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SpaceX to lay off 10% of its Workforce:
SpaceX, citing a need to get "leaner," said Friday it will lay off more than 10% of its roughly 6,000 employees.
[...] "To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company," the Hawthorne-based company said in a statement. "Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations. This means we must part ways with some talented and hardworking members of our team."
[...] SpaceX makes most of its money from commercial and national security satellite launches, as well as two NASA contracts, one a multibillion-dollar deal to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and the other up to $2.6 billion to develop a capsule that will deliver astronauts to the space station. The first launch of that capsule, without a crew, is planned for February.
The Elon Musk-led company has even more ambitious — and expensive — plans. Musk has said SpaceX will conduct a "hopper test" of its Mars spaceship prototype as early as next month. The production version of that spaceship and its rocket system is expected to cost billions.
Earlier this month, privately held SpaceX said it raised about $273 million in equity and other securities in an offering that sought to raise about $500 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company is worth $31 billion, according to Equidate, which tracks private-company valuations.
In May, Shotwell told CNBC that the company is profitable and has had "many years" of profitability.
There's an old adage about making something: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two." Is SpaceX trying to pick all three?
Related: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Fired Managers and Employees in June to Shake Up Starlink Project
Elon Musk's SpaceX Is Raising $500 Million in Funding; Now Valued at $30.5 Billion
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday January 13 2019, @04:16AM (3 children)
Actually stainless steel specifically is a pretty lousy thermal conductor, at least as metals go. It's also non-magnetic, which isn't related (so far as I know), but took me by surprise when I learned it.
Of course, heating stainless steel too much - say like with a raging wood fire venting through stainless steel stovepipe, and it rapidly reverts to normal magnetic, rust-prone steel. I'm sure reentry would do the job too, even if you're only dealing with the (relatively) much cooler air directly adjacent to the skin. (Most of the heat is concentrated in the compressive shockwave a short distance in front of the reentering craft, and a mirror finish should reflect that away pretty well, rather than absorbing most of it the way blackened tile would)
A likely missing piece, that I've only heard mentioned a couple times, is that Musk is supposed to be looking at active cooling during rentry, rather than relying on exotic, fragile high-temperature thermal insulation. One of the problems with all that fancy thermal insulation, in addition to the price, is that it can mostly be broken with your bare hands, and if even a small piece is broken off then the intense heat can potentially burn its way through whatever is underneath.
Of course, it's also possible that the whole thing is a bit of misdirection, and it's actually only the Starhopper that will be stainless steel.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday January 13 2019, @10:24AM (1 child)
some stainless alloys are mildly ferromagnetic (usually low grade?). your standard 304 alloy is not though. The stuff that is ferromagnetic also tends to corrode much easier. Generally there are many flavors of stainless. The arrangement of the crystalline structure can give it weak magnetic properties; from the particular alloy it is or (I think) via some types of heat treatments. The skin surface can also be passivated changing it's corrosive properties, but I don't believe that effects it's magnetic properties.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday January 13 2019, @04:45PM
Interesting, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @03:41AM
> active cooling during rentry
This was a feature of the Dyna-Soar spaceplane (USAF funded), from the late 1950s. It's a fairly amazing story, here's a recent look back,
https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/what-might-have-been-x-20-dyna-soar/ [defensemedianetwork.com]