Monday, February 9, 2015

New Stealth Bomber Could Jump the Palmdale and Lancaster Economy Spring 2015

News reports indicate a big Pentagon Project which could be awarded to Palmdale, Ca. Northrop Grumman. They are bidding to make the New Stealth Bomber. Each plane could cost $550 million or more to make. Grumman already has a facility building the earlier bomber at Plant 42. Grumman and Palmdale, Ca. are in competition with Boeing on the project. This means more jobs for Antelope Valley. News reports also indicate that Sacramento legislators have passed bills to provide tax breaks for Lockheed and Grumman last summer in hopes on getting the deal. LA Times quotes Palmdale Ca. Mayor "They've indicated that they can’t talk about it but he can," Mayor James Ledford said the prospects look good. Northrop executives have said they would build substantial parts of the company's proposed bomber in Palmdale, he said, creating an estimated 1,500 jobs. Rival Lockheed Martin Corp. who is a subcontractor to Boeing Co. indicated it also plans to work on a new warplane in Palmdale, Mayor Ledford said. That means more jobs. Military officials say they want the plant to be built for $550 million each, and not the $1 Billion a plane as in the past. Sources indicate their budget is $1.2 Billion per plane, and they want to build 100 new planes starting this spring. Both Grumman and Lockheed have a track record of going over budget. Antelope Valley has a long history with high tech planes. The B-2 was built here, as well as the first Stealth Bomber, U-2 spy plane, and the F-117 stealth fighter. There has been a lot of jobs in Palmdale and LA County from aerospace through the decades of the Cold War. Even today Virgin Galactic tests their space rocket just north in Kern County at Edwards Air force Base. Winning this project will certainly help the local economy and these engineers will have to buy a home and later invest in their community.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk Plans to Build a 5 Mile Test Track for his Hyperloop Transportation System

Elon Musk is bringing the Hyperloop project closer to reality. He said recently that he is making plans to bring a testing facility for the ultra-fast Hyperloop system. It will likely be made in Texas and it will be approximately 5 miles long. The plan according to his tweet is to create pods connected to a train system and these pods will transport passengers and likely cars at hyper speeds between destinations. The system is based on creating a vacuum and theoretically transporting passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under an hour. He said in his tweets that his Hyperloop track would be open to other companies and students “to test out their pods.” This is in direct competition to the CalHighSpeed Rail which has recently broken ground in Fresno with media hype and political backing from Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown. The Hyperloop system is projected to cost billions less than the CalHighSpeed Rail, and the Hyperloop can transport your car and you.