I prefer YYYY-MM-DD for a few reasons: a) it is much faster to type eight digits and two hyphens than it is a fully spelled out month and digits (sometimes this information must be inputted four-times in the citation template generator); b) In the past, and maybe now, when this method was utilized, a user's browser preference switched the date format into their regional preferences automatically (this does not work for me anymore, but it did in the past); c) as mentioned before it takes up less space producing a less cluttered, more readable citation; but is also allows for precedence, i.e., it is easier to sort citations with the year first displayed, followed by the month and day (although how many readers may find that useful is questionable, but I do). In my experience, one format for the prose section, and one for the citations and bibliography sections causes little confusion. Since I seem to be the one doing most of the citation maintenance, it would make my work easier if we maintained YYYY-MM-DD for citations only.--Abebenjoe (talk) 19:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

No sense of perspective here

This article is another wiki of cobbled together press statements. State of the art is that we cannot be sure to land a robot the size of a hubcap safely on Mars. And yet all this razzle-dazzle about crewed flights to Mars is trotted out here like it's anywhere near likely to ever happen. Jeez!81.178.147.26 (talk) 09:29, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Source for current (March 2012) SpaceX statement about the technical capabilities and costs of missions to Mars

This BBC interview with BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos contains substantial additional details from Elon Musk about the technical possibilities (physics) and current projections of costs (economics) of SpaceX missions to Mars; it also provides a timeframe: no sooner than ten years but likely before 20 years. Significant and audacious statements. Whether someone thinks any of this is possible or not, this source will certainly be a valid Wikipedia source for supporting the history of such claims by SpaceX/Musk in the future. Mars for the 'average person', Jonathan Amos, BBC News, 20 Mar 2012. I believe, but am not certain, that this is the first news source with this degree of specificity on the SpaceX Mars transport thinking. And I should perhaps point out that Musk is fairly careful to clarify that just because something is technically possible (physics) does not mean that the task WILL be carried out. So I did not read this, or hear the interview, as Musk stating emphatically that SpaceX would be carrying humans to Mars in nn years for $dd. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:15, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

And here is another secondary source, from a mainline media magazine. The magazine Nature has picked the story up, and provides detail about the Mars plans. Backing up the biosphere, Nature, 7 Apr 2012. N2e (talk) 04:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"Privately funded"?

Given the huge NASA contracts and awards, the key description as 'privately funded' seems inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.122.94 (talk) 11:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 13:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, 76.172.122.94, it's not. The "key description as 'privately funded'" is pretty accurate in that the first hundred million bucks of development, and the creation of the company was all Elon Musk, and another hundred million was from SpaceX VC investors. In addition to the c. $200 million private funding, some specific development $$$ were paid by NASA for specific cargo vehicle characteristics that NASA wanted for cargo vehicles to take cargo to the ISS, and later about $75 million (to date) for specific development of crew carrying capabilities that NASA wanted SpaceX to develop. Most of the other $$$ paid to SpaceX by NASA are merely the payments to date for buying two launches of a medium-class launch vehicle (these typically cost >$100 million per launch, although SpaceX prices to NASA are, I believe, quite a bit lower (per pound of payload) than the United Launch Alliance sells launches of its' flagship launch vehicles, the Atlas V and the Delta IV), or for partial payments for future cargo launches (12 of them under contract) where, due to US accounting rules on long-lead-time capital-intensive products, it has been usual for years in (even the commercial satellite) launch industry to pay substantial progress payments to the manufacturer beginning two years prior to the nominal launch date. So SpaceX may have some hundred-millions of NASA money, but by far, most of it is merely payments for specific launch services, either already flown, or with launch vehicles in production, and a much smaller part of it is government-paid costs for SpaceX to develop specific product characteristics that the government wanted.

So you can't really count the purchase of specific SpaceX launches by NASA as government funding of the development of SpaceX's launch vehicles, the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9. This is all documented in a great many sources. Hope this is helpful to you. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:17, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The Falcon 9 was not privately developed, and SpaceX doesn't claim it was. It was developed partially with private funds, and partially with NASA seed money. The Falcon Heavy is being privately developed, but it is based on the Falcon 9, so it can't be said to be completely privately developed either. However, the Falcon 1 was fully privately developed, with no government funding whatsoever.— Gopher65_talk 15:50, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Co-founder Tom Mueller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdvv8qIl_WI At about 0:20 seconds onward. Worth a mention as one of the 'key people' along with Gwynne and Elon? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeavyQuark (talk • contribs) 18:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that video is a good overview of the McGregor rocket test facilities as well. Thanks for sharing the link. N2e (talk) 20:43, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

MCT

No information about MCT rocket — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.23.9.210 (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look and found this from October 2012. Comparing that to Red Dragon (spacecraft) I would hazard a guess that the MCT >7m diameter rocket concept may have given way to the low-cost Red Dragon. I'm no expert though. Perhaps if you know something about it you could insert the information yourself, or provide links/references here for others to use. Unfortunately, just stating that there's 'No information about MCT rocket' isn't very helpful. nagualdesign (talk) 21:15, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Red Dragon was mentioned long before MCT. Also, as far as I've been able to gather, MCT is a rocket engine, and that doesn't necessarily lead to a rocket (it could be something along the lines of the old Merlin 2, which could have replaced the 9 engines on a Falcon 9 with a single large engine). Given the rumoured size of the engine, it *could* be used as a component in a giant rocket that's 7-10 meters in diameter with a 150-200 tonne payload to LEO, but since everything we "know" about this engine/rocket is just wild speculation, I don't think there should be a large section on this page. — Gopher65_talk 03:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Founding of company

I'm just wary of the inconsistency of the article concerning its founders, in the founder(s) section it list only Elon Musk, but in the Key People section it also lists Tom Mueller.

I guess it's matter of opinion whether you think Tom Mueller is a co-founder. I personally do, as in an interview at SpaceX he said that Elon approached him and said 'If i had the investment money all ready, could you build me some rockets'. This shows in a sense that he is a co-founder because Elon was unable to build the rockets therefore needed Tom to successfully launch the company.

Founding employee would be the correct term.

I will edit accordingly.

-Charlie — Preceding unsigned comment added by CHARLIEPHILLIPS00 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Links

>> Billionaire Musk Gets Brownsville to Pay for SpaceX (Lihaas (talk) 17:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)).

"Privately funded"?

This statement in the funding section of this article rings hollow when NASA is spending billions of tax payer dollars on contracts to SpaceX. Even Elon Musk himself has made the point that when U.S. government agencies pay for services like space transportation it is tax payers footing the bill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DhU57CJzhU His point in this video being that tax payers are paying for Russian rockets and those payments are likely benefiting an individual that legally should not be benefitting. There are reliable sources that specifically mention that NASA funds SpaceX namely Discovery.com and the BBC. If Musk himself is making the point that tax payers are funding these services then why is this article shying away from that fact? The first line is rather incongruous with the rest of that section where NASA funding is spelled out. I BOLDly made the edit yesterday to bring this article more in line with reality but was seemingly begrudgingly reverted by User:Andyjsmith. I note on this talk page that I am not the first to note this incongruity. What is the issue here? 81.64.167.10 (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

First off, thank you for bringing this up on the talk page:). Discussion is always helpful when two editors have differing opinions on how an article's content should be presented.

As to your issue with the article, it's possible that your claim that the current phrasing has political spin to it is valid. I currently have no opinion on the matter. However, your replacement phrasing had a distinct political slant to it, and the political slant was much, much stronger on the replacement phrasing than on the original. I'm not American (and thus not as into their politics as some others here might be), but it certainly felt to me like that phrasing was pushing a libertarian agenda. No agenda pushing is allowed on Wikipedia. Neither liberal nor conservative, and not socialist or libertarian. People somethings slip things in that they shouldn't, but on average we try and keep things neutral. I wasn't the one who reverted that edit, but that would be my guess as to why it was reverted. If you - or anyone else for that matter - can think up a replacement sentence that is more accurate and less bias than the original, post it to this talk page. Normally you can just go ahead and change things like this, but since this is (apparently?) a contentious part of the article, let's talk about changes to this sentence before we make any more changes.

Now that I've re-read the opening paragraph, I suppose it has a slight pro-corporate conservative slant to it, but it isn't strong enough to ring my internal bias alarm bells. What does everyone else think? Chime in please. — Gopher65_talk 00:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• AFAIK SpaceX set up shop entirely on the basis of private sector money. Now they have some government contracts. Good for them. That puts them in the same position as any other company that successfully bids for public sector contracts. It's a narrow and pedantic distinction that has little or no merit. They are obviously a privately funded company. andy (talk) 07:55, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Valuation

As of today, 2014/08/19, SpaceX is apparently valued at ~10 billion US dollars. Source — Gopher65_talk 20:24, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Annnnnd SpaceX promptly denied that that story is true: Source — Gopher65_talk 15:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

SpaceX Falcon 9 test failure.

Requesting input on failure of a SpaceX Falcon 9 test failiure on 24/08/2014. (signed later; this comment was at 2014-08-24T11:32:42‎ and was made by 109.149.133.171)

That is already covered, in the more detailed articles on Grasshopper (rocket) and on the SpaceX reusable launch system development program. It was the fifth test flight of the low-altitude, suborbital, F9R Dev1 prototype test vehicle, and occurred two days ago, on 22 Aug 2014. See those articles for more info, and sources that the Wikipedia article statements are based on, as well as context for how that flight test fits into the overall objectives of SpaceX and developing technology for reusable rockets. N2e (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Launch market competition and pricing pressure

Most of the content in this section is Wikipedia:Out of scope focusing purely on Arianespace and the history of it's pricing policies. No other launch provider is mentioned in a whole section. Only one other rocket is mentioned - Long March 3B.

It doesn't mention anything about SpaceX place in the commercial launch market (even though header clearly suggests that), doesn't list major competitors, nor provide any information about commercial market share (eg. Arianespace increased it's market share to 60% even despite of SpaceX competition, per "Europe's Arianespace Claims 60% Of The Commercial Launch Market". 9 September 2014. Retrieved 11 September 2014.). There is no mention of market concerns about SpaceX (eg. lack of experience, high failure rate, eg. 1), problems with certification for US DoD contracts, lack of added value to the launch contracts, overestimations of Falcon capabilities during it's design stage which is most likely repeated in current US$5−7 million figures, upcoming competition from a new launchers, etc, etc.

How this section looks like now is that: SpaceX = cheapest and the best. Arianespace = overpriced, soon to extinct. There's very little about actual global "launch market competition and pricing pressure" in relation to SpaceX.

Suggestion: Either change section title to "SpaceX relations with Arianespace" and add content balancing the section so that it wouldn't be pure SpaceX POV, or remove most of the existing content and write a proper, on-topic section so that it wouldn't be blandly out of scope. SkywalkerPL (talk) 12:39, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

In any case, Arianespace has updated its prices in response to SpaceX, so they're no longer 2x the price of SpaceX. They're a bit more, but they're trading on their good reputation, saying that they are worth more, due to reliability. I think most of the existing content is a bit out of date. That's true on several areas of this page though, not just this section. — Gopher65_talk 23:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Section can definitely be improved, as can much of Wikipedia, but it is not out of scope. Many in the space industry, and many media, are commenting on how SpaceX has had (is having?) this competitive effect, and pricing pressure effect, on the industry as a whole.

My own sense is that Arianespace is mentioned more than the Russian commercial launch offerings simply because there are likely more sources covering that aspect, and Arinespace has made specific verifiable statements as a company about how they are responding to the competitive pressure (lowering the price of the smaller of the two GEO commsats that Ariane 5 is capable of launching, responding to requests by the European satellite makers, etc.). Russian industry statements have been much less public, although the entire Russian industry is undergoing a shakeup; but much less has been said that would tie that as a response to SpaceX, so Wikipedia cannot say as much about that.

Coming soon: with the 17 Sep 2014 announcement by United Launch Alliance to develop a new methane-fueled booster for an Atlas launch vehicle derivative (with a couple of the new BE-4 engines), with a specific goal of "low-cost" and "high reliability", I would guess we will soon have more sources on the ULA response to the competitive pressure that SpaceX has brought into the market. But again, Wikipedia cannot (yet) report what hasn't been written and explicated in reliable sources. But I would expect more here soon, as editors read those coming articles, and update this article section.

As it stands, this section scope is clearly about SpaceX effect on the larger commercial launch market; not merely Arianespace.

So in the meantime, what specific changes do you propose right now? N2e (talk) 11:30, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

As it stands it's 90% Arianespace and 10% everyone else, being very generous to how much content was devoted to all of the other competitors. Even if you'd go by market share - it should be 60% focus on Arianespace and 40% focus on everyone else, though preferably an equal attention should be paid to all of the competitors, not just Russians as you suggest.

I would remove vast majority of content from this section, perhaps move it to Arianespace#Competition and pricing (it'll need to be verified later on), and describe basically what you said just here - a paragraph focused specifically on a SpaceX vs Arianespace instead of writing a chapter of Arianespace history as it is now. Write additional content about other competitors, market share, etc (refer to my previous comment). Perhaps also add some content about competition for a crewed launches (eg. Boeing winning contract for delivering passengers to the first commercial space station (by Bigelow) - quite a large milestone that was missed by SpaceX).

Also try to make an article content actually a content instead of gathering numerous direct, inline quotes from external websites (which often aren't even a quotes from people in the industry but rather just a journalists). Refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotations and Wikipedia:Quotations.

Whatever sources are reliable and content is verifiable is discussable (Space News got rather... bumpy record in regard of non-US launchers and good half of this whole section is based purely on this one website - IMHO Space News never should be used as the only source of information, it more than often represents an opinion of Peter B. de Selding more than anyone else). To give you an example, article says: "They have indicated that they are playing the lower prices they can get from SpaceX against Arianespace in negotiation for launch contracts" - when text in SpaceNews article used as a source for this paragraph is "suggesting that Eutelsat would be playing SpaceX off of Arianespace for its coming satellite-launch orders" - which is clearly an interpretation of mr. Peter Selding and got nothing to deal with what actually happened. SkywalkerPL (talk) 14:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

So it would seem that some of those changes are the kind that editors may make pretty freely. E.g, if the prose has too much of a quotation from a source for your taste, feel free to rewrite it and avoid the quotation.

On the broader topic, Wikipedia uses the sources it has. These sources we have identify the pricing pressure coming into the market from SpaceX, and mostly focus on the European competition, and a little on the Russian competition. This is, it seems, appropriate. The American main line launch provider in recent decades (ignoring SpaceX) is ULA, and they have not had more than a few (or any?) commercial launch contracts in many years. So it is expected that the section will talk more about the providers who have more of the existing business, and that has been Arianespace and Proton. On Proton, I would guess we might see fewer sources since perhaps a larger percentage of them might be written in Russian, but I don't know the trades on that. As it is then, more of the verifiable info we have to date is about Arianespace, but that is no reason not to search for more on the Russian commercial offerings as they may have been affected by this newfound competition. So let's add that other info you suggest. N2e (talk) 20:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

New news. I said that we as Wikipedia editors have to use the sources we have, not the ones we might want. Well a new one just fell into our lap, and may address some of the Arianespace-centric concern you have. The new CEO of ULA has given an exclusive interview in the town where ULA is headquartered (Denver), and that source indicates ULA will be doing a restructuring in order to halve launch costs, and competition form SpaceX is listed as one of the proximate causes. I've updated the article section we've been discussing with the new info. N2e (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

This discussion has gone awfully quiet. It does not appear that a consensus was achieved that the market competition section should be removed from, nor is out-of-scope for, the SpaceX article. Is anyone interested in discussing this further, or see the consensus differently? If not, it's probably time to remove the section tag from the article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed the tag now. Rationale: no consensus that the section does not apply and should be removed; nor is there a consensus that the topic is out of scope for the broader SpaceX article. N2e (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you're supposed to remove a tag merely because there isn't a consensus it should stay. The tag serves to indicate worry on the part of at least one editor. I believe we're supposed to keep it until there is a positive consensus it is unjustified. That said, trying to remove the tag to see if anyone objects is allowed. So, no objection to your deletion, just some concern about the motivation. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:58, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, removing the tag is fine, and if someone objects they would logically just revert (per WP:BRD) and then come and join the discussion. It just seems that 1) the subject section of the article now has much more info about the worldwide competition picture than it did when the OP originally articulated the concern above: specifically, several specific competitive reactions of ULA are now included since major space media and general media sources are now writing on that. So it is not clear that the original problem still exists. 2) I'm not sure you are right on "don't think you're supposed to remove a tag merely because there isn't a consensus it should stay." However, I certainly would not push the issue. If anyone has concerns, and reverts, then I would happily remove myself from any closing action on this particular issue, and simply request an outside/univolved closer to review it next time around. So I think we are largely in agreement: okay to remove the tag given the long/thorough discussion, and we'll see if someone wants to object and continue the discussion. N2e (talk) 13:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The section looks quite a bit better than it did. I've paged the thread's OP maker. We'll see if xe likes it. — Gopher65_talk 01:56, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

style of some text looks biased in favour of founder

Some of the phrasing such as "Historic achievements by SpaceX...' has a promotionnel style that could cast doubt on the neutrality of the authors. This is an overall impression from the "atmosphere" of the article. As an european wikipedian, I prefer to let others evaluate my remark and edit the article if they think this is justified.

Founding_and_growth

SpaceX was founded in June 2002 by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, because he wanted to do more with his wealth than just retire or do philanthropy...

If we are quoting a third party, then that is the person to be quoted as saying what he said he wanted to do. This gives more credibility to the statement. If the phrase is word-for-word from an interview, just adding quote marks would look fine.

His vision was to build a simple and relatively inexpensive reusable rocket

Shouldn't we say "his objective" or "he described his vision", because his "vision" would be a personnal expression of his own thoughts. From vision to visionnary is just one step. As I understand it, The Wikipedian should give a neutral view and may only say what the founder is supposed to think.

Again, my suggestion is only to help the (maybe foreign) reader to be more trustful of the article. Paul Williams (talk) 17:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Tom Mueller - other founder

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

As stated in the Elon Musk article under "SpaceX", "Musk co-founded his third company with rocket propulsion engineer Tom Mueller". Based on this sentence, Mueller should be added to the list as a founder under the main article of SpaceX. He is both a founder and the vice president of rocket propulsion engineering and design. UnbiasedVictory (talk) 01:47, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The only reference that's ever been cited to support the claim that Mueller was a co-founder rather than an original employee actually says nothing of the sort. I've removed the claim from the Musk article, and this one, until someone finds a proper reference. andy (talk) 07:12, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree. I've seen lots of references that say "Mueller was the first employee of SpaceX", but this is the only one that calls him a founder. This might be a situation where we have to wait for further clarification from SpaceX itself, because no one else would know enough to distinguish between "first employee" and "co-founded". I mean, the work done by those two positions is identical. It's really a matter of how SpaceX chooses to think about it.

Anyway, when you have one source that says "a", and 200 sources that say "b", you go with "b". That's what we've done here. — Gopher65_talk 12:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the latest reference (Popular Mechanics) doesn't seem to support the idea of Mueller being the co-founder either. As I understand it, a founder is the person who signs certain legal documents and provides initial funding to create a business. Mueller seems to have provided the expertise. Is there a US equivalent to Companies House with some public data that could be searched? nagualdesign 19:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I've reverted. The cited article makes no claim that he was a founder, refers to him as staff, and strongly implies that Musk founded SpaceX then met Mueller and hired him. Why are some people obsessed with promoting this guy? andy (talk) 21:30, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Not sure. Mueller is an awesome enough guy without claiming he did things he didn't do. He built rocket engines in his garage! I think this has more to do with disliking Musk and wanting to shift attention away from him. But if you wanted to do that, there are in fact several initial investors in SpaceX that could take partial credit for helping start up the company. Mueller just happens to be a convenient target within SpaceX because some people see him as having a "power behind the throne" kind of position. I don't think that's accurate, myself, but "Unbiased"Victory seems to. — Gopher65_talk 12:58, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The article page continues to get jerked around on this issue (latest changes and reverts in the past 24 hours). I think it may be useful to develop a Talk page consensus on the matter, so that the issue can be put to rest and not continue to frequently change what the encyclopedia says about SpaceX founder or founders.

User:UnbiasedVictory, User:Andyjsmith, User:nagualdesign, User_talk:Gopher65: Anyone care to summarize what they believe the consensus is (and gain buy in) or perhaps propose a consensus position for a WP:!vote period of discussion time? N2e (talk) 12:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

There is one user (UnbiasedVictory) that has been engaging in a multi-year long edit war to try and insert Tom Mueller as a founder. It doesn't matter what evidence is placed in from of him, it doesn't matter what arguments are presented, he just keeps coming back and edit warring. I'm surprised he hasn't got himself banned yet. Since it's one guy verses everyone else, I'd say that the matter was settled a long time ago, and that he just refuses to accept consensus. — Gopher65_talk 13:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be missing my point. Rather than (somewhat unclearly) refer to mountains of previous Talk page discussion over years where opinion favored a certain outcome, I'm arguing that it would be useful to explicitly develop a consensus, here, on this Talk page, now.

It doesn't really matter whether the proposal is to "add T Meuller as a founder" (and here's why), or the oppposite. Either way, a clear consensus developed here over a week or two, with a proposal and the usual "Support" and "Oppose" comments, will, when a non-involved editor comes in and closes the discussion, be a definitive determination. Any future changes to the article sans Talk page consensus, will simply be quickly reverted. No muss, no fuss. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

IMO there isn't much to discuss. It's about reliable sources supporting things, and since not even the source provided by UnbiasedVictory supports the theory/myth that Tom Mueller was a founder (clearly referring to him as staff hired by Musk) a claim that Mueller was a co-founder simply can't be added. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and should only include information that is supported by multiple reliable and verifiable third-party sources, and no consensus on a talk page can change that. Thomas.W ^talk 18:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

N2e is correct, let's just nip this in the bud (and refrain from ad hominem arguments):

Proposal

The article should not claim that Meuller was a co-founder without a reliable source to back it up. (This isn't part of the proposal, it's WP policy.) Since there has been some issue with reverting, I propose that any new reference that might be found to back up the claim should first be posted here on the talk page. Then we can all decide whether the source is reliable before editing the article. Please post Support or Oppose below and sign. Regards, nagualdesign 23:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. nagualdesign 23:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Ulflund (talk) 00:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Edited, I think Andy has a point. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support — I still don't think a vote is needed to deal with one person's unsupported opinion, but since we're voting this is certainly a reasonable suggestion. — Gopher65_talk 01:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support — it seems as though a preponderance of sources indicate that Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX. While Mueller was an early hire, and certainly a key hire where Musk was looking for real technical competence and serious propulsion development experience to lead the new SpaceX propulsion effort, I've only ever seen one source try to label Mueller as a co-founder. So in this case, we go with the preponderance of sources, and not the one-off. Coming back to the Talk page to discuss any future sources that indicate that Meuller as a co-founder seems an appropriate step. N2e (talk) 03:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - I reverted those edits without referring to anyone else and will continue to do so. But if I think that a reliable source has been posted then I will undo any reversions that other editors make if their reason is that the matter hasn't been discussed by the SpaceX Ladies' Knitting Circle. I don't need agreement or permission and neither does anyone else.

It's usually pretty obvious what's a reliable source and what's not - it's a rare case where a collective opinion is required. And in any case why on Earth do you think that someone with a bee in their bonnet about an issue such as this one, as more than one person has (3, apparently, unless they're all sock puppets) will pay any attention to your !vote? Get real! andy (talk) 07:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Andy, I'm not sure you voted correctly: "Support" is for removing Mueller as founder, "Oppose" is for adding him as founder. (It may not have been wise to word this proposal as a double-negative.) --IanOsgood (talk) 11:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• No, the proposal is that no source counts as reliable without a committee agreeing to it. andy (talk) 13:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment: It goes without saying that you can't add anything as controversial as Mueller being a co-founder of SpaceX without multiple reliable sources supporting it. So there's really no point in !voting about it (see also my previous post just above this proposal). Thomas.W ^talk 12:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• What if Musk himself said it? Or it was on the original paperwork? That's only one source. (Just messing with your head :) ) andy (talk) 13:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Andyjsmith: It takes more than that to mess with my head. Recommended reading: Wikipedia:reliable sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability, which are both official WP policy, not just recommendations. The section about "Responsibility for providing citations" in the verifiability policy is particularly recommended, both because it seems to be little known among editors on WP, and because it says "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be replaced without an inline citation to a reliable source", which means that any material that is challenged and isn't provided with a reliable source that directly supports the claims made, such as the repeatedly made edits claiming that Mueller is a co-founder, can be removed at sight. Thomas.W ^talk 13:47, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

A little bit more so as not to give anyone the impression that I didn't read the previous post, because I did read it but didn't feel there was a need to comment on it. But maybe there is, so here we go. If it was in the original paperwork or Musk had said it publicly, in the media,there would be multiple reliable third-party sources reporting it, so we would have multiple sources. Which we would use instead of the primary source, since secondary/third-party sources are preferred over primary sources. Thomas.W ^talk 14:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Sources list

Ok, I finally found a decent source for this, from 2011: source, LMU Magazine. Quote from Mueller himself: "So when Elon said (to me and another prospective employee), if you guys join, we’ll start the company, I signed on as one of the three cofounders."

I find it hard to reconcile "prospective employee" (talking about himself), and "signed on as one of three cofounders". Those aren't the same thing. So I think we're hitting the semantics argument here: what actually counts as a cofounder? This article indicates that, at the very least, Mueller was a founding employee of SpaceX, but it still doesn't clear up exactly whether or not he's legally a founder of the company. Really, I think we'll have to wait for clarification from SpaceX themselves on the timey-whimy legaliness involved, and who technically counts as a founder.

However, if Mueller is using the word founder the way we mean it here, that would indicate that not only are he and Musk both founders, but someone else is as well. — Gopher65_talk 01:26, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdvv8qIl_WI#t=20sec Tom Mueller claims "I am a co-founder of the company" the video is uploaded to the spacex youtube channel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.219.239.145 (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article size

The article has now exceeded 100,000 bytes in size. (was 101,419 bytes as of 2015-01-17T12:54:26‎ edit today).

I can see a few areas that could be abstracted and shrunk by copyediting to reflect summary information here, while leaving detail for other more appropriate articles, ensuring a pointer is left from the main SpaceX company article.

Here is an (evolving) list of sections where this might be profitably done. Others, feel free to add, and to help out with the copyediting. N2e (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Facilities —I will take this copyedit on, in the next few weeks. N2e (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Launch market competition and pricing pressure —I will take this copyedit on. N2e (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done Removed over 4000 bytes and left just a 3-paragraph summary of SpaceX effect on the global launch market. N2e (talk) 05:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

• Corporate governance. Based on the consensus in a previous Talk page section, it would appear that most of this section can go. A brief statement of how the entity is governed might be left simply because of the company's notability and its somewhat unusual governance (Musk owns more than 50% of the stock, I believe).N2e (talk) 00:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I once bought a book about Waddingtons (the UK's Parker Brothers) and was somewhat ticked off to find that instead of telling me the who, what, where, when and why of their board games it was all about the company's inception, management, growth, facilities and eventual takeover; their products were hardly mentioned except where they impacted on the business' history. On reflection however, that's correct. One could write a history of the games but that'd be a book of a different title. Seems to me the same is true here; the sections on "Space vehicles" and "Rocket engines" could simply disappear to be replaced by appropriate links in "See also", while retaining the brief existing mentions in the lead. -Arb. (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm not quite sure that total deletion of such material is the thing to do, nor would it be particularly compliant with wikipolicy in my view. I think it is quite appropriate to take the excessive detail out in this company overview article, and leave only a higher-level summary. Give me a bit of time and I'll demonstrate what I mean in the two sections I volunteered to do, above. N2e (talk) 23:44, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that the material should be somewhere in Wikipedia. But it need not necessarily be here; the linked articles are arguably better locations for it. Interestingly, Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Article composition guidelines is silent on products; what wikipolicy did you have in mind? -Arb. (talk) 02:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Corporate governance section removed

The section was unnecessary, lengthy, and could be summarized elsewhere. Wqwt (talk) 04:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Have restored it but using collapsible lists; trust this is agreeable to all. -Arb. (talk) 14:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

However, the Board contains rather too many {{citation needed}}; do any of the editors involved know the source for these names?. -Arb. (talk) 14:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• I recently had a very thorough look and could find very little. I suggest that we get rid of most of them. (a) is the info of any value and (b) is it even up to date? andy (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I concur with Wqwt and other sentiments expressed here. by Andyjsmith and Arb. Without citations being provided, after many months that the statements have been tagged, I think it is okay for an editor to just summarily remove the unsourced info, per WP:BURDEN, with or without extensive Talk page consensus. However, here it appears we have a consensus of four editors: none of us seem to think the section, as is, is useful in this encyclopedic summary of the company. Maybe leave a brief summary of company governance since the company is privately owned and Musk is, I believe, the majority shareholder. N2e (talk) 23:50, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Er, no, N2e, my point was that we need sources for the names in the Governance section not that it should be deleted. Take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies and in particular their Article content guidelines which include: "Lists in an article of current and former directors and executives of a company are desirable. A corporate governance section may be ideally suited to group this information." -Arb. (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, very sorry for misinterpreting your point. That's why we are discussing it here first. However, the point I made about sources for challenged statements still stands, so someone might remove the many unsourced board members just for that reason alone. N2e (talk) 04:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Which would be right and proper. However, looking at it again there are only three names uncited; all others have either a citation or their own Wikipedia article within which there is a citation (sufficient under citation policy if memory serves). Given this and Article content guidelines it really seems like the section should be reinstated. -Arb. (talk) 11:11, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines#Article composition guidelines

Most of the editors here, I'd guess, are more interested in the technical aspects of SpaceX's work than business matters. Me too. None the less, this is an article about the company and so falls under the remit of Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies. Their guidelines suggest sections to:

1. Discuss the company's business model, which is intimately tied to how a company is put together and is one of the major factors usually shaping a company's history. It is not uncommon for the business model to change over time, but major changes can entail a change to the corporate identity.
2. For publicly-held companies, provide a long term stock history (ideally a total shareholder return line including dividends), possibly shown relative to the industry benchmark appropriate to the company's line of business, would not be out of place.
3. Management philosophy, vision, and values are also a major element of corporations and their behaviour which often go under-reported during mergers and acquisitions and can provide insight into what actually happened as opposed to what the corporate partners have publicly described as having happened.
4. Lists ... of current and former directors and executives of a company are desirable. A corporate governance section may be ideally suited to group this information.

In SpaceX terms:

1. Reduce launch costs via manufacturing and operational efficiency plus reusability, etc.
2. Not public so could omit but we know they do sell shares occasionally so could mention the why and how often of this.
3. Vertical integration (manufacturing), staying private till vision achieved, optimising for low cost, etc.
4. Being discussed above.

Much of this is already in the article. However, using the Wikiproject's suggested structure might help refocus this article away from technical matters (which are very thoroughly dealt with in the companion SpaceX articles User:N2e has been doing such sterling work on) and towards the, less interesting perhaps but still important in encyclopaedic terms, corporate matters. -Arb. (talk) 11:41, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

SpaceX satellite-building division announced for Seattle

Looks like SpaceX intends to spend billions of US dollars building an in-space internet network. Initially will be approx. 60 folks, growing to a few hundred (and one media source says up to a thousand over some years). Musk apparently thinks satellites are quite primitive, flying "flight proven" technology that is year-out-of-date when designed and launched ("5-10 years out of date when launched", too large (Musk "like Battlestar Gallactica"), and need to be placing smaller, newer technology Let's start by gathering a few links we might use as sources here:

• Revealed: Elon Musk's Plan to Build a Space Internet, 16 Jan 2015.
• Musk Says SpaceX Will Develop Satellites in Seattle, 13 Jan 2015.
• Elon Musk and Richard Branson invest in satellite-Internet ventures, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan 2015.
• Elon Musk Outlines Plans For Space Internet, Says Human Colonies On Mars Would Need Internet Too, Intnl Buiness Times, 17 January 2015.

So that's a start..., and I guess this is definitely notable. N2e (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Certainly notable. Also significant enough to be a separate article don't you think N2e; small to start with but will doubtless grow. -Arb. (talk) 11:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I have no doubt that we will soon have sufficient info to have it covered in a separate article, the style of SpaceX on this satellite operation, like many other previous announcements, is to "drop big news, keep quiet on details—so we don’t know much about what he’s got in mind, when it would happen, how much it would cost, who would pay for it..." (That quote comes from an article about Hyperloop, but it does show that the media have observed the same thing I have: we are often very short on sourceable details in the early weeks and months after a Musk announcement has come out.)

At any rate, even with all four of those sources above proving notability of the SpaceX satellite operation, I don't really think we have much to go on to make it a separate article right now. Having said that, I have no doubt that more will come out over the coming months and we will in the not too distant future. N2e (talk) 12:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm changing my mind on this. I found more articles early today (19 jan 2015), as well as viewed a video of the Musk announcement at the event. Seems to be more than enough for a stub article, that will quickly grow into a well-rounded article in the coming weeks. In any case, it is now probably way too much to add more than a brief summary to the SpaceX company article. N2e (talk) 05:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done I've stubbed out a new article on this. SpaceX satellite development facility. N2e (talk) 06:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Good Article drive?

On 2015-01-06 this article had almost 10,000 views. Imagine how many it'll get when SpaceX successfully return a stage. Should we be aiming for Good Article status with a target of 31 January 08 February - the next planned landing attempt? Is that doable? -Arb. (talk) 23:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Possible, but not sure it'd be very easy to achieve on that time objective. I've only pushed one article to GA, and it took several months: a couple of months in the queue to let one of copyeditor guild folks work it over; and then a month or more to get it through GA review.

I do think getting this article to GA status is a worthwhile mid-term goal, however. N2e (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Major new funding round

I'm seeing comments by friends that SpaceX accepted a major funding round of some US$1 billion from Google and Fidelity today, in return for 10% of the company. When we find good sources, this will definitely need to be added to the Funding section of the article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Here is a primary source: SpaceX press release, with limited details. Not the best source for using in the article mainspace as SpaceX often takes these down, or moves them, and we really need some secondary sources. But, wow, that's a very large investment: something like 5x all their previous private investment in their first 12 years. N2e (talk) 03:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
• Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder’s SpaceX Got Investment of $1 billion From Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) & Fidelity says that Google's share of SpaceX is now 7.5%, with Fidelity having 2.5%; company at $10 billion valuation. N2e (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
• Here is a solid secondary source on it: says SpaceX is valued now at $12 billion. Wall Street Journal. — N2e (talk) 14:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
• And an even better one, with more spaceflight and space telecomm knowledge reflected in the news coverage. SpaceNews], 23 Jan 2014. N2e (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

SpaceX photos available on Wikimedia Commons

Hi All

SpaceX have just made 100 images available under a Wikipedia compatible licence, they're available on Wikimedia Commons here, lots of great stuff.

Thanks

Mrjohncummings (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2016

Original: In the Failed Launches Subheading An issue with the software caused the command to open the parachute for the Dragon capsule to never run, thus destroying most of the capsule. My proposed fix: Until now, SpaceX had not fitted the capsule to have an abort sequence, thus the capsule crashed into the sea, destroying itself and all that contained. Both NASA and SpaceX had agreed to add this feature into the code of which the Dragon's Parachutes now open upon separation from the Falcon 9 Rocket incase events like this should ever happen again.

From https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/20/support-strut-probable-cause-of-falcon-9-failure/ : 'The capsule’s recovery parachutes, normally used to retrieve the spaceship after it departs the International Space Station, were not programmed to deploy after a launch mishap. SpaceX plans to install software on future cargo missions to allow the chutes to unfurl during a launch contingency, Musk said.

“We could have saved Dragon if we had the right software,” Musk said.' Tobywoollaston (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Partly done: I've added the referenced quote, and changed the layout of the section, but have not otherwise changed the text. Thanks for your contribution to Wikipedia. fredgandt 09:59, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Rename SpaceX CRS-n missions to Dragon CRS-n

SpaceX editors may wish to comment on this global move discussion. — JFG ^talk 10:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 Development funding: private vs. government. How much of each?

The following notes appeared from Clark Lindsey at RLV and Space Transport News after the successful first launch of the Falcon 9 on 4 Jun 2010:

Total SpaceX expenditures?

- The $350M-$400M mentioned the other day was for Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets.

- Dragon, facilities, pad, etc add up to about another $100M-$150M.

- So total SpaceX expenditures till now adds up to around half a billion dollars.

- Includes money from NASA, private investment, deposits from customers, etc.

What is the breakdown of the funding in terms of private funding (e.g., Elon Musk's initial and subsequent funding, private investment, non-governmental deposits from customers) vs. government-provided funding? (e.g., "money from NASA")

The article states that "SpaceX is funded by government subsidiaries and contracts." Shouldn't this be "government subsidies and contracts?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chriswatts (talk • contribs) 04:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Good find, you are correct that it should be subsidies. I changed it. --Frmorrison (talk) 14:02, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Is this primarily a privately-funded development effort, or not? I think deposits on purchases of raw materials for manufacture of future vehicles for future spaceflights is not really development funding, or R&D. Any deposits from a customer is much more a partial payment for future (yet to be manufactured) goods, what is normally considered work-in-process. Anyone have a breakdown from the accountants that has been made public?

More importantly, does anyone know of any verifiable, reliable secondary sources that we might use to cite such a breakdown for development funding within the article? N2e (talk) 04:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is a May 2011 source with a pretty straightup discussion of the funding: Why the US can beat China: The facts about SpaceX Costs, 4 May 2011.

Includes this bit:

"The total company expenditures since being founded in 2002 through the 2010 fiscal year were less than $800 million, which includes all the development costs for the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon. Included in this $800 million are the costs of building launch sites at Vandenberg, Cape Canaveral and Kwajalein, as well as the corporate manufacturing facility that can support up to 12 Falcon 9 and Dragon missions per year. This total also includes the cost of five flights of Falcon 1, two flights of Falcon 9, and one up and back flight of Dragon."

There is much more on costs that could be mined from that source. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

ITS to the intro section

I've added a mention of the Interplanetary Transport System program to the intro: the ITS has been Musk's dream right from the beginning of SpaceX, and it's an object example of what sets SpaceX out from other space vehicle development companies. Whatever else you might say about SpaceX and Musk, you can't fault them for lack of ambition. -- The Anome (talk) 09:17, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Twitter

User:Appable & User:Frmorrison: SpaceX's Twitter is prominently linked from the homepage of SpaceX (clearly violating WP:ELMINOFFICIAL ánd the template instructions), and Elon Musk's twitter is .. Elon Musk's, hence that one fails WP:ELNO #13 ("Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject"). Both are superfluous, per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, WP:EL, WP:NOT, ánd the template instructions. Please revert your reinclusion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

There are instagram and vine links there, and since those are there why not include a twitter link to Elon Musk's twitter that is not linked on SpaceX's website. Musk regularly tweets about SpaceX on this account. The SpaceX twitter is on the official website, so I see that does not belong.--Frmorrison (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Frmorrison: That is a perfect WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. Now, is there any policy based reason to include the vine and instagram?

Regarding the twitter, as of the time of this save, he hasn't spoken on his twitter account about spaceX for at least a month. Do we have to include CNN as well, they also talk about SpaceX every now and then. And if it is really important, it will be on the official SpaceX twitter (which is, indeed, already linked from the official website that we link). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a bit aggressive of your to remove all of those links with no discussion. WP:EL is a content guideline, not policy. If we have local consensus that SpaceX is a sufficiently different topic to justify ignoring parts of the guideline, then so be it. I think it's far more important that we discuss pages on the talk page rather than reverting each other - and since you did make the bold edit I would prefer it remained in the state it had been for a while (though I won't re-revert because that gets into edit warring). Appable (talk | contributions) 18:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Furthermore, the distinction between Elon Musk's twitter and news sources is that news sources use primary sources such as SpaceX and Musk's twitter and official website to report. Musk's twitter often has revealed important information not mentioned through other channels, such as the first Raptor test-firing, the ITS LOX tank test in the ocean, and important CRS-7 and Amos-6 anomaly updates mentioned nowhere else. Since external links are included to supplement article information, I would argue that Musk's twitter clearly supplements article information with up-to-date information on the latest at SpaceX that isn't available through other channels. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Appable makes a very insightful point that Musk's feed complement the SpaceX article information, hence is welcome per WP:Readers first! — JFG ^talk 23:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Of the official links, only 1 (official website), 2 (twitter), and a new link to the company's Flickr account should be included. The official website is a notable source of information and clearly should be linked to per the above guideline. Of the two twitter accounts, only SpaceX's is linked to from the official website. Elon Musk's twitter has directly revealed important updates, such as the initial news of the first Raptor test firing and key updates on the Amos-6 anomaly before the official website was updated. If Elon Musk's twitter is kept, I don't see much harm in keeping the SpaceX Twitter: while somewhat redundant, it takes up little space and sometimes provides faster updates. As far as I can tell, the Instagram accounts have revealed very little that isn't already available on their website: furthermore, Instagram is directly linked from their website, so there is little purpose in including it. SpaceX's Youtube channel, similarly, is linked from their official website and therefore should not be included. The Vine has had a few new interesting updates, and is not linked on the website. I'd be tempted to include it, but I note on Vine's website that the entire service will be shut down in January.

First, as a disclaimer: I'm a member of all three fan communities. I would also argue links to all three fan communities should be removed. Each of them is a social networking website and usually should not be included per WP:ELNO. The Google+ fan club has been dead for months and never grew much of a following. NASASpaceFlight has some interesting updates, occasionally, but would not be of interest to the average reader and certainly has speculation that readers may consider fact. The Reddit community is simply a (curated) discussion forum like NASASpaceFlight. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, no. See this as part of a BRD cycle. They were boldly included while violating our inclusion standards. I did not even notice the fansites and all possible social networking sites, quite some of them linked from the official sites. You are right that WP:EL is a content guideline, but WP:NOT does say the same, and WP:EL is nothing but an interpretation of that. A local consensus does not trump our policies (I'll not go into extreme examples that could use the same argument).

You both seem to suggest that there are occasional updates from these social networking accounts that therefore warrant the inclusion. I just checked Elon Musk's Twitter, and he hasn't spoken about SpaceX for a month. Do you think that the reader of this page on Wikipedia is now going to sit there idly waiting for SpaceX news from Elon Musk. I am sorry, but if that twitter feed would have hourly newsflashes about SpaceX, way ahead of the homepage and other media, then we might have a case. I can also put that argument in extreme: let's include Elon Musk's Twitter on Tunnel, he seems to be more interested in that than in SpaceX in the last month. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:02, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't exactly agree (I prefer if the article is left in the most stable state pending a decision) but of course there's no point in reverting now. Anyway, I think we're in agreement about the fansites, so probably best to discuss the official channels (unless others have concerns about the removal of fansites).

I think there's a fairly clear distinction between Elon Musk's twitter regarding SpaceX and regarding the subject of tunnels. Elon Musk, as the CEO of SpaceX, is more than just "indirectly" related to the subject of SpaceX. He is discussed in many articles about SpaceX, unlike, say, the CEO of General Motors (who is a bit less prominent in media), and in particular it is clear that Musk and SpaceX has used social media extensively to spread information and updates. As a result, for example, Elon Musk has done multiple question and answer sessions on social media platforms, and reliable sources have written entire articles from tweet series by Musk. Both due to his close association with the company as a prominent founder and CEO, and due to SpaceX's overall reliance on social media over their official website, I feel it does a disservice to the readers (as JFG insinuated) to leave that out.

WP:EL stems from WP:NOTLINK and WP:NOTADVERTISING, which mostly discuss the concern that links can overwhelm the content of the article instead of providing information that actually helps the reader. Similarly, providing too many links to all of SpaceX's social media challenges could appear as marketing for SpaceX rather than actually providing information. However, with the links on the article that I've proposed (official website, twitter, flickr), I think readers will be able to get more information about the company quickly, putting the readers of this article first. When you consider the conflict of providing truly useful external information to readers interested in the subject compared to the external link guidelines, I think it's a good time to simply put the reader first. Appable (talk | contributions) 01:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Agree, and I would add that SpaceX is one of the rare companies that publish their pictures under an appropriate open license, so this adds extra justification to pointing to their Flickr gallery, knowing that Wikipedians can freely reuse anything from there. — JFG ^talk 01:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Twitter, the reason why one wants to include a twitter over an official website would be that the subject is very specifically known for their twitter. That the twitter is sometimes telling something about SpaceX is not a reason to include it (as I said, he hasn't said anything about SpaceX for a month on his personal twitter - how is that of interest to the reader of this page, how does that give any more information to the reader of this page). It has news value, not content value. And that news value does not have a very high frequency. Moreover, Elon is linked from the article, and there is actually nothing against stating this in the article ("Elon is regularly bringing news about SpaceX on his personal Twitter account", that would be encyclopedic and informative to the reader, and if a reader is then interested, they can go to that twitter feed, it is available through Elon Musk. No, I don't see how Elon's twitter is helping the readers of Wikipedia understanding SpaceX more.

You are now arguing about flickr .. which wasn't in the list in the first place (at least, I didn't remove it). And the argument that you there carry is one for the editors, not for the readers per sé. Suggestions for article improvements should be on the talkpage, so that is the place to suggest to check the flickr account regurarly. The article itself has a lot of images, and links to commons for more. How much does the flickr add if editors are uploading most of the images to commons anyway and are incorporating the images into the article? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I really fail to see how stating anything to the effect of "Elon is regularly bringing news about SpaceX on his personal Twitter account" is any better than an external link. Either way, you're pointing readers to an external site for more information. At that point, just make an external link. The purpose of WP:EL is to provide a general guideline on how external links should be used on Wikipedia, and this appears to be the consensus interpretation. Elon Musk is clearly a recognized authority in SpaceX and thus is a useful source of information. While he does not solely post about SpaceX (definitely depends on the events that are occurring; we expect more SpaceX posts when launches are actually happening regularly for example), he posts enough authoritative content that pertains to SpaceX that it is useful to readers. A strictly literal interpretation of WP:ELNO #10 would say that we shouldn't usually include links to social media, but Elon's version of a personal webpage (#11) is his Twitter feed.

Understand your point about Flickr. That being said, it is definitely a useful external resource - so perhaps the best would be an interwiki link to the Wikimedia Commons category that hosts Flickr images? I feel strongly that the inclusion of SpaceX's official images contributes to the content of the article. Appable (talk | contributions) 00:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Splitting article

Someone has put a tag on the article as being too long. I agree - I think the history section should be split off into a new article. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 14:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. I put the tag on the article, as it is 140 kb long; as a general rule of thumb (WP:SIZERULE), articles should never be more than 100 kb long, and should ideally be less than 60 kb. The history section at article overall is 3582 words long, over a third of the total length (9438 words). It'd make sense to split it out, as with History of Google and History of Delta Air Lines, History of McDonald's, etc, and just include a shorter summary here. Anxietycello (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Potential as a Good Article

Hello all! I've been actively working on the SpaceX article for the past few days, and I'm come to realise that there is a lot of good quality content here. It has also spawned quite a few spin-off articles, and having done so, is acting as an parent 'overview' page of quite an expansive topic. Seeing as there is so much to draw on, I've been tidying up what we have, trimming the areas where SpaceX goes into too much detail, and pulling salient info from the child articles. I'm beginning to think we have a potential Wikipedia:Good Article candidate here, and it'd be really great to see it promoted.

Before it is sent in for submission though, it definitely still needs plenty of work, so I thought it might be worth polling those that frequent this page, to see if anyone has any ideas for areas of improvement? Anyone wanna point out things that need fixing, adding, or removing? Feel free to add your comments here, and/or mercilessly paint the article with cleanup tags. Cheers! - Anxietycello (talk) 12:52, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

You added a tag recently that says the article is too long. This is a valid concern so someone should create a "History of SpaceX" article so this article can be trimmed. I am not going to do it, but I can assist. Also, SpaceX needs an Overview section before History (likely taking some parts of the History section to make it).--Frmorrison (talk) 16:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Indeed - I created History of SpaceX on 2 March 2017, so feel free to trim wherever you can! The article has been steadily growing as people add new content, but no-one removes the less-relevant-over-time information. It peaked at 140 kB, but is now down to just under 120 kB. IMO, it needs to shrink below 100 kB. What exactly would you like to see in an Overview section? Isn't the article lead supposed to function as a broad overview? Anxietycello (talk) 20:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

According to MOS:LEAD, "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.", so I agree it should be more concise 79.75.215.152 (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=10
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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140322013556/http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/2212-BWB-2014-03-21.mp3 to http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/2212-BWB-2014-03-21.mp3
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=13632
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2012/11/musk-goes-for-methane-burning.html
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/spacex_hyperloop_pod_competition.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/20001/
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fg%2Fa%2F2012%2F05%2F25%2Fbloomberg_articlesM4JP2E6K50XT01-M4LDF.DTL
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20170319023004/https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/releases/2012/release-20120803.html to https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/releases/2012/release-20120803.html
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External links modified

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Agreement on Dates Format

The top of the page template states that the dates should use the mdy format (ex. March 30, 2017) yet many of the dates throughout the article use the dmy format (30 March 2017). For SpaceX, being in the United States, it makes sense to use mdy for date formatting (Date format by country). Consistency within the article is important, and considering that the date template specifies to use mdy dates, should the other date formats such as dmy be switched to mdy? There was a previous discussion on date formatting on the talk page that has been archived, yet it did not appear to have a resolution for the format. There are also some dates in the article which are generated using the date template (WP:Template:Date). —TheAnonymousNerd (talk) 01:04, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I see absolutely no argument for using dmy dates, and mdy dates seem to be the best in this case, so I would advocate using mdy dates for this article. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 01:10, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz (p): I will see what I can do to change the dates in the article to mdy, though I am not sure of what to do for the dates located in the citations. I'm new(ish) to Wikipedia so I'm hesitant to go into the source and edit the dates for the references. The dates there are also a mess of dmy/mdy and according to MOS:DATEUNIFY, they should be the same. —TheAnonymousNerd (talk) 03:15, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@TheAnonymousNerd: I will help, and when I get back to my MacBook, I will start replacing stuff like "Feb" with the full month. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 03:27, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz: I am working through the article now, and I am also fixing the month abbreviations. Give me a bit of time to go through the article and make the corrections. Thank you for your help. —TheAnonymousNerd (talk) 03:29, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Numbers of employees

I think the interim data on numbers of employees should be removed - it is all contained with History of SpaceX, it doesn't need to be reproduced here. I think only the first and last set of numbers should be retained. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Location of facilities

I'd like to see the actual cities that the spacex facilities are in. It mentions the space shuttle facility in Seattle, but just gives states for the others. Bknutsen (talk) 15:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Bknutsen

The SpaceX infobox on the bottom lists them: Headquarters and factory (Hawthorne, California) Rocket development and test facility (McGregor, Texas) Satellite development facility (Redmond, Washington) Regional offices (Chantilly, Houston, Seattle, Washington DC) This article should mention those in the main prose, but it does not mention them all. Redmond is next to Seattle. --Frmorrison (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Update needed

An update is needed in light of the successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket this afternoon. SpaceX webcast

"On June 3, 2017, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft for the company’s eleventh Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-11) to the International Space Station. This mission marked the first reflight of a Dragon spacecraft, having previously flown during the fourth Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-4) mission back in September 2014." MaynardClark (talk) 03:13, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

More updates are needed

The article needs to be way more updated. Not only text of the Article but for example also the graph "Successful SpaceX launches by year" and parts related to commercial (non-governmental) customers. Daniel Marek (talk) 10:14, 18 October 2017 (UTC)