Building Our Soup Bowl*

Recently, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX will begin building "floating superheavy-class spaceports" for its launch and recovery of spacecraft; IOW VTOL aircraft carriers. One presumes these vessels will include repair and re-condition capabilities for Falcon and Starship vehicles as an initial minimum standard, with all that that includes engineering-wise.

It probably shouldn't go without saying that the usual run of blue-water vessel crewing requirements will also be necessary; Captain, bridge watchstanders, communications and radar operators and maintenance workers, both ship and flight deck engineering and maintenance personnel, culinary and other human support crew ... it's a long list of ship handling and maintenance specialties whose tasks have to be provided for both in personnel and in logistic support, along with all of the financial commitments doing that entails. I presume Mr. Musk will operate these ships under Texas registration and regulations; if so he might want to strongly consider creating a Texas-based security company which employs Level III licensed guards trained to function in a nautical environment (trained EMT's/Paramedics and maybe rescue swimmers combines several potential requirements), particularly in light of the threat potential such a complex investment seems almost certain to attract. (See: Update below)

There is plenty of existing commercial experience to draw upon to develop a shore support effort (all those oil well platforms in the Gulf and elsewhere); and let's face it, aircraft carriers have been in existence for a century now, as has replenishing them logistically underway - hardly cutting edge science there. A lot of additional features to develop of course; making sure your boat doesn't catch fire and explode every landing and launch understandably being high on that list. Mr. Musk and his team will be fully occupied for some years getting all of this underweigh.

A technology I think Mr. Musk should look into is Life Proof Boats (I don't have any connection to the company, I'm just impressed with what I've seen so far) . They don't heavily advertise them, but they do offer a 48' version that at first look seems a useful platform to economically provide logistic support to a vessel operating within a few hundred miles of harbor, as well as fire fighting support and crew escape (one of these could easily tow one or two standard 20 person life rafts) while the carrier is on station. Hanging some Oxe Diesel Outboard Engines off the stern would permit an economy of performance hard to beat, I think (no connection to this company either, but one fuel for all vessels just seems a better option to me). Additionally, I can't help believing that Star Link provides a platform by which much of the work involved with one or a fleet of space launch and recovery ships can be equally well performed remotely by operators on shore.

Additionally, I find myself attracted to the idea that, much like commercial yachts hiring their Captain and Chief Engineer to be involved in the vessel build process, potentially being able to watch the development of the procedures and technologies used to achieve the SpaceX fleet logistics requirements during their development strongly attracts me. In part because I served on a USN carrier back at the tail end of the Vietnam war, in part because I like the challenge of small boat handling (on and off the boat), and in part because I worked 15+ years in some aspect of logistics that didn't involve a desk.

We'll see ... and that's the best part of all.  :)

*Jerry Pournelle famously coined the phrase, "It's raining soup in space, we just need to build a bowl and go get some."

Update 6/21/2020: A security force - importantly, one that works for you - that is trained in repelling, investigating, and documenting (to appropriate legal standard) criminal acts both on and off the high seas isn't a needless cost; see: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/americas/gulf-mexico-pirates-ships.html