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NASA head hints that reusable rocket cos. like SpaceX will enable Moon return
In a series of thoroughly unexpected and impassioned introductory remarks at one of several 2018 Advisory Council meetings, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine bucked at least two decades of norms by all but explicitly stating that reusable rockets built by innovative private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin will enable the true future of space exploration.
Incredibly, over the course his fascinating hour-long prelude, Bridenstine effectively mentioned NASA’s own SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft – under development for the last decade at a cost of at least several tens of billions of dollars – a total of one time each. Instead, heavily emphasizing the absolute necessity that NASA’s next major human exploration project be sustainable, the administrator spoke at length about the foundational roles that international and domestic space agencies and private companies will need to take on in order to make NASA’s on-paper return to the Moon both real, successful, and useful.
Aside from his arguably brave (but spot-on) decision to all but ignore Boeing and Northrop Grumman’s SLS rocket and Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft over the course of an hour spent speaking about the future of NASA’s human exploration of the Moon and on spaceflight more generally, Bridenstine had nothing but praise for recent successes in the American aerospace industry.
Most notably, he spoke about his belief – at least partially stemming from an executive order requiring it – that the only way NASA can seriously succeed and continue to lead the world in the task of human space exploration is to put an extreme focus on sustainability. Judging from his comments on the matter, the new NASA/Federal buzzword of choice is just a different way to describe hardware reusability, although it certainly leaves wiggle room for more than simply avoiding expendable rocket hardware.
“It’s on me to figure out how to [return to the Moon] sustainably. … And this time, when we go, we’re gonna go to stay. So how do we do go sustainably? Well, [we take] advantage of capabilities that didn’t exist in this country even five or ten years ago. We have commercial companies that can do things that weren’t possible even just a few years ago … to help develop this sustainable [Moon exploration] architecture.” – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, 08/29/2018

While it might not look like much (aside from a “no duh” statement) to anyone unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of NASA bureaucracy and politicking, this quote – directed at an audience of senior NASA scientists and managers and independent experts – is absolutely extraordinary in the context of NASA’s history and the formulaic eggshells NASA administrators have traditionally been forced to walk on when discussing American rocketry.
Not only is SLS/Orion utterly and conspicuously absent in a response to the “how” of starting a new wave of lunar exploration, but Bridenstine also almost explicitly names Blue Origin and SpaceX as torchbearers of the sort of exceptional technological innovation that might revolutionize humanity’s relationship with space. By referring specifically to “commercial companies that can do things that weren’t possible even just a few years ago”, the only obvious answers in the context of serious human exploration on and around the Moon are Blue Origin and SpaceX, both of which managed their first commercial rocket landings in late 2015.
Bridenstine went even further still, noting that NASA will need not just reusable rockets for this sustainable lunar exploration, but also reusable orbital tugboats (space tugs) to sustainably ferry both humans and cargo to and from Earth and the Moon and reusable lunar landers capable of many trips back and forth from space stations orbiting the moon. At one point, he even used SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s (in)famous and well-worn analogy of commercial airlines to emphasize the insanity of not using reusable rockets:
“We have reusable rockets [now]… Imagine if you flew here across the country to [NASA Ames] in a 737 and when the mission was over, you threw the airplane away. How many of you would have flown here?” – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, 08/29/2018
At today's NASA Advisory Council (NAC) meeting, Administrator Jim Bridenstine says the next hop to the moon is going to be sustainable – and will require reusable spaceflight hardware. Uses the same airplane analogy @ElonMusk does when it comes to explaining advantages.
— Emre Kelly (@EmreKelly) August 29, 2018
Reusable rockets lead the charge
It may be generous to include Blue Origin side by side with SpaceX, given the fact that its New Shepard rocket is extremely small and very suborbital, but the company does have eyes specifically set lunar landers and outposts (a project called Blue Moon) and is developing a large and reusable orbital-class rocket (New Glenn) set to debut in the early 2020s.
- Falcon Heavy’s side boosters seconds away from near-simultaneous landings at Landing Zones 1 and 2. (SpaceX)
- We’re not here just yet, but SpaceX is pushing hard to build BFR and get humanity to Mars as quickly as practicable. (SpaceX)
- Blue Origin’s aspirational future, the highly reusable BE-4 powered New Glenn rocket. (Blue Origin)
- Blue Origin’s Blue Moon concept, set to begin experimental lunar landings as early as 2022 or 2023. (Blue Origin)
SpaceX, while focused on Mars colonization, has also expressed a willingness to participate in any sort of lunar exploration that NASA or other international space agencies might have interest in. Currently in the middle of developing its own massive and fully reusable rocket, known as the Big F_____ Rocket (BFR), SpaceX nevertheless already has a flight-tested, highly successfully, and unbeatably cost-effective family of reusable Falcon rockets capable of affordably launching significant mass to the Moon. In fact, both NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are already seriously considering SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy as the launch vehicle of choice for several critical pieces of a Moon-orbiting space station, expected to launch no earlier than the early to mid-2020s.
Whether or not Bridenstine’s incredible and eloquent statements translate into tangible changes to NASA’s long-term strategy, it’s quite simply refreshing to hear a senior NASA executive – let alone the administrator – speak freely and rationally about the reality of what is needed to enable a truly new era of human spaceflight and exploration.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
Elon Musk
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks hit a new stage, and one hurdle remains
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks are reportedly advancing, and a deal could arrive by December.
Tesla and SpaceX are moving closer to a combination, with a deal announcement possible as soon as December, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The companies have also discussed a scenario in which the announcement slips into early 2027.
Boards and advisers on both sides are now working through the terms of the deal and the governance structure of the combined company, according to the report. One open item is how many SpaceX shares Tesla investors would receive. Bloomberg had previously reported that the two companies were aiming to announce a deal in the first half of next year and close it before the end of President Donald Trump’s term, so a December announcement would pull that schedule forward by months.
Tesla shares rose as much as 1.9% to $398.35 after the report, while SpaceX gained 0.6% to $140.63. SpaceX carries a market value of about $1.9 trillion following its June IPO, and Tesla is valued at about $1.55 trillion, which would make a combination the largest corporate deal on record. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
The talks became official on October 20, when Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call that both companies had formed special committees of independent directors to study a merger, as Teslarati reported. Musk said he could not take part because he is “a conflicted party” and called the process “an odd kabuki dance.” He also noted that Tesla would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, a bar the company missed in 2025 when a board declassification proposal won support from only 39.4 percent.
China remains the biggest structural problem. Bloomberg’s sources said the companies still need to work out how to isolate Tesla’s large and profitable manufacturing business in China from SpaceX’s U.S. government and defense contracts. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta described those two factors last month as “key dynamics that are at odds with each other” for regulatory and shareholder approval. Musk has repeatedly said Tesla has no plans to separate its China business, a position he restated in August after ARK Invest predicted a merger announcement before the end of the year.
Washington adds another layer. Democrats took control of Congress in this month’s midterms and have pledged to investigate Musk’s business and political activities, which could bring added scrutiny to a deal involving one of the Pentagon’s most important launch and satellite contractors.
The report also lands three weeks before Tesla’s December 3 annual meeting at Giga Texas. That ballot has only three items, led by the re-election of Musk, board chair Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, and includes no merger proposal. Any deal announced in December would likely require a separate special meeting for Tesla shareholders to vote on it.
The two companies already share a growing list of projects, including the Terafab semiconductor plant in Texas. Tesla’s next generation Roadster, which uses cold gas thrusters built on SpaceX hardware, turned up on display at SpaceX headquarters last month and has become one of the clearest public examples of that overlap.
News
SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big
SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.
SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.
The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.
The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.
SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.
Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.
Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.
The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.
Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.



