reading comments here, and there are wildly unrealistic expectations around building rocket infrastructure, and rockets in general. "rockets are hard", aint a cute little off the cuff quip. here is the most basic reality, a rockey needs fuel that burns very very quickly, as velocity is limmited by the speed of the "flame front" which must be orbital velocity to reach orbit, and escape velocity to reach an interplanetary speed. one of many issues is if the speed of the flame front goes to fast, it detonates the fuel, which is part of what happened @ blue origin last week, likely in a malfunction of a turbo pump, but perhaps any of a dozen other causes is responsible. the true nightmare scenario would be bieng unable to determine the cause, with some indication that it might have been ground equipment, ie: the pad blew up the rocket, and some indication the rocket blew up itself, and the pad. and the whole giant shower of sparks the was raining out of the mushroom cloud, was burning rocket stuff, there is a lot of the equipment that simply vaporised and does not exist in order to be investigated. an indication of how much data they have and for what will be the first indicator of how long return to flight might be. data of actual failed equipment would be exceptionaly good news.

In order for rocket launches to reach 1000+ per year in a decade, we need more innovations and business models in launch pads. 18 months to restore a launchpad is going to hamper progress significantly. We need to build as many launchpads as we can and allow private companies to rent them. Ofcourse each rocket design and their launchpads are intricately coupled by various factors, and this would make building generic launchpads a bit difficult. But the oppurtunity and necessity exists nonetheless. Blue Origin would agree until the next 18 months.

I'm a layperson when it comes to launchpads and aerospace but "we need to build as many launchpads as we can" seems quite spatially demanding? With all the public push-back around data centers and large fulfillment centers it seems an uphill climb. I am genuinely curious to the constraints here as, additionally, I read an article about the large environmental impact of SpaceX (?) debris falling onto public land in the outside vicinity of their launch area.

From environmental, staffing and practical standpoints it may make sense to condense the launchpads in a single area. Just spitballing here and am curious to learn more.

They don’t have to be too far from each other.

Another option would be to standardise on a launch pad design and make the rockets to match it, perhaps with a set of adapters for ground systems. This way, if you accidentally decommission a pad, you can build a new set of adapters and use any other pad that follows your “Unipad” standard.

Standardizing is not quite simple. Each rocket is different from each other. There are many reasons why launchpads are intricately designed as per specific rockets. examples like The type of fuel used, the pipelines that supply them until T-0, the reusable capabilities, sound suppression system, rocket and payload weight, etc. But if standardization is indeed achieved, then all the more victory for the spacefarers!

I know it’s not simple. This is why it’d need some deliberate imposition of requirements - this would harm the players with most dedicated platforms to benefit everyone (including the people paying to launch their things).

I am not sure why NASA hasn’t imposed the requirement that Dragon, Starliner, and Dream Chaser should all be able to launch from each others booster.

Yes, I meant the same. Basically, I called for expansion of existing spaceports and a handful of new ones. They will be closer to the coast as always with the launch paths facing the ocean to avoid debris falling on the population.

As an engineer, I have a lot of respect and admiration for the SpaceX and Blue Origin teams. All engineering is inherently difficult and even more so when you’re doing it on a big stage. On days when I made a mistake on a hardware design, I might have let some magic smoke out of one of the chips on the board. But it didn’t make the global news feed. Not only are these folks solving really hard problems, they are doing so in public, with lots of cameras watching.