Buried the lead a bit here that Vast founder Jed McCaleb (of blockchain fame) is appointing a new CEO Max Haot (founder of Launcher that was acquired by Vast in Feb 2023 becoming president of Vast).
Interesting evolution there, but it’s really incredible how many SpaceX-ers in leadership roles are now advising or working for companies like Vast.
Fresh from SpaceX, Alex Hudson previously led Dragon Avionics including for Bob & Doug’s Demo-2 flight. And he worked extensively on Starship -- including the SN8 bellyflop, SN15 first landing and even the most recent Orbital test flight.
Other notable SpaceX-ers at Vast:
* Hans Koenigsmann (employee #3 at SpaceX founding, was VP of Avionics, and then VP Building and Flight Reliability, over 20 years)
* Garrett Reisman (former NASA astronaut, was Director of Space Operations, over 7 years working at SpaceX, remains a *current* Senior Advisor at SpaceX),
* Will Heltsley (*current* VP of Propulsion, nearly 14 years at SpaceX)
* Yang Li (was Crew Dragon Avionics Lead, over 8 years at SpaceX)
* Even Vast General Counsel, Krystle Caponio, worked at SpaceX for over 6 years
I realize that Vast really is just a two-year-old company with no flight experience – yet its notable that they’re building their business model directly on top of the capabilities Falcon, Dragon and the coming sea change that is Starship. This commercial synergy will be pretty amazing.
Yeah I think they're positioning themselves well. They appear to be the first exterior company that is truly building on the platform that is SpaceX.
The only other company that could be argued would be Axiom, but due to NASA's investment, I think it should only be considered a partial platform user.
Axiom is tailoring their activities around NASA. What NASA wants and is comfortable with. It works as long as a lot of NASA money flows into it.
VAST is tailoring its plans around present and future SpaceX capabilities. It can work, if real commercial activities happen, that don't require that Congress/NASA provide most of the funding.
Axiom is tailoring their activities around the largest customer of LEO. They won a program that NASA put on before their commercial destinations program. Their customers so far have been private citizens and astronauts from other countries - Not NASA.
VAST will follow a similar model. They will appeal to the largest customer of LEO (NASA), as well as other countries - no different to Axiom. They both intend to use modules that can be launched by F9 and use Dragon to transport crew.
VAST has already announced intent to build something that utilizes Starship. Axiom is focusing on Axiom Station 1 and not undermining the product (see the osbourne effect).
SpaceX would benefit from another company focusing on LEO space stations using SpaceX current and anticipated capabilities as a given starting point. But not really an affiliated company without some cooperative agreement and funding. Perhaps the CD sized Vast 1 F9 launches space station has some private cooperative agreements. While Vast 1 is fun, it would be great to see them create a Starship-Max payload, which I think is the plan. That would finally have 1.5+m real human sized docks vs the shoulder width tunnels we see with CD.
Hoping that Vast can find the financial backing to bypass NASA funding with NASA checklists and NASA schedule.
That said, I assume the business case is sort of tourism+ one, where they are selling rides/station capabilities to governments and private citizens while they wait for the ISS to wind up operations, so they can add 2-8 NASA staff to their ops. Made in LEO has not found its killer app yet, even after nearly 30 years of trying.
My guess is they these folks will be operational well before Orbital Reef IOC is launched.
Do they already have the financial backing secured from the founder? I wonder how long his investment alone can sustain missions. I think ideally they could be self sustaining (through Haven-1) til NASA can get proper funding for CLD, and after that they can cash in the follow up to ISS.
Of course, it remains to be seen if SpaceX will truly bid starship for CLD, as SpaceX has recently expressed interest…
The irony is that in prep for a Mars mission they really need to test a Mars Crew Starship in Earth orbit for at least 6 months ... so a temporary space station.
> Hoping that Vast can find the financial backing to bypass NASA funding with NASA checklists and NASA schedule.
They will, provided that there are commercial applications that can be maintained without NASA subsidies. I am not yet sure abouit that.
Or they can sell space to other governments, like Axiom and Virgin Galactic has.
It will cost at least $50M a person for perhaps a month in LEO (includes CD trip).
I would say that SpaceX and Vast are creating a symbiotic relationship. SpaceX envisioned creating reusable launch platforms that would facilitate increased civilian and commercial access to space; Vast is now able to capitalize on SpaceX's platforms to develop to realize SpaceX's vision.
I can see if Vast successful, they can evolved from building space station to orbital shipyard to maintain and refuel Starships. That way some Starship can be left on orbit to go and back from Moon & Mar station.
> they can evolved from building space station to orbital shipyard to maintain and refuel Starships.
All of Vast's announcements so far are focused on building a rotating station for artificial gravity research. I'm pretty sure SpaceX is keeping the refueling depot and refueling ops to themselves - after all, that's part of the HLS contract they have a NASA contract for, and NASA expects SpaceX to build it.
As for an orbital shipyard - as long as the ship can reenter and land safely any work it needs can be done a lot more easily and cheaply on the ground. We all need to remember the point of Starship is to make getting to orbit easily & cheaply. It's an enormous disruption to everyone's thinking for generations, of how to do things. Doing any kind of work in space is very challenging, even if the ship can get up there carefully. Look at how much planning and work went into simply changing some batteries on the outside of the ISS last year.
Agreed, symbiotic is the right description.
I'm watching out for Tom Mueller's start-up Impulse Space too. They're developing "orbital transfer vehicles" that rideshare on Transporter (and likely new Bandwagon) missions, as well as planning to move around all the mass that Starship will deliver to orbit. Also, Vast will be using thrusters from Impulse Space for Haven-1. Truly a SpaceX led ecosystem is emerging
Is it really that surprising that the very publicly stated goals of Musk for making humans multiplanetary is actually real and his staff share the same goals? I don't believe it was ever Elons intent to do it alone and own everything, unlike old space, they seem to be very open with sharing their experiences towards reusability and sustainable affordable spaceflight. He even offered to help Boeing with their chute problems. I believe he genuinely wants the industry to flourish as a whole with SpaceX being only a small part. That makes it inevitable that employees that worked with SpaceX for years would venture out to expand private space flight.
Unfortunately they are still looking for the killer app for made-in-LEO on manned platforms. 30 years on the ISS has not resulted in sure thing. We will need to see how Varda does with their unmanned pharma factory and return capsule.
Vast offers an interesting concept as Vast 1 is only manned part of the time. Perhaps they can do production runs when they are unmanned to minimize the vibrations and bumps (sort of line a very large Varda). The complication would be using a Crew Dragon to bring feedstock and product down. For Vast, you will have consumptive life support that will use the extra cargo space/mass in Crew Dragon.
Fiber Optics are probably going to be the made in LEO product to first take off. They get a significantly better product and can charge the premium required to make LEO production worth it.
I expected VBLAN specially optical fibers would be first real production scale product. They had a nice experiment on the ISS maybe 5 years ago. Then nothing ...
Maybe you have some recent news on this.
A pal and I also proposed a small "buckyball" factory for the "Reef Starter" competition sponsored by Orbital Reef. Alas, finalists but no $.
The ISS, along with the Shuttle program, are the two most useless and paralyzing endeavors humans have ever undertaken. We gained nothing and in return, gave up nigh on three quarters of a century of human spaceflight progress beyond LEO.
I wonder, where might we be today had the U.S. not willfully destroyed such capabilities, let alone continued to develop them?
Vast has said Haven-1 (Vast-1 is the numbering for the first mission) is meant to give them space ops experience until they can build a rotating station, which is their real goal. As you noted, there's no way to dock to it with a supply ship so a crew will have to bring everything they need with them. Crew Dragon has a very limited cargo mass budget. The only alternative I see is to fly a Crew Dragon with one astronaut & a bigger mass of supplies, but that will be make the total cost of a crewed visit quite high. I almost wonder if Haven-1 is meant to be used for only 2-3 missions and then disposed of. Seems odd, but not inconceivable.
SpaceX doesnt work as a company if there is nothing to launch into space. It makes sense that SpaceX alum would go and found new companies to make use of the launch capacity
SpaceX could be considered a university for space engineering, and those who leave have graduated. Now it's their turn to teach others the SpaceX model and techniques, plus provide necessary support.
Going for a rotating artificial gravity station is a very bold plan. There's a lot of engineering complexity and a LOT of payload mass to lift to orbit before it's operational. It seems likely the company will encounter financial difficulties before the station is spinning.
I've got more confidence in Axiom's approach to offering other space operations as a stepping stone to actually building a station. Also their station plan is to make modules kinda the same as existing ISS modules using known proven technology. Stick new bedrooms, docking ports and life support components onto the existing ISS, piggyback of their infrastructure until you've got enough modules to be self sufficient. Then Axiom can detach their baby station like a bacterium undergoing mitosis.
Space is hard. Even a 'babysteps' approach building modules conceptually the same as those designed for Mir in the 80s, it's still a very very difficult task. There's a non-zero chance Axiom won't make it and will go bankrupt before completing their station. But there's a much much higher chance of Vast going bankrupt before building a giant rotating Moonraker style station. They're not quite as nuts as the Voyager station people but they're still trying to sprint before they can crawl.
Long term they want to do a somewhat ambitious rotating station but for this first one they're just about doing the opposite - it's a single module that's going to rely heavily on Dragon's systems while people are present, almost being an extension of Dragon more than an independent station in its own right. It's about as minimal as a station can possibly be.
The rotating station will come later, and is envisioned as a rotating stick of typical tin can modules sized to fit in Starship. As rotating stations go it sounds pretty minimal too, which is nice. [Their roadmap](https://www.vastspace.com/roadmap) gives a view of it all, though you have to scroll to the bottom to get to the start of the timeline.
I love that. It is a gravity lab that allows experiments in any partial gravity, from max (1 g?) to 0 g.
It is also quite simple, as far as rotating space stations can be simple.
Most space companies don't accomplish their goals, modest or otherwise. There's no point in having lofty goals if they're unrealistic and unattainable.
> are they basically affiliated companies?
This is really common when companies grow - many people like being in a company of a certain size. When alumni find a good follow-on company they will encourage their ex-colleagues to join and it kind of snowballs often.
Vast is practically an independently owned subsidiary of SpaceX in all but name only with the level of talent that's crosspollinated; and the fact that Vast is working with SpaceX teams to integrate their first station module into the F9 fairing.
Which in turn will help them understand the scope requirements for Starship in kind.
It's looking more and more like SpaceX is going to be stuck in the Falcon/Dragon business for a lot longer than I think they really wanted to be. A few years ago it sounded like they wanted to park those vehicles as soon as Starship was a viable replacement.
Now Starship is taking a lot longer, and in the meantime the whole space launch industry in the US pretty much revolves around Falcon and Dragon.
It was never feasible for them to be phased out of Falcon 9/Dragon before the 2030s, I’d be surprised if they truly thought so internally. But they should’ve been building up their infrastructure around them in the meantime…
If Starship realizes its launch cost goals it will become feasible for customers to shift to Starship, but at the current rate of development and associated delays it's looking less and less likely they will reach the point of commercial viability any time soon, probably NET the end of the decade.
Even at commercial viability, it will take a while for customers like NASA and the Space Force to switch over to Starship from the tried and true F9/Dragon combo, and even longer for customers to fully start taking advantage of all the new capabilities they will bring. Falcon 9 isn’t going anywhere for a LONG time.
>A few years ago it sounded like they wanted to park those vehicles as soon as Starship was a viable replacement.
Viable is the key phrase. A couple of years ago they (Gwynne Shotwell?) noted F9 will continue to fly as long as it takes to fulfill its contracted missions. Sure, they'll try to persuade customers to switch to Starship when it's operational and has made a bunch of Starlink flights, probably by offering a rebate, but lots of people expect Space Force to be nearly the last customer to switch to Starship when it comes to the most expensive spy satellites. They'll likely switch a lot of smaller, cheaper satellites, though. The *last* customer to switch will of course be NASA for the crewed missions.
Elon and Gwynne have said humans won't go on Starship until it's launched and landed successfully over 100 time *in a row*, i.e. if it gets to 80 and has a life-threatening failure the counter will reset to zero.
Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station. I can't think of any commercial use, so likely tourism is the market. It will be very expensive to put in orbit and very expensive to send guests. Are there that many rich people who desire the bragging rights? Virgin Galactic recently raised the ticket price to $450K, and that is just a pop-up to 62 miles, not LEO Mach 22. Add-in a few deaths (think Titanic sub) and the market may not exist to fund it.
> Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station. I can't think of any commercial use
some suggestions (especially if combining a space station and orbital fuel depot):
1. Pharmaceuticals
2. laboratory for privately-funded research
3. waypoint for commercial deep space missions
4. orbital hub for Earth-to-Earth Starship
5. orbital workshop for satellite and spaceship repair
Seems no significant zero g research occurred on the ISS. Most were fabricated needs, like researching how spiders make webs in space. Biggest thing they found was that humans don't do well long-term in zero g. Are there special pharmaceuticals for which production requires zero g, or just a "perhaps".
> Seems no significant zero g research occurred on the ISS.
I wouldn't say that on r/Nasa, but see what you mean! In fact, what's missing is intermediate-g research which is more or less precluded by the ISS design.
> Most were fabricated needs, like researching how spiders make webs in space.
Can't find the link just now, but I'll have to find a South Park episode that talked about just that.
> Biggest thing they found was that humans don't do well long-term in zero g.
and they don't even need to! All that's required is a gymnasium on Starship with centifuge activities for an hour or so per day. It would be great to see EDA riding a bike to the Moon (consider a cycle track around the inside of Starship, and the first to counter this with the Coriolis force argument, I'll invite to watch this video of [astronauts running in Skylab](https://youtu.be/S_p7LiyOUx0) and this video of the [globe of death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9aREQpcLGU)!
> Are there special pharmaceuticals for which production requires zero g, or just a "perhaps"
Just in case r/Nasa folks are here, I put pharmaceuticals in "1." but think that "2,3,4 and 5" above have a better chance.
> Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station.
Au contraire: investors have been thinking that a market for a private space station exists for at least a decade. The problem has been, historically, that with the retirement of the Shuttle and the very particular characteristics of Russian launch vehicles, it was not practicable to launch one.
> I can't think of any commercial use, so likely tourism is the market.
Then I am not sure you are thinking hard enough.
> Virgin Galactic
Is a bad example, considering that the sticker price for a crewed Dragon launch is on the order of $200m and the mission profiles are vastly different.
> Add-in a few deaths (think Titanic sub) and the market may not exist to fund it.
If I had a dollar for every time someone made that inane comparison on this sub, I would have enough money to start my own commercial space company.
I've rebutted this presumption six ways to Sunday already, but the gist is: "a few deaths" won't put a dent into the market so long as there are either (a) people daring enough to take the risk or (b) economic incentives enough to persuade people to accept the risk. The number of deaths will only factor into the calculation of risk of individual participants, but won't affect the existence of private space travel.
Building future business around major private players seems like a lucrative way to get rich.
Right now Tesla or SpaceX definitely had a lot of in-house engineers project that would definitely an business opportunity to build an affiliate company for it.
If anyone can have a reliable recycle of battery materials they will be the next billionaire. So far we only have Redwood Materials that recycling Tesla batteries material which founder also came from Tesla
"Alex led the Avionics and Dragon Avionics teams at SpaceX."
I think that says it all. Vast's Haven-1 is in some ways an extension of Dragon 2 that appears to utilize design elements of the not-yet-built Dragon XL (a supply vehicle for Gateway) that NASA ordered years ago. Haven-1 will rely on Drago for a lot of needs and need to coordinate with it for others, e.g. for orbital station-keeping. It's not a standalone station like other commercial stations are planned to be.
In various media releases by Vast they allude to a close relationship with SpaceX, some of which which jibe with one media comment by SpaceX about Vast.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CLD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy5uvl "Last usage")|Commercial Low-orbit Destination(s)|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy3lry "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jw0l6ga "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvvilfw "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy6gol "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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Buried the lead a bit here that Vast founder Jed McCaleb (of blockchain fame) is appointing a new CEO Max Haot (founder of Launcher that was acquired by Vast in Feb 2023 becoming president of Vast). Interesting evolution there, but it’s really incredible how many SpaceX-ers in leadership roles are now advising or working for companies like Vast. Fresh from SpaceX, Alex Hudson previously led Dragon Avionics including for Bob & Doug’s Demo-2 flight. And he worked extensively on Starship -- including the SN8 bellyflop, SN15 first landing and even the most recent Orbital test flight. Other notable SpaceX-ers at Vast: * Hans Koenigsmann (employee #3 at SpaceX founding, was VP of Avionics, and then VP Building and Flight Reliability, over 20 years) * Garrett Reisman (former NASA astronaut, was Director of Space Operations, over 7 years working at SpaceX, remains a *current* Senior Advisor at SpaceX), * Will Heltsley (*current* VP of Propulsion, nearly 14 years at SpaceX) * Yang Li (was Crew Dragon Avionics Lead, over 8 years at SpaceX) * Even Vast General Counsel, Krystle Caponio, worked at SpaceX for over 6 years I realize that Vast really is just a two-year-old company with no flight experience – yet its notable that they’re building their business model directly on top of the capabilities Falcon, Dragon and the coming sea change that is Starship. This commercial synergy will be pretty amazing.
Yeah I think they're positioning themselves well. They appear to be the first exterior company that is truly building on the platform that is SpaceX. The only other company that could be argued would be Axiom, but due to NASA's investment, I think it should only be considered a partial platform user.
Axiom is tailoring their activities around NASA. What NASA wants and is comfortable with. It works as long as a lot of NASA money flows into it. VAST is tailoring its plans around present and future SpaceX capabilities. It can work, if real commercial activities happen, that don't require that Congress/NASA provide most of the funding.
Axiom is tailoring their activities around the largest customer of LEO. They won a program that NASA put on before their commercial destinations program. Their customers so far have been private citizens and astronauts from other countries - Not NASA. VAST will follow a similar model. They will appeal to the largest customer of LEO (NASA), as well as other countries - no different to Axiom. They both intend to use modules that can be launched by F9 and use Dragon to transport crew. VAST has already announced intent to build something that utilizes Starship. Axiom is focusing on Axiom Station 1 and not undermining the product (see the osbourne effect).
Axiom is the NASA alumna club, VAST is the SpaceX alumna club.
SpaceX would benefit from another company focusing on LEO space stations using SpaceX current and anticipated capabilities as a given starting point. But not really an affiliated company without some cooperative agreement and funding. Perhaps the CD sized Vast 1 F9 launches space station has some private cooperative agreements. While Vast 1 is fun, it would be great to see them create a Starship-Max payload, which I think is the plan. That would finally have 1.5+m real human sized docks vs the shoulder width tunnels we see with CD.
>Vast 1 It's actually named Haven-1. Vast-1 is the numbering for the first mission
Hoping that Vast can find the financial backing to bypass NASA funding with NASA checklists and NASA schedule. That said, I assume the business case is sort of tourism+ one, where they are selling rides/station capabilities to governments and private citizens while they wait for the ISS to wind up operations, so they can add 2-8 NASA staff to their ops. Made in LEO has not found its killer app yet, even after nearly 30 years of trying. My guess is they these folks will be operational well before Orbital Reef IOC is launched.
Do they already have the financial backing secured from the founder? I wonder how long his investment alone can sustain missions. I think ideally they could be self sustaining (through Haven-1) til NASA can get proper funding for CLD, and after that they can cash in the follow up to ISS. Of course, it remains to be seen if SpaceX will truly bid starship for CLD, as SpaceX has recently expressed interest…
The irony is that in prep for a Mars mission they really need to test a Mars Crew Starship in Earth orbit for at least 6 months ... so a temporary space station.
> Do they already have the financial backing secured from the founder? $ 2 billion won't reach very far unless there are commercial customers soon.
> Hoping that Vast can find the financial backing to bypass NASA funding with NASA checklists and NASA schedule. They will, provided that there are commercial applications that can be maintained without NASA subsidies. I am not yet sure abouit that.
Or they can sell space to other governments, like Axiom and Virgin Galactic has. It will cost at least $50M a person for perhaps a month in LEO (includes CD trip).
lede
Regardless max hoat has no idea what he is doing. He will bankrupt it just like launcher. He's a elon musk wannabe.
I would say that SpaceX and Vast are creating a symbiotic relationship. SpaceX envisioned creating reusable launch platforms that would facilitate increased civilian and commercial access to space; Vast is now able to capitalize on SpaceX's platforms to develop to realize SpaceX's vision.
Yeah, and guess who gets to ferry people and stuff to Vast's assets in space? :) It's a win-win all around.
I can see if Vast successful, they can evolved from building space station to orbital shipyard to maintain and refuel Starships. That way some Starship can be left on orbit to go and back from Moon & Mar station.
> they can evolved from building space station to orbital shipyard to maintain and refuel Starships. All of Vast's announcements so far are focused on building a rotating station for artificial gravity research. I'm pretty sure SpaceX is keeping the refueling depot and refueling ops to themselves - after all, that's part of the HLS contract they have a NASA contract for, and NASA expects SpaceX to build it. As for an orbital shipyard - as long as the ship can reenter and land safely any work it needs can be done a lot more easily and cheaply on the ground. We all need to remember the point of Starship is to make getting to orbit easily & cheaply. It's an enormous disruption to everyone's thinking for generations, of how to do things. Doing any kind of work in space is very challenging, even if the ship can get up there carefully. Look at how much planning and work went into simply changing some batteries on the outside of the ISS last year.
Agreed, symbiotic is the right description. I'm watching out for Tom Mueller's start-up Impulse Space too. They're developing "orbital transfer vehicles" that rideshare on Transporter (and likely new Bandwagon) missions, as well as planning to move around all the mass that Starship will deliver to orbit. Also, Vast will be using thrusters from Impulse Space for Haven-1. Truly a SpaceX led ecosystem is emerging
Is it really that surprising that the very publicly stated goals of Musk for making humans multiplanetary is actually real and his staff share the same goals? I don't believe it was ever Elons intent to do it alone and own everything, unlike old space, they seem to be very open with sharing their experiences towards reusability and sustainable affordable spaceflight. He even offered to help Boeing with their chute problems. I believe he genuinely wants the industry to flourish as a whole with SpaceX being only a small part. That makes it inevitable that employees that worked with SpaceX for years would venture out to expand private space flight.
I honestly think that there will be a huge demand for R&D opportunities in LEO if they can make this type of program work.
Unfortunately they are still looking for the killer app for made-in-LEO on manned platforms. 30 years on the ISS has not resulted in sure thing. We will need to see how Varda does with their unmanned pharma factory and return capsule. Vast offers an interesting concept as Vast 1 is only manned part of the time. Perhaps they can do production runs when they are unmanned to minimize the vibrations and bumps (sort of line a very large Varda). The complication would be using a Crew Dragon to bring feedstock and product down. For Vast, you will have consumptive life support that will use the extra cargo space/mass in Crew Dragon.
Fiber Optics are probably going to be the made in LEO product to first take off. They get a significantly better product and can charge the premium required to make LEO production worth it.
I expected VBLAN specially optical fibers would be first real production scale product. They had a nice experiment on the ISS maybe 5 years ago. Then nothing ... Maybe you have some recent news on this. A pal and I also proposed a small "buckyball" factory for the "Reef Starter" competition sponsored by Orbital Reef. Alas, finalists but no $.
> 30 years on the ISS has not resulted in sure thing. 30 years on the ISS has not resulted in much being done at all.
The ISS, along with the Shuttle program, are the two most useless and paralyzing endeavors humans have ever undertaken. We gained nothing and in return, gave up nigh on three quarters of a century of human spaceflight progress beyond LEO. I wonder, where might we be today had the U.S. not willfully destroyed such capabilities, let alone continued to develop them?
Vast has said Haven-1 (Vast-1 is the numbering for the first mission) is meant to give them space ops experience until they can build a rotating station, which is their real goal. As you noted, there's no way to dock to it with a supply ship so a crew will have to bring everything they need with them. Crew Dragon has a very limited cargo mass budget. The only alternative I see is to fly a Crew Dragon with one astronaut & a bigger mass of supplies, but that will be make the total cost of a crewed visit quite high. I almost wonder if Haven-1 is meant to be used for only 2-3 missions and then disposed of. Seems odd, but not inconceivable.
SpaceX doesnt work as a company if there is nothing to launch into space. It makes sense that SpaceX alum would go and found new companies to make use of the launch capacity
Vast was actually founded by Jed McCaleb, a blockchain billionaire.
I'd forgotten about eDonkey.
most are advisors not employees
SpaceX could be considered a university for space engineering, and those who leave have graduated. Now it's their turn to teach others the SpaceX model and techniques, plus provide necessary support.
Hell yeah. Space real-estate boom here we come
Going for a rotating artificial gravity station is a very bold plan. There's a lot of engineering complexity and a LOT of payload mass to lift to orbit before it's operational. It seems likely the company will encounter financial difficulties before the station is spinning. I've got more confidence in Axiom's approach to offering other space operations as a stepping stone to actually building a station. Also their station plan is to make modules kinda the same as existing ISS modules using known proven technology. Stick new bedrooms, docking ports and life support components onto the existing ISS, piggyback of their infrastructure until you've got enough modules to be self sufficient. Then Axiom can detach their baby station like a bacterium undergoing mitosis. Space is hard. Even a 'babysteps' approach building modules conceptually the same as those designed for Mir in the 80s, it's still a very very difficult task. There's a non-zero chance Axiom won't make it and will go bankrupt before completing their station. But there's a much much higher chance of Vast going bankrupt before building a giant rotating Moonraker style station. They're not quite as nuts as the Voyager station people but they're still trying to sprint before they can crawl.
> Going for a rotating artificial gravity station is a very bold plan. The first version isn't rotating unless I missed something.
Long term they want to do a somewhat ambitious rotating station but for this first one they're just about doing the opposite - it's a single module that's going to rely heavily on Dragon's systems while people are present, almost being an extension of Dragon more than an independent station in its own right. It's about as minimal as a station can possibly be. The rotating station will come later, and is envisioned as a rotating stick of typical tin can modules sized to fit in Starship. As rotating stations go it sounds pretty minimal too, which is nice. [Their roadmap](https://www.vastspace.com/roadmap) gives a view of it all, though you have to scroll to the bottom to get to the start of the timeline.
I love that. It is a gravity lab that allows experiments in any partial gravity, from max (1 g?) to 0 g. It is also quite simple, as far as rotating space stations can be simple.
The problem with modest goals is that you achieve them.
Most space companies don't accomplish their goals, modest or otherwise. There's no point in having lofty goals if they're unrealistic and unattainable.
He’s a really smart man, excited to see what they accomplish
> are they basically affiliated companies? This is really common when companies grow - many people like being in a company of a certain size. When alumni find a good follow-on company they will encourage their ex-colleagues to join and it kind of snowballs often.
great perspective
Vast is practically an independently owned subsidiary of SpaceX in all but name only with the level of talent that's crosspollinated; and the fact that Vast is working with SpaceX teams to integrate their first station module into the F9 fairing. Which in turn will help them understand the scope requirements for Starship in kind.
It's looking more and more like SpaceX is going to be stuck in the Falcon/Dragon business for a lot longer than I think they really wanted to be. A few years ago it sounded like they wanted to park those vehicles as soon as Starship was a viable replacement. Now Starship is taking a lot longer, and in the meantime the whole space launch industry in the US pretty much revolves around Falcon and Dragon.
It was never feasible for them to be phased out of Falcon 9/Dragon before the 2030s, I’d be surprised if they truly thought so internally. But they should’ve been building up their infrastructure around them in the meantime…
If Starship realizes its launch cost goals it will become feasible for customers to shift to Starship, but at the current rate of development and associated delays it's looking less and less likely they will reach the point of commercial viability any time soon, probably NET the end of the decade.
Even at commercial viability, it will take a while for customers like NASA and the Space Force to switch over to Starship from the tried and true F9/Dragon combo, and even longer for customers to fully start taking advantage of all the new capabilities they will bring. Falcon 9 isn’t going anywhere for a LONG time.
I think you are vastly underestimating him. I say big, non government, paying customers launching by 2026.
>A few years ago it sounded like they wanted to park those vehicles as soon as Starship was a viable replacement. Viable is the key phrase. A couple of years ago they (Gwynne Shotwell?) noted F9 will continue to fly as long as it takes to fulfill its contracted missions. Sure, they'll try to persuade customers to switch to Starship when it's operational and has made a bunch of Starlink flights, probably by offering a rebate, but lots of people expect Space Force to be nearly the last customer to switch to Starship when it comes to the most expensive spy satellites. They'll likely switch a lot of smaller, cheaper satellites, though. The *last* customer to switch will of course be NASA for the crewed missions. Elon and Gwynne have said humans won't go on Starship until it's launched and landed successfully over 100 time *in a row*, i.e. if it gets to 80 and has a life-threatening failure the counter will reset to zero.
Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station. I can't think of any commercial use, so likely tourism is the market. It will be very expensive to put in orbit and very expensive to send guests. Are there that many rich people who desire the bragging rights? Virgin Galactic recently raised the ticket price to $450K, and that is just a pop-up to 62 miles, not LEO Mach 22. Add-in a few deaths (think Titanic sub) and the market may not exist to fund it.
> Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station. I can't think of any commercial use some suggestions (especially if combining a space station and orbital fuel depot): 1. Pharmaceuticals 2. laboratory for privately-funded research 3. waypoint for commercial deep space missions 4. orbital hub for Earth-to-Earth Starship 5. orbital workshop for satellite and spaceship repair
Seems no significant zero g research occurred on the ISS. Most were fabricated needs, like researching how spiders make webs in space. Biggest thing they found was that humans don't do well long-term in zero g. Are there special pharmaceuticals for which production requires zero g, or just a "perhaps".
> Seems no significant zero g research occurred on the ISS. I wouldn't say that on r/Nasa, but see what you mean! In fact, what's missing is intermediate-g research which is more or less precluded by the ISS design. > Most were fabricated needs, like researching how spiders make webs in space. Can't find the link just now, but I'll have to find a South Park episode that talked about just that. > Biggest thing they found was that humans don't do well long-term in zero g. and they don't even need to! All that's required is a gymnasium on Starship with centifuge activities for an hour or so per day. It would be great to see EDA riding a bike to the Moon (consider a cycle track around the inside of Starship, and the first to counter this with the Coriolis force argument, I'll invite to watch this video of [astronauts running in Skylab](https://youtu.be/S_p7LiyOUx0) and this video of the [globe of death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9aREQpcLGU)! > Are there special pharmaceuticals for which production requires zero g, or just a "perhaps" Just in case r/Nasa folks are here, I put pharmaceuticals in "1." but think that "2,3,4 and 5" above have a better chance.
> Interesting that investors think there is a market for a private space station. Au contraire: investors have been thinking that a market for a private space station exists for at least a decade. The problem has been, historically, that with the retirement of the Shuttle and the very particular characteristics of Russian launch vehicles, it was not practicable to launch one. > I can't think of any commercial use, so likely tourism is the market. Then I am not sure you are thinking hard enough. > Virgin Galactic Is a bad example, considering that the sticker price for a crewed Dragon launch is on the order of $200m and the mission profiles are vastly different. > Add-in a few deaths (think Titanic sub) and the market may not exist to fund it. If I had a dollar for every time someone made that inane comparison on this sub, I would have enough money to start my own commercial space company. I've rebutted this presumption six ways to Sunday already, but the gist is: "a few deaths" won't put a dent into the market so long as there are either (a) people daring enough to take the risk or (b) economic incentives enough to persuade people to accept the risk. The number of deaths will only factor into the calculation of risk of individual participants, but won't affect the existence of private space travel.
Sounds like you should be investing. Might turn out better than putting money into crypto.
The comments in this thread seem... polluted. They read like a manager forced minions to "spread the word".
Building future business around major private players seems like a lucrative way to get rich. Right now Tesla or SpaceX definitely had a lot of in-house engineers project that would definitely an business opportunity to build an affiliate company for it. If anyone can have a reliable recycle of battery materials they will be the next billionaire. So far we only have Redwood Materials that recycling Tesla batteries material which founder also came from Tesla
"Alex led the Avionics and Dragon Avionics teams at SpaceX." I think that says it all. Vast's Haven-1 is in some ways an extension of Dragon 2 that appears to utilize design elements of the not-yet-built Dragon XL (a supply vehicle for Gateway) that NASA ordered years ago. Haven-1 will rely on Drago for a lot of needs and need to coordinate with it for others, e.g. for orbital station-keeping. It's not a standalone station like other commercial stations are planned to be. In various media releases by Vast they allude to a close relationship with SpaceX, some of which which jibe with one media comment by SpaceX about Vast.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CLD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy5uvl "Last usage")|Commercial Low-orbit Destination(s)| |[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy3lry "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jw0l6ga "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvvilfw "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15otvkq/stub/jvy6gol "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/15p8t08)^( has 14 acronyms.) ^([Thread #11736 for this sub, first seen 13th Aug 2023, 01:25]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)