Not sure why your comment was downvoted but this is true, there really isn't much open space around the SpaceX property.

I wish we had a campus like Raytheon or Northrop have in El Segundo/Redondo Beach. The 60's & 70's were certainly the high points in aerospace campus architecture here in SoCal.

I do work for SpaceX although I'm not in engineering or software dev. I work in the technician/skilled labor side of the house.

I don't think I've posted anything specifically discussing the merits of the NRA, although I have posted on the subject of gun control and self defense. In any case I'm not sure why discussing that topic and working at SpaceX would be mutually exclusive.

Obviously it should be said that I don't represent SpaceX and the views I express here are my own and not the company's.

To be honest, I hadn't considered the ramifications of using the company name as part of my username. You make a good point about the potential of being mistaken for representing the company in some official capacity and I will heed your advice and register under a different username.

I'm curious about the etiquette in regards to identifying myself as a SpaceX employee though. I originally joined to relay some of my personal experiences with the company, is it generally a bad idea to identify myself as an employee, or is the bigger issue in your opinion the use of the company name within my username?

Also, if I do identify myself as an employee, do you think it would be wise to maintain two separate accounts, one exclusively for discussing SpaceX/space related matters and another one for other possibly more controversial topics or is it no longer an issue as long as I have a more generic username?

I certainly understand your position and appreciate the advice.

I wouldn't think twice if you had in your profile something like "I work for SpaceX." Good to know, but not the source of your opinions. Your account is young enough that you can gain all that back without the boss in your name. This isn't my first account.

Plus, and I can't speak for everyone, but as a former would-be astronaut, this kind of stuff is tops to me. Info from insiders is always welcome. Consider starting a blog.

Thanks for taking my opinions into account.

Thanks again for the advice, I certainly value your point of view. This is the last time I'll post from this account, I'll go ahead and start a new one at some point.

I appreciate your sentiment in my starting a blog but I don't think I'd have the time to meaningfully contribute to it and I don't feel comfortable enough in my writing ability to do the kind of long form writing I feel such a topic deserves.

There are certainly many would-be astronauts here as well. Thanks for the kind words in support of the work we're doing.

I'd also advise you to remember that SpaceX isn't taking kindly to employees passing out internal information.

Sick. Hope I helped cuz I'm down for the cause

Stick with your name. You earned it.

Based on that FAA application it looks like someone will be losing their prime parking spot.

In all seriousness though, I'm not sure how I feel about this monument. It's going to be really crammed next to the main building and I don't think it will have a very strong visual presence with a giant grey wall directly in the background. There isn't really a good vantage point for viewing either. I suppose it will look ok from the opposite corner of Crenshaw.

You probably know best here, but I'm seeing a first stage height of 135 ft. Perhaps they're thinking of placing it on the roof of the main building? Though I do totally agree that it would look better elsewhere, like over by one of the onramps to the 105. Just a shame that the Western Museum of Flight moved, a nice little rocket garden in that museum would have been a nice touch.

Great comment and it goes aptly with your username.

I understand this wasn't directed at me but seeing as I had a similar reaction I hope I can give you some explanation of my response.

Firstly however, I'd like to apologize for the tone of my response below. While I stand by my post's general idea I feel it was poorly worded and came out unnecessarily hostile and combative, along with overly dismissive of your point of view. I'm going to leave it up unedited if for no other reason than to serve as an example of how not to engage in these discussions. In particular, I really shouldn't have made any assumptions about your specific background and again, my apologies.

The exact reasons why I disagreed so strongly with your post are proving difficult for me to illustrate beyond what I've already written. In essence, by painting the act of self defense as being morally or ethically ambiguous, I feel that you are essentially dismissing the experiences that those like myself, who have had to endure violence first hand, have had. I fully accept that I may be misreading your intent here but it comes off as somehow equivocating a defensive response to violence with using violence to prey on others.

Its also upsetting to me because I run across similar sentiments in my daily life that I find troubling. While I consider myself fortunate to both work and socialize with people of many different classes and races I find certain attitudes held by most of those who had the luxury of middle-upper class upbringings regarding being poor to be problematic. I understand this may not be the case with you and I overreacted.

All too often however I come across people espousing views on what it's like to be poor or be surrounded by violence without ever having been poor or surrounded by violence. It comes off as dismissive of my experiences.

It also showcases the problem of racial and economic segregation that is becoming increasingly widespread in the US whereby the burden of being poor and living around violence is increasingly being cordoned off from the rest of society. To me this is expressed by views such as yours that hold self defense as morally ambiguous. It's telling that not a single person who I grew up around would ever consider their right to self defense, even if using deadly force, to be problematic. The only people who I've ever heard espouse these views have never encountered violence at all. I understand that this may not be you, and that there probably exist people who have been victims of violence and still view deadly force as unjust, I've just never met any myself and this surely distorts my perspective.

I'm unsure if this post makes a coherent argument that explains my views succinctly but I hope it helps.

Either way, sorry about the tone of my previous comment.

I'm going to flatly state that while I currently live in a relatively high crime area I do not carry any weapons, firearms or otherwise, on me at any time. I do not harbor any kind of action hero revenge fantasies and my first choice when ever I have been faced with the prospect of physical violence has been to try and deescalate the situation followed by attempting to flee.

I will also add that I spent a good part of my youth living in an area of Oakland, and before that Houston, that was brutalized by a bizarre concoction of gang violence and police corruption mixed with a healthy dose of community apathy.

With all that being said I find your comment extraordinarily naive, paternalistic and offensive. To suggest that citizens, especially those of communities that have been systematically disenfranchised both socially and economically, should feel shame in defending themselves from criminal elements that seek to prey on their condition is absurd.

I certainly don't celebrate the death of another human being and hope that we as a society can find non violent ways of addressing grievances, but to conflate self defense, even when it results in unfortunate death, as bloodlust is insulting.

I usually tend to refrain from drawing conclusions about a poster's personal background on the basis of comments since it's rife for misunderstanding but in this instance I find it hard to bite my tongue. You sound like the product of an extraordinarily privileged life. Perhaps not Gates or Zuckerberg levels of privilege, but privilege nonetheless. The type of privilege were you viewed the police as friends of the community, the type were you didn't have to fear being shot, or stabbed, or bludgeoned, or run over multiple times (something that actually happened to a childhood friend) by the gangs that controlled your neighborhood. The type of privilege were as a child you could be outside after sunset, the type were you didn't have to run from the bus stop straight home every afternoon to avoid being jumped.

The funny thing about privilege is that those who are its biggest beneficiaries are often the least aware if its existence. To suggest that those of us who didn't grow up with the privilege of safety from having physical violence visited upon us or our families and friends as a regular occurrence should view the idea of self defense, even when resulting in death, as being ethically or morally ambiguous represents an almost sociopathic level of delusion.

I rarely speak about my childhood or private life. & by rarely, I mean never, unless it's the nice stuff. I guess that ends today.

I was born & raised in & around Los Angeles. My parents were pregnant before graduating high school with my older sister. 15 months later, I was born. The family was all-American, all-military. Air Force. Dad worked for his dad in a print shop. Mom worked in a nail & hair salon. They offered us the best they could. I learned at a young age what bankruptcy was, & the impact it had on adults who were struggling to keep their heads above water.

My earliest memory is walking out of our apartment in Canoga Park to find my mom's car up on blocks because someone stole the wheels & tires off her little Mazda. I think I was around 3. Years later, I was still squeezing my now-6-foot-tall self into the back seat of that car. There was a lot of violence & crime in Canoga Park.

But that was child's play, & nothing compared to the violence in my home.

Until I was nearly 11, my father was an uncontrollable force of violent rage. The kind that results from a severe chemical imbalance, not the alcoholic kind--I've seen alcohol pass my dad's lips maybe 3 times in my whole life. He never touched the stuff. Never touched drugs. Never even smoked a cigarette. He was a gym rat, & an enormous man. Lucky for me, though his massive hands were rarely quiet, I was not the target. My mother, on the other hand, learned to take her hits well--both from life & from him.

My earliest memory of a firearm was the one I saw my father point into my mother's face. I was about 5. We'd just moved into a new home they had built. My sister & I watched in horror from the hallway as he pressed the muzzle into her face. My sister, just 6 years old, ran into the room & began yelling at him to stop. Terrified, I hid behind one of those tall floor speakers that were so the rage at that time. Shaking uncontrollably, I couldn't help but peek out from behind the speaker, just waiting for the gun to go off. Words I do not recall were yelled at my sister, & she went scurrying back down the hallway. She & I were like twins. & twins stick together. I overcame my petrifying fear & ran back down the hallway after her. We went to my room. She was never very good at thinking through anything--still isn't. She was unbelievably good at simply acting with no thought of consequences. I, however, was always the thinker. Hiding in my room with my sister, away from the horror unfolding in living room, I was able to think. We grabbed my [other] infant sister, & I kicked screen out of my bedroom window--oh, praise the southern Californian ranch-style, single-level homes!--so we could escape the house. We ran from the house, trying to find a neighbor with a phone. We hadn't really learned about 911 as I recall, or perhaps we were just scared to fucking death, & couldn't recall the digits. My sister & I discussed how we needed to call my uncle, the only other bodybuilding man we knew who was even bigger & stronger than our massive dad. But we did not know his phone number. At this point, my memory gets pretty hazy. I cannot for the life of me remember how we wound up back inside the house. But we did. My mother somehow talked my father into leaving the house--and the gun. While he was gone, we rode with her in that shitty little Mazda some distance away. We thought we were leaving--it would have probably been the dozenth time I could remember. I realized we weren't when my mother pulled up to a dumpster behind a store, & I watched her throw the gun inside. She was, of course, punished pretty severely when my father found out.

From age 5 to 10, living in that house my parents built that my father so routinely did his best to destroy, my father worked in the valley. He would stay close to work Mon-Thur, & only come home Fridays for the weekend. So, it was basically 5 years of 4 days of peace with a mother who grew increasingly hardened, & a father who'd come home just as we were all feeling relaxed to fuck that all up for 2 days & 3 nights. Of course, I never had the slightest idea that in many ways, he simply couldn't help it--and please don't misunderstand that statement as being any kind of excuse for his behavior.

When I was 10, in the 7th grade--I skipped from 3rd to 5th grade--we moved to a new house. I began to learn very quickly about gangs. I knew kids with guns at school. Kids had no shoes because they'd been stolen while walking to school that morning. Same with jackets in the winters. I learned to identify the kids in my schools who were involved in gangs. I learned how to keep my ears open & pay attention to what was around me. I still got the shit beat out of me from time to time. I learned not to be afraid of any single one of these fuckers, & they knew they had to knock me out to shut me up because I wasn't going to back down just because some punk or bully was wearing colors. I also learned about crooked cops. They were everywhere. Oh, there were definitely some good ones to be found. But at 35, I still eye every cop with suspicion. I can't recall a time since I was about 8 that I felt police were a friend of the community.

With a military family, it was inevitable I would learn to fire guns. Everyone in the family had them. I learned to take them apart, clean them, & rebuild them by the time I was 10. I began shooting them when I was about 12. I've fired many. I don't own a single one, & I probably never will. First impressions stick harder than anything else.

It was during this time my father swallowed a bottle of pills. He'd apparently had enough of himself & couldn't cope anymore. The pills were supposed to help him somehow find balance. Instead, they drove him way over the edge into what I assume he thought would be the eternal arms of endless rest.

He failed. I was made to visit him in the hospital. My mom brought my sisters & I to see him and, sitting in a cold room at a table, I saw my father cry for the first time. I hated him for it, & refused to allow him any of my sympathy. I became a little terror for a while. I kind of checked out emotionally & mentally. School, which had always been an effortless straight-A achievement, took a nose-dive. Suspensions. Cut classes. I'd leave school part way through the day & walk miles back home, coordinating my arrival with when the buses dropped my sisters off.

As my 11th birthday approached, I recall a clear, radical thought: I simply couldn't keep looking to my parents for answers. They were a fucking mess, & barely able to take care of themselves. If I was going to figure out how to navigate life & the world around me, how to not let my life so far have any chance at fucking me up, I was going to have to start tackling it on my own. So, that's what I did. I started reading everything I could get my hands on. The Bible. History. Science. Math. Literature. Philosophy. I began to learn the contours of what I could get away with, & what would make my parents' eyebrows raise. I was looking for something, anything tied to something stronger that could pull me ashore. I found that in knowledge, education, studying, questioning everything I was told, interrogating everything--including myself--to discover just what it was made of.

When I was 17 & learning how to drive, my dad told me he was proud of me for the first time I could recall. Like, a genuine moment I could tell he was facing the fact that I'd just told him & my mom I couldn't stay at home anymore & had to go. I nearly drove the car off the road as, for the first time in 6 years, I teared up & began crying. We were both choked up, & I tried--as I usually do in difficult situations--to lighten the mood by joking that was one hell of a way to risk our lives.

That bottle of pills was my dad's salvation. He was never the same after that. He never raised his hands again. He was transformed. He's such a different person in many ways today because of that moment. I'm proud of him for eventually finding a way out of the darkness. Sadly, he's never been able to forgive himself, even though my sisters & I most certainly have. Some years after my sister & I moved out of the house, my mom told me that he spent almost every night of that first year we were gone crying himself to sleep. In his mind, he's never really stopped being that monster he was before he tried to die.

That bottle of pills was my salvation. I was never the same after that.

---

So, random internet stranger, I am not the product of an extraordinarily privileged life. Except that I was born white. & male. & had a computer at 8, which was the luckiest break I ever had (after being white & male). I never thought growing up that I would ever make it to being 20 years old.

And no, random internet stranger, what I said was neither naive nor paternalistic. Nor is it borne of some sociopathic level of delusion. That you are offended by someone taking a strong stance against violence of all forms is for you to own. We don't have to agree, but please do yourself & everyone else a great favor by not thinking you could possibly ever definitively & accurately intuit someone's personal background on the basis of their comments & the positions they take on things.

I recognize precisely where my privilege lies. I have long known of its existence, before it even became popular to talk about privilege. That you imagine a life of posh privilege as being the life that would cause a person to take a firm position on something shows only a gaping lack of imagination on your part.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and for sharing your experience. Prior to this post I commented that I regretted my initial response to you as being overly dismissive of your point of view. I had the opportunity to edit/delete it at that time but I figured I may as well let it stand and afford you an opportunity to respond. I echo the same sentiment here, it was poorly worded in addition to being a colossal mistake on my part to try and draw conclusions about your personal experience based on a single comment.

Interestingly enough, while we clearly differ on this issue we both seem to share some similarities in our childhood experiences. I suppose the lesson for me from all this is the understanding that while it may be convenient to assume that those who hold differing opinions from myself must have had vastly different experiences, this isn't necessarily the case. While we probably won't find much common ground on the issue at hand I think it's rewarding to engage in these discussions, my overly dismissive language notwithstanding. It's enlightening to know that even those with somewhat similar experiences can have vastly different viewpoints and reactions as a result of those experiences, this certainly makes for an interesting world.

I too tend to dislike speaking about my private life and I regret that my post resulted in you feeling the need to talk about yours, although I appreciate you taking the time to prove how misguided my initial post was. I'm not particularly good at expressing my views, whether written or spoken, and thus don't engage in these kind of discussions often. While its wonderful to be able to engage with others online, it is too easy to be dismissive or hostile to others in a way I would never be in person. I will certainly try and keep that in mind the next time I post.

I find your strong stance against violence in all its forms to be admirable. It's not something I find myself capable of accepting but as you said that is more of a reflection on me than you. Perhaps you are a better man than I.

In any case, I apologize for the content of my initial response. I'm embarrassed by my rush to judgement and hope that you find my apology sincere.

Please know, there's really no need for apologizing. I don't harbor the slightest bit of hard feelings. I'll admit I'm feeling pretty uneasy about divulging my past, and I'm really thinking hard about deleting my comment (I had considered emailing you to carry on a conversation offline, but you didn't have an email on your profile). I know it's so easy to assume that everyone we disagree with must be from a completely different universe.

However, allow me to assure you there's no chance I'm in any way better than you. We are different, that's all.

I spent a long while replying, and then editing that reply down because I learned there's a comment length limit on HN. After finishing that, I saw your other reply. I appreciate your kindness. I wanted to reply further (and still do), but it was getting late on the East Coast, and I needed to step away and somewhat just deal with speaking so frankly about my past.

For what it's worth, I'd be happy to keep talking offline if you'd want to. My email is in my profile. I'll return to reply to some other comments and issues raised here.

Thanks again for the thoughtful and kind reply. Your dignified response is again a reminder of the crassness of my initial comment and the embarrassment I feel towards having made it.

I completely understand your unease with sharing such personal detail, I myself tried to make my post intentionally vague which results in much less valuable substance than what you have shared. Your experience is powerful and well told and although different in terms of the source of our childhood misery, I drew parallels with my own. I understand if you decide to delete it however.

I'm rather new to HN and wasn't aware of a comment length limit either, thanks for pointing it out.

I'm glad to hear that you and your father have made peace.

I look forward to reading your subsequent comments, and in particular I look forward to the next time we might disagree. I assure you I will put more care into crafting my response as I greatly value having someone who can challenge my views, even if that only serves in them being strengthened.

Enjoy the rest of your night.

I agree with you that on the fundamental level I don’t like the idea of rights being perpetually limited on the basis of being a convicted felon. As far as I’m concerned once a person has served their sentence, including parole, they have paid their debt to society in full and shouldn’t be barred from exercising any rights that non felons enjoy. This isn’t limited solely to the right to bear arms but also the right to vote, which many states still bar for convicted felons. If we as a society are so uncomfortable with the people who have paid their debt that we deem they must be prevented from exercising their rights even after serving their sentence, then perhaps it’s time we take a hard look at the failings of our “corrections” system.

On a hypothetical level, even if I did support the current laws barring convicted felons of certain rights in perpetuity, I would still have a problem with the way this is being administered today. I’ve read some pretty damning reports on some of the discriminatory practices that continue at the institutional level within the broader criminal justice system which seem to primarily affect certain segments of our population. Poor people, particularly minorities and specifically black males, face some very specific challenges when it comes to things like selective enforcement, pretrial plea bargains, rates of conviction and length of sentencing. At this point I can’t really describe our justice system as anything but blatantly discriminatory.

Even in a more equitable and just system, I personally wouldn’t support the taking away of rights in perpetuity, and I certainly don’t support it when it seems to have such a deliberate and specific impact on certain groups.

I've also heard the argument that having a national registry makes the possibility of future mass confiscation much more palatable.

There are probably a good deal of people who wouldn't mind amending the Constitution to rid it of the Second Amendment but who still view the 4th Amendment favorably. It would be very difficult to enforce a policy of mass confiscation without the aid of a national registry that wouldn't be a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

All 20th Century gun confiscations I can think of, aside from the Chinese Communists' rifle tax system, were preceded by registration. Nazi Germany most infamously, and in occupied territories like the Netherlands failure to produce yours would result in your entire family being summarily shot in the village square. But also Cuba after Castro took power, or less dire (so far), the U.K. bit by bit. Or closer to home, California, after the AG decided that SKSes were banned after all.

Last time I checked, which was decades ago, the national ACLU, which has no respect for the 2nd Amendment at all, did have such a 4th Amendment objection.

Your question may be impossible to answer since I suspect that what is "profoundly important" varies enormously between individuals but I will try anyway.

Speaking for myself I believe there is something incredibly unique in the way humans devote incredible amounts of energy to aspects of life that aren't inherently necessary to survival but nonetheless add to the richness of our lives. Art and music are examples of things that while not required for life, certainly make life more interesting.

The human drive to explore the places beyond the horizon and to expand our knowledge are things I would certainly describe as of profound importance, even if they don't have immediate direct benefits, although often times they do.

In the end I think JFK put it best in his 1962 speech at Rice:

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…

They are extremely upfront about expectations.

Sadly, whenever these discussions about employees leaving SpaceX come up, some commenters invariably come to the false conclusion that anyone who leaves SpaceX is a loser or somehow couldn’t hack it here. This is obviously not true.

Priorities change and work being the number one or singular focus during one period of life doesn’t make it so perpetually. People get older/more mature and some decide they want to start a family, travel more, want to own a home (not an easy task even as a well paid engineer here in LA), or any number of other good reasons that may lead to leaving SpaceX. None of these reasons should reflect poorly on those who leave.

With that being said, I find it incredibly annoying when new employees come in, some with very impressive backgrounds, and within a few weeks start complaining about the work environment despite it being made abundantly clear to them at every point in the hiring process. I was first hired for a job consisting of extremely low skill manual labor and even for someone in my position it was made very clear what was expected of me from the very first phone screening.

SpaceX is the only aerospace job I've held so I can't speak from personal experience working at any competing companies but from what I hear you are right in that SpaceX tends to have a pretty negative reputation within the industry as far as work/pay are concerned. Interestingly, this tends to work in favor of SpaceX employees who leave the company. I've heard that while engineers from competitors often times see working here as undesirable, hiring managers are quite fond of ex-SpaceX employees, at least partially due to it being a difficult work environment. I've heard that at the very least, competency notwithstanding, having SpaceX on your resume shows you can handle long hours and stress.

I would also add that in general I think many people tend to think the grass is always greener on the other side. I’ve known both engineers and technicians who have moved on to “greener” pastures at more established aerospace/defense companies only to later tell me that they weren’t all that green afterall. I have a good friend who joined a large aero/defense conglomerate out of state to be closer to family and while the the pay pump was a nice feature at first, its luster wore off after a few weeks when he ran into some bureaucratic issues that he probably wouldn’t have had to worry about here. I also work closely with a fairly senior engineer who has a decade plus experience at JPL and Rocketdyne and flatly states that working here has rekindled his passion largely due to the relatively flat structure. He was absolutely worn out by all the middle managers he had to deal with previously. I think, and this is especially true at the more senior engineering levels, not necessarily for us lowly techs, having the ability to walk over to Elon or Tom Mueller and voice your concerns directly is pretty empowering for most and makes working here very unique in an industry that tends to put massive layers between engineers and management.

I’ll add a counter point so that I don’t come off sounding like a complete SpaceX shill and say that I also know people who have left and are very happy with their decision and their new workplaces, although many, in my experience most, still look back at their time here fondly.

I would also note that the space launch business inherently requires long hours due to its complexity and unpredictability. If you work in space launch, and are responsible for any flight critical operations, you will work the occasional 60, 70, or even 80 hour week, there is simply no way around it and it even happens at places like ULA and Rocketdyne.

This isn’t to excuse SpaceX’s sometimes poor planning and management which end up requiring more of these long weeks than should arguably be necessary, but sometimes it’s just a fact of life in this industry. Hopefully as the company matures hours and schedules continue to stabilize, it’s always frustrating to lose good people because they have to make the choice between spending time with family or work.

I'm working in Antarctica right now, and some of the things you said reflect some similarities to working here. For some people, it's a lifestyle. Most of those people are single, divorced, never married, etc. For others, it's one or two "tours" (also called deployments) then back to "real life" in a more normal 9-5 type job. Tradeoffs either way, people just have to choose what's best for them.

>> the space launch business inherently requires long hours due to its complexity and unpredictability

We are talking about a company which intends to send people on Mars. Really ?

:-)