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Notes from Elon Musk speaking at the NRO >> we can exactly replicate if rocket is shot
Details from Elon's speech at the NRO (self.spacex)
submitted 23 minutes ago * by Ravenous117

Addressing the anomaly:

"We are close to figuring it out. It might have been formation of solid oxygen in the carbon over-wrap of one of the bottles in the upper stage tanks. If it was liquid it would have been squeezed out but under pressure it could have ignited with the carbon. This is the leading theory right now, but it is subject to confirmation.

The other thing we discovered is that we can exactly replicate what happened on the launch pad if someone shoots the rocket. We don't think that is likely this time around, but we are definitely going to have to take precautions against that in the future. We looked at who would want to blow up a SpaceX rocket. That turned out to be a long list. I think it is unlikely this time, but it is something we need to recognize as a real possibility in the future."

Addressing return to flight:

"The plan is to get back to launch in early December and that will be from pad 39A at the Cape and we will be launching around the same time from Vandenberg as well. Pad 40 will probably be back in action around March or April next year. Probably around May or so is when we will launch Falcon Heavy. We are going to re-fly the first returned core December or January. We have test fired one of the returned cores 8 times and it looks good. That is promising for testing re-flight."

Other interesting points:

3D printing works fine for super-dracos, but too much work is needed to make it feasible on Raptors.

Elon envisions Mars as a direct democracy, not a representative democracy.

Still wants communication satellite constellation to provide revenue for Mars.

In talking about the IAC, "Crazy people are a lot faster to the mic than scientists."

These are my personal accounts of what I heard from Elon live and the rough transcript is from a recording of the event. I do not know much other than what I heard but I wanted to share with you guys. Enjoy.
Posted by: 3dc 2016-10-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=470221