Flight tracker jetblue

Tracking flights for various events

2022.02.16 18:08 HolidayWallaby Tracking flights for various events

A place for all of you flight tracking fanatics to post links and discuss the flights which take your fancy.
[link]

2018.09.11 18:37 KSP_HarvesteR Balsa Model Flight Simulator

The official subreddit for Balsa Model Flight Simulator by Floating Origin Interactive
[link]

2012.11.08 13:49 stoneforger Elite Dangerous

The official unofficial subreddit for Elite Dangerous, we even have devs lurking the sub! Elite Dangerous is a space simulator game by Frontier Developments based in the year 3309. Your CMDR flies spaceships and participates in exploring a 1:1 scale Milky Way, trade between star systems, bounty-hunting wanted ships, discover alien lifeforms, and even pirate other ships for their cargo.
[link]

2023.06.06 22:40 Independent_Lock SQUAWK 7600

SQUAWK 7600
Reg. Number (MS1) squawked 7600 at about 4:25-4:30 PM EST
submitted by Independent_Lock to flightradar24 [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 19:22 OxGaabe6 Where to go next? Old, boring credit history.

Background: Right before the pandemic started I switched jobs, which resulted in my income doubling. Then the world shut down and I used the time and reduced expenses to pay off my credit cards and student loan. I haven't carried a monthly credit card balance in 3 years. My student loan account closed 3 months ago. I split my monthly spending between the two cards (based on the Discover cash back bonus) and pay them off monthly. My credit history is clean, no late payments or derogatory. No inquiries in the last 3 years.
I now have a solid income and no debt and want to maximize my credit card options. What do you think would be the best? I started thinking about this when they opened the Chase Sapphire lounge at my home airport. There's a lot of information out there and I want to make the best decision for benefits/rewards.
CREDIT PROFILE
CATEGORIES
MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS (delete lines that don't apply)
PURPOSE
submitted by OxGaabe6 to CreditCards [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 13:32 cosmoshistorian A Rocket Lab Due Diligence (DD), it is time we discuss this company seriously.

A Rocket Lab Due Diligence (DD), it is time we discuss this company seriously.

Rocket Lab Due-Diligence (DD)

‘We Open Access to Space to Improve Life on Earth.’

Introduction

With the 2024 first launch of the Rocket Lab Mega Constellation Launcher—The Neutron—fast approaching, I decided it is high time for a more up-to-date DD on Rocket Lab. A lot is happening in the industry, the company, and the world. I have decided to dive into the future, fundamentals, industry, funding, financials, dreams, and of course, the memes of the aspiring space company. Now, I am posting my DD into both of the Rocket Lab subreddit, as I am new to writing DD and I want to hit as wide of an audience as I can. One disclaimer (for those who do not like stock talk), this DD is not meant to encourage buying of the stock, nor is it financial advice or a stock-only DD, I merely want to dive into this company and simply spark some discussion on it!
Now, Rocket Lab is a private aerospace manufacturer and small satellite launch service provider. The company was founded in 2006 by Peter Beck and is headquartered in Long Beach, California, with additional facilities in New Zealand and Australia. Rocket Lab specializes in the development and launch of small rockets capable of delivering payloads of up to 300 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Rocket Lab—self-designated as a leader in launch and space systems—is a company that has a chance at becoming a highly profitable giant over the next decade and beyond. In my honest opinion, Rocket Lab currently thrives off of the crumbs of the current space industry ecosystem. With Space X increasingly focused upon one goal—thanks to their controversial, yet nevertheless, fearless leader—being Mars, Rocket Labs can (and in my opinion will) become one of the go-to space companies for low earth orbit launches in the near term and in the long-term become one of the go-to space company for launches between the Moon, Venus, and Mars as well. Rocket Lab currently lives off of the crumbs left behind by NASA, Space X, and the United States military-industrial complex.
Like these two legends from the movie War Dogs, Rocket Lab is determined to become the go-to space company for transporting all types of goods into orbit. For those of you who have not seen the movie (I personally highly recommend it), essentially, when these two start their arms-dealing company, they focus upon all of the small contracts that the government is putting out for arms supplies. The contracts that the big players are ignoring, due to their small sizes, even so, these small contracts are worth hundreds of thousands to low millions. Now, this is where Rocket Lab currently lies in the industry.
\"A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.\" - Ben Bova
Now, before I dive into everything here, I need every to understand that this industry is on the verge of immense change and rapid evolution. We are currently in the first stage of the world’s Second Space Race. As a student of History, I can confidently tell you that there are murmurings within the historical community, that this is the case, beginning with the creation and success of Space X’s first reusable rocket: the Falcon 9. On December 21st of 2015, when the first Falcon 9 was launched and the landing was successful with the first stage fully recovered, the race began. In the same way that there is no single company above all others in the airline, shipping & transportation, or car manufacturing industries, is the same reason I do not believe that Space X will alone run the space industry’s transportation needs. There is plenty of room for companies like Rocket Lab to fill the gaps Space X cannot and in a decade’s time, there will be plenty of room for even more companies. Yet, there are no companies that are even close to competing with Space X—other than Rocket Lab—at this time. Now, I won’t go deeply into most of these competitors in this deep dive, but to be short, Astra is on the verge of total failure, Virgin Galactic has been playing an entirely different game—space tourism, which there is a massive market for, just perhaps won’t be penetrated by them—they likewise seem to be failing. While Blue Origin has been playing a strong game and Space X an even stronger one, albeit more and more focused solely on Mars as the years go on.
Here you can see the 1-year charts of Rocket Lab, Astra, Virgin, and Boeing for reference, as you can see, these charts speak volumes. Rocket Lab has been having a tough year but has found a nice bottom and is consistently bouncing from lows in the $3.6-4 range. While Astra has been reduced to a penny stock, with their future unknown. Virgin Galactic is only maintaining below Rocket Lab’s share price, partly due to the large number of Retail investors that do not know much and refuse to let it die, coupled with a small hope that the company can recover in the coming years. Boeing is here for reference as to what a successful, large-cap company involved in a similar industry (and the space industry as well), should look like over the course of a decent year.
Now, there are a few assumptions that I am making that we need to cover before diving into the real DD: Whether it be because we live in the beginnings of a second Space Race (fueled by privatized space companies and the world’s governments) or because of technological advancement and a rising interest in space, the increase in rocket launches, space development (in Earth’s orbit, the Moon, and Mars), and the lowering costs of space launches… it will become exponentially cheaper, easier, and faster to launch into orbit and the industry as a whole will have a massive boom—akin, in a way, to the industrial revolution—over the mid-to-late 2020s into the early 2030s. With the mid-to-end 2030s and early 2040s, we will see massive developments in terms of low-Earth orbit manufacturing facilities, tourist destinations, and stations, as well as settlements on the Moon for mining and refueling for greater exploration and colonization of the Sol System as a whole.
Now these are in part assumptions, but I think once one does the research and looks at the fact, all of this is very achievable. Even if it does not occur in this way, you can shift the dates by an additional decade and every time you do, the more likely, easier, and cheaper it all becomes.
Rocket Lab's business model revolves around providing cost-effective and frequent access to space for small satellite operators. The company aims to simplify the process of deploying satellites by offering dedicated launches on its Electron rocket. Rocket Lab operates as an end-to-end service provider, handling the entire launch process from mission planning and payload integration to launch and on-orbit operations.

Section 1: Rocket Lab Takes Flight! The Electron & the Neutron

‘Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company delivering reliable launch services, complete spacecraft design and manufacturing, satellite components, flight software, and an on-orbit management.’ – Rocket Labs
Rocket Lab's primary launch vehicle, the Electron, is a two-stage rocket powered by Rutherford engines, which use electric-pump-fed LOX/RP-1 propellants. The Electron is designed to optimize cost, flexibility, and rapid launch capability for small satellites. Rocket Lab has demonstrated numerous successful launches since its inaugural flight in 2017, showcasing its technological prowess and reliability. The small satellite market has been growing rapidly, driven by increased demand for data collection, communications, and Earth observation. Rocket Lab's focus on dedicated launches for small satellites positions it well to capture a significant portion of this expanding market. The company has already established a solid customer base, securing contracts with government agencies, research institutions, and commercial entities.
Rocket Labs—at the time of writing this—has had 37 launches—with a 91.89% success rate—deployed 164 satellites, operates 3 launch pads, and is maintaining 3 Photon Satellites in the Earth’s orbit. Of the 164 satellites launched by Rocket Labs, they were commissioned to do so by a wide variety of clients, from NASA, Space Force, DARPA, to Canon. Rocket Labs is supported by Future Fund: Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Data Collective, Greenspring Associates, ACC, Promus Ventures, L One W One Ltd., and Lockheed Martin.
Rocket Lab’s main rocket, the Electron—built and operated by Rocket Lab—has flown 37 times and been successful 34 times, with only 3 failures. Rocket Lab’s key areas of business penetration lie in the launch of mid-sized service rockets, the manufacturing of space systems and satellites, and their adept ability to manufacture industrial space parts, applications, and proponents. The latter of which, they are sort of unopposed in terms of competition.
The Neutron—Rocket Lab’s medium-lift, mega constellation launcher—will be able to launch 13,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit and it will be …drum roll please… reusable! The current goal is for it to launch in 2024. It will be designed for not only low earth orbital supply missions, but also deep space missions, and even human spaceflight. It will be fairing a design allowing for full reusability of the first stage and it will be lightweight, being made of Rock Lab’s own carbon composite structure. The home base for the Neutron will be at the Neutron Production Complex and the launch pad at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
‘The Neutron Production Complex will be home to a rocket production, assembly, and integration facility, as well as a dedicated launch pad for the Neutron rocket located on the southern end of Wallops Island. The estimated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art complex will be constructed on a 28-acre site adjacent to the Wallops Island Flight Facility and will include a Launch Control Center, Rocket Lab’s fifth global operations center for launch activities and on-orbit operations. To support rapid production of the Neutron rocket, current plans for the complex include automated fiber placement robotic production systems capable of laying up meters of Neutron’s new, specially formulated carbon composite structures in minutes. As a reusable rocket, Neutron is designed to land back on the Launch Complex 3 pad after a mission and from there it would be returned to the production complex for refurbishment and re-flight.’
With Space X dominating large-load space orbital flight and transportation, Rocket Labs, in my honest opinion, is where Space X was roughly something like 6-8 years ago. While Rocket Lab intends to compete with Space X—whether it will be considered competition in an industry this brand new and small, time will tell—for cargo and humans to the low Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and even Venus! Space X and Elon Musk have made it abundantly clear that the goal of Space X is the large-scale settlement of Mars. While later models of Rocket Lab’s Neutron will be able to go to Mars and Venus, it appears that is not their main goal. In the near term (being the next two decades), they will be looking to dominate the low Earth orbit and Moon market as well as the manufacturing of industrial space parts, applications, and proponents.

Section 2: The Space Industry & Company Fundamentals

Rocket Lab faces competition from other commercial launch providers, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. However, the company differentiates itself by specializing in small satellite launches, offering a tailored solution for this niche market. Rocket Lab's Electron rocket provides the advantage of dedicated launches and the flexibility to reach specific orbits, making it an attractive option for small satellite operators.
Rocket Lab has raised significant funding through various investment rounds, securing capital from venture capital firms, strategic partners, and government entities. Notable investors include Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Lockheed Martin. The company's ability to attract substantial investment indicates confidence in its business model and growth potential. Rocket Lab operates within the regulatory framework of the countries in which it launches its rockets. The company holds necessary licenses and approvals from government agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States and the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Compliance with safety regulations and adherence to environmental guidelines are crucial aspects of Rocket Lab's operations.
Despite its achievements, Rocket Lab faces several risks and challenges. The space industry is highly competitive, and the success of the company depends on its ability to secure launch contracts and maintain a steady launch cadence. Regulatory changes, launch failures, or delays could impact Rocket Lab's operations and reputation. Additionally, the emergence of new technologies or market disruptors could pose a threat to the company's market position
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the Quarterly Results. To preface, negative quarterly results mean—pardon my French—jack-shit (at least in the short term) for a company such as Rocket Lab, that is looking at penetrating a market such as the space industry. We are going to look at the past four Quarterly Results in chronological order.
Q2 2022 Report: Rocket Lab achieved record revenue of $55.5 million, showing significant growth compared to the previous quarter (36% sequential growth) and the same quarter in the previous year (392% YoY growth). Despite the revenue growth, the company reported a negative EPS of $-0.08, indicating a net loss for the quarter.
Q3 2022 Report: Another record revenue was achieved, reaching $63.1 million, with a sequential growth of 14% and an impressive YoY growth of 1,093%. The company's EPS improved slightly to $-0.07 but still remained negative. The fourth quarter revenue is expected to be lower, ranging between $51 million and $54 million, as a launch customer's push extends into 2023.
Q4 2022 Report: The company's revenue for Q4 reached $51.8 million, showing a healthy year-over-year growth of 88%. The full-year revenue for fiscal 2022 amounted to $211 million, reflecting substantial growth of 239% compared to the previous year. The EPS remained negative at $-0.08.
Q1 2023 Report: The revenue for Q1 2023 was $54.9 million. Increasing revenue by 35% in the first quarter of 2023. Revenue from their launch business was $19.6 million, up $12 million from the prior quarter. Their EPS was $-0.08, indicating strong maintenance of their business. The second quarter is expected to show a significant revenue increase, with an estimated range of $60 million to $63 million.
Now, what does this all tell us? Firstly, they were very forthcoming with the quarterly expectations. Something one might think is not a big deal, but considering how a lot of publicly traded companies operate, this is a good thing. In each of their earnings reports, they have nearly exactly estimated their results, showing they are not attempting to mislead investors. The company has experienced impressive revenue growth throughout the reported quarters, indicating strong market performance and demand for its products/services. However, the negative EPS values suggest that the company is still operating at a net loss. From a shareholder’s perspective, the company's focus should be on achieving profitability and reducing the negative EPS, while maintaining consistent revenue growth. In my opinion, this stock is sitting just below a fair market value for what it is right now, sitting at just over $4, considering they are not fully profitable. Yet Rocket Lab continues to grow its business, making more contracts, and it stands a competitive chance. If they can turn a profit within 2-3 years, I think they will be one hell of a company. With their competitors failing left and right and none finding the success as Rocket Lab—other than Space X—they could stand to be a massive company in a few decades, so massive, they’re bigger than Earth.
One last financial point to touch upon… shorting, so here is some data, which is roughly one month outdated due to my difficulty in finding up-to-date information on the company without a Bloomberg Terminal (So, if anyone on the sub has access to a Bloomberg Terminal and would like to add to my DD in the comments, please do).
Last Record Date: May 15, 2023
Outstanding Shares: 478,660,000 shares
Float Size: 262,310,000 shares
Short Percent of Float: 9.80% (The short percent of float represents the percentage of shares available for trading that have been sold short).
Average Trading Volume: 4,044,396 shares
Current Short Volume: 25,710,000 shares
Previous Short Volume: 24,630,000 shares
Change Vs. Previous Month: +4.38%
Dollar Volume Sold Short: $111.58 million
Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover: 7.7 (This ratio indicates the number of days it would take for the short sellers to cover their positions based on the average daily trading volume.).
The short interest in Rocket Lab has increased from the previous month, with a change of +4.38%. The short percent of the float is 9.80%, indicating that a significant portion of the available shares for trading has been sold short. Now, Rocket Lab’s short interest is relatively low for a company that has had consistent negative EPS and revenue. Showcasing that the big players in markets either A) believe this company will make a massive turnaround in the near future (1-3 years mark) or B) Rocket Lab, due to its size, is thankfully not on their radar. However, that said, the off-exchange short percentage is 57.69%, showcasing that A) public on-exchange short volume is a complete hoax and Hedge Funds, and other big players are beating down on the stock or B) all of this information is completely misrepresented to retail traders on purpose and the entirety of the United States market system is a complete farce.

Section 3: Future Prospects & Big Moves

Rocket Lab has demonstrated strong performance and growth potential in the emerging small satellite launch market. The company continues to refine its launch processes, aiming to increase launch frequency and reduce costs further. Additionally, Rocket Lab has plans to develop a larger reusable rocket called Neutron, targeting the medium-lift market segment, which would expand its capabilities and market reach. The company has the potential to be the go-to company for low Earth orbital launches in the short term and in the long term, one of, if not the go-to company, for transportation to the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, did an interview last month on his take on the industry and their future prospects. I wanted to touch briefly on this (you can find the video on YouTube).
Firstly, the video begins with the commentator stating, "With the Space Race this week," the Space X rocket, the most powerful ever built, has scrubbed its launch. While Rocket Lab is adding a new service for testing hypersonic sub-orbital launches, being a welcome addition to the company’s wide array of services. Beck states that it is a very exciting time, stating that “the United States is kind of lacking behind in hypersonic technologies and this is a great opportunity to have high cadence, test flight environment for these payloads to really move forward the US’s hypersonic research.” He goes on to talk about how these capabilities are essentially repurposed from Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket capabilities: “We take a standard Electron orbital-class launch vehicle and we fly it in some really unique trajectories to provide these hypersonic trajectories… it is taking an Electron and making a couple wee tweaks to it and having a great high frequency hypersonic testing platform that hasn’t existed.” Beck goes on to speak on the launch cadence “being on target for 15 flights” this year with the fastest turn around this year being 7 days between flights, saying “the machine is cranking and the vehicles are flying successfully and the last flight was a reusable vehicle and we splashed that down successfully and now we’re kind at the point where we are recycling and harvesting engines and components off of those launch vehicles and getting ready to put them back into service and re-fly them.” He continues, stating, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say exactly, but… a whole multiple gambit of reused components that are all now re-entering the production line and going back into service.” Morgan Brennan, the interviewer then speaks to how there is this emerging mismatch between supply and demand when it comes to the satellite launch market, with the fact that there are so many satellite constellations that are poised to go into orbit in the coming years and not enough capacity in terms of launching them. So, she then asks about the reusability of Electron and the development of the Neutron. Beck states that, “Electron is really serving that market very well, and there are lots of flight opportunities that are sort of just doing its thing, Neutron is the new flight opportunity for us… 2026 to 2030 timeframe there is a massive deficit in launch and there are lots of constellations that are all really vying for an ability to get in orbit, so we saw that coming and started work on the vehicle and hopefully we can bring it into service in 2024 and really solve some of those problems and take advantage of that market opportunity.”
Now, I don’t have to tell you all that this is very good to hear from Beck and this is very exciting, showcasing that he really believes Rocket Lab can penetrate this market and become a big player in the ever-evolving industry.
Rocket Lab Making Big Moves Lately:
· Bought Virgin Orbit HQ in California, this was a big win for the company, and folk on the sub were very excited to see this happen. Yay! But, sad and unfortunate for Virgin Galactic, which I am sure many of us space enthusiasts had higher hopes for, oh well, not everyone can achieve their dreams.
· Rocket Lab reached a new Company record of nine launches within a calendar year.
· Achieved a record of 100% mission success for Electron launches for the year.
· Successfully launched CAPSTONE mission to the Moon for NASA, including the first demonstration of Lunar Photon spacecraft platform.
· Successfully deployed two satellites to space for NASA’s TROPICS mission on the first of two dedicated launches on Electron for the constellation scheduled in May 2023.
· Secured another NASA mission to Electron’s 2023 launch manifest with its Starling mission. Rocket Lab was selected by NASA to launch the Starling mission on an expedited timeline due to long delays and uncertainty with the mission’s original launch provider.
· Signed multiple new launch contracts on Electron for 2023 for undisclosed commercial satellite customers previously manifested on another small launch vehicle, demonstrating Electron’s strong position as a reliable and dependable ride to orbit for small satellite operators.
· Introduced Rocket Lab’s new HASTE launch vehicle, a suborbital testbed launch vehicle derived from the Company’s Electron rocket to provide reliable, high-cadence flight test opportunities to support the development of advanced hypersonic systems technology.
· Announced that the Company will fly a pre-launched 3D printed Rutherford engine on an upcoming mission in Q3’23, a major step in evolving the Electron launch vehicle into a reusable rocket.
· Delivered financial results that exceeded the high end of prior guidance for revenue and gross margin.
· Launched three successful Electron missions in the first quarter for commercial constellation operators HawkEye 360, Capella Space, and BlackSky.
· Successfully completed the Company’s first launch from its U.S. launch site, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2, at the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on January 24, 2023. The mission deployed three satellites for radio frequency geospatial analytics provider HawkEye 360.
· Successfully completed the Company’s fastest turnaround between launches to date – just seven days between its 34th Electron launch, “Stronger Together”, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 in Virginia on March 16, 2023, and its 35th Electron launch, “The Beat Goes On”, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on March 24, 2023.
· Rocket Lab remains the only U.S. commercial small launch provider to successfully deliver satellites to orbit in 2023. Secured a multi-mission contract with Capella Space to launch four more dedicated launches on Electron in 2023.
· Achieved programmatic milestones for the Company’s two Photon spacecraft to support NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars, and for the Photon spacecraft for a Varda Space Industries’ mission to manufacture high-value products in zero gravity. Both Photon programs include Rocket Lab star trackers, reaction wheels, solar panels, flight software, and radios – demonstrating the value and strength of the Company’s vertical integration and in-house supply chain.

Conclusion: An Ode to Humanity's Future

Rocket Lab has established itself as a leading player in the small satellite launch market, offering dedicated launch services tailored to the needs of small satellite operators. The company's technological capabilities, solid customer base, and innovative approach position it well for future growth.
Those who lived and grew up in the 1960s and 1970s believed that by the 21st century, mankind would be a space-faring civilization. People had a fascination with the unknown. It was embedded in pop culture, in movies like the 2001 Space Odyssey, Alien, and the Star Trek series. But the unfortunate truth is that after Apollo 17 on the 19th of December 1972, mankind has not left low-earth orbit. The American public lost interest, the government cut funding, and the Saturn V rockets were dismantled and replaced by space shuttles in the 1980s (spaceships not even built to leave low-earth orbit). The curiosity and desire to unravel the mystery of the universe are now again filling the hearts of people. Technology is becoming more advanced and cheaper.
With companies like Rocket Lab and Space X, the future is looking bright. We currently live in an era of mass information. One of the hardest aspects of life in the early-21st-century is learning how to filter all this information. The news of the accomplishments of Rocket Lab, Space X, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Space Force, are lost in the large volume of collective data. The average person does not believe how close we are to colonizing Luna and Mars; how close we are to becoming a multi-planetary species. If you walked up to someone on the street of New York City, today, and told them that in the mid-2040s, and by the latest, the 2050s, there will be hundreds if not thousands of people living in Earth's orbit, the upper atmosphere of Venus, the Moon, and Mars, the person would dismiss you in disbelief. But the same would have happened if you walked up to a person on the street of New York City on the 19th of July 1962 (before Kennedy’s speech) and told them that mankind would step foot on the moon in seven years. Companies like Rocket Lab, which will make orbital flight and transportation affordable, will allow for a new era of civilization, one which was only present and dreamed of in science fiction of the past.
The Earth, as imaged from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, was suspended in a sunbeam, as the interstellar craft exited the Sol system in 1990. Earth is nearly 4 billion miles away in this image. That is us. That is humanity, all of us that have thus far, ever existed. We take to the stars in search of not only answers but in search of a purpose.
Edit: Made some edits to spelling and fixed two mistakes pointed out by commenters
submitted by cosmoshistorian to RocketLab [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 13:13 cosmoshistorian A Rocket Lab Due Diligence (DD), it is time we discuss this company seriously.

A Rocket Lab Due Diligence (DD), it is time we discuss this company seriously.

Rocket Lab Due-Diligence (DD)

‘We Open Access to Space to Improve Life on Earth.’

Introduction

With the 2024 first launch of the Rocket Lab Mega Constellation Launcher—The Neutron—fast approaching, I decided it is high time for a more up-to-date DD on Rocket Lab. A lot is happening in the industry, the company, and the world. I have decided to dive into the future, fundamentals, industry, funding, financials, dreams, and of course, the memes of the aspiring space company. Now, I am posting my DD into both of the Rocket Lab subreddit, as I am new to writing DD and I want to hit as wide of an audience as I can. One disclaimer (for those who do not like stock talk), this DD is not meant to encourage buying of the stock, nor is it financial advice or a stock-only DD, I merely want to dive into this company and simply spark some discussion on it!
Now, Rocket Lab is a private aerospace manufacturer and small satellite launch service provider. The company was founded in 2006 by Peter Beck and is headquartered in Long Beach, California, with additional facilities in New Zealand and Australia. Rocket Lab specializes in the development and launch of small rockets capable of delivering payloads of up to 300 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Rocket Lab—self-designated as a leader in launch and space systems—is a company that has a chance at becoming a highly profitable giant over the next decade and beyond. In my honest opinion, Rocket Lab currently thrives off of the crumbs of the current space industry ecosystem. With Space X increasingly focused upon one goal—thanks to their controversial, yet nevertheless, fearless leader—being Mars, Rocket Labs can (and in my opinion will) become one of the go-to space companies for low earth orbit launches in the near term and in the long-term become one of the go-to space company for launches between the Moon, Venus, and Mars as well. Rocket Lab currently lives off of the crumbs left behind by NASA, Space X, and the United States military-industrial complex.
Like these two legends from the movie War Dogs, Rocket Lab is determined to become the go-to space company for transporting all types of goods into orbit. For those of you who have not seen the movie (I personally highly recommend it), essentially, when these two start their arms-dealing company, they focus upon all of the small contracts that the government is putting out for arms supplies. The contracts that the big players are ignoring, due to their small sizes, even so, these small contracts are worth hundreds of thousands to low millions. Now, this is where Rocket Lab currently lies in the industry.
\"A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.\" - Ben Bova
Now, before I dive into everything here, I need every to understand that this industry is on the verge of immense change and rapid evolution. We are currently in the first stage of the world’s Second Space Race. As a student of History, I can confidently tell you that there are murmurings within the historical community, that this is the case, beginning with the creation and success of Space X’s first reusable rocket: the Falcon 9. On December 21st of 2015, when the first Falcon 9 was launched and the landing was successful with the first stage fully recovered, the race began. In the same way that there is no single company above all others in the airline, shipping & transportation, or car manufacturing industries, is the same reason I do not believe that Space X will alone run the space industry’s transportation needs. There is plenty of room for companies like Rocket Lab to fill the gaps Space X cannot and in a decade’s time, there will be plenty of room for even more companies. Yet, there are no companies that are even close to competing with Space X—other than Rocket Lab—at this time. Now, I won’t go deeply into most of these competitors in this deep dive, but to be short, Astra is on the verge of total failure, Virgin Galactic has been playing an entirely different game—space tourism, which there is a massive market for, just perhaps won’t be penetrated by them—they likewise seem to be failing. While Blue Origin has been playing a strong game and Space X an even stronger one, albeit more and more focused solely on Mars as the years go on.
Here you can see the 1-year charts of Rocket Lab, Astra, Virgin, and Boeing for reference, as you can see, these charts speak volumes. Rocket Lab has been having a tough year but has found a nice bottom and is consistently bouncing from lows in the $3.6-4 range. While Astra has been reduced to a penny stock, with their future unknown. Virgin Galactic is only maintaining below Rocket Lab’s share price, partly due to the large number of Retail investors that do not know much and refuse to let it die, coupled with a small hope that the company can recover in the coming years. Boeing is here for reference as to what a successful, large-cap company involved in a similar industry (and the space industry as well), should look like over the course of a decent year.
Now, there are a few assumptions that I am making that we need to cover before diving into the real DD: Whether it be because we live in the beginnings of a second Space Race (fueled by privatized space companies and the world’s governments) or because of technological advancement and a rising interest in space, the increase in rocket launches, space development (in Earth’s orbit, the Moon, and Mars), and the lowering costs of space launches… it will become exponentially cheaper, easier, and faster to launch into orbit and the industry as a whole will have a massive boom—akin, in a way, to the industrial revolution—over the mid-to-late 2020s into the early 2030s. With the mid-to-end 2030s and early 2040s, we will see massive developments in terms of low-Earth orbit manufacturing facilities, tourist destinations, and stations, as well as settlements on the Moon for mining and refueling for greater exploration and colonization of the Sol System as a whole.
Now these are in part assumptions, but I think once one does the research and looks at the fact, all of this is very achievable. Even if it does not occur in this way, you can shift the dates by an additional decade and every time you do, the more likely, easier, and cheaper it all becomes.
Rocket Lab's business model revolves around providing cost-effective and frequent access to space for small satellite operators. The company aims to simplify the process of deploying satellites by offering dedicated launches on its Electron rocket. Rocket Lab operates as an end-to-end service provider, handling the entire launch process from mission planning and payload integration to launch and on-orbit operations.

Section 1: Rocket Lab Takes Flight! The Electron & the Neutron

‘Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company delivering reliable launch services, complete spacecraft design and manufacturing, satellite components, flight software, and on-orbit management.’ – Rocket Labs
Rocket Lab's primary launch vehicle, the Electron, is a two-stage rocket powered by Rutherford engines, which use electric-pump-fed LOX/RP-1 propellants. The Electron is designed to optimize cost, flexibility, and rapid launch capability for small satellites. Rocket Lab has demonstrated numerous successful launches since its inaugural flight in 2017, showcasing its technological prowess and reliability. The small satellite market has been growing rapidly, driven by increased demand for data collection, communications, and Earth observation. Rocket Lab's focus on dedicated launches for small satellites positions it well to capture a significant portion of this expanding market. The company has already established a solid customer base, securing contracts with government agencies, research institutions, and commercial entities.
Rocket Labs—at the time of writing this—has had 37 launches—with a 91.89% success rate—deployed 164 satellites, operates 3 launch pads, and is maintaining 3 Photon Satellites in the Earth’s orbit. Of the 164 satellites launched by Rocket Labs, they were commissioned to do so by a wide variety of clients, from NASA, Space Force, DARPA, to Canon. Rocket Labs is supported by Future Fund: Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Data Collective, Greenspring Associates, ACC, Promus Ventures, L One W One Ltd., and Lockheed Martin.
Rocket Lab’s main rocket, the Electron—built and operated by Rocket Lab—has flown 37 times and been successful 34 times, with only 3 failures. Rocket Lab’s key areas of business penetration lie in the launch of mid-sized service rockets, the manufacturing of space systems and satellites, and their adept ability to manufacture industrial space parts, applications, and proponents. The latter of which, they are sort of unopposed in terms of competition.
The Neutron—Rocket Lab’s medium-lift, mega constellation launcher—will be able to launch 13,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit and it will be …drum roll please… reusable! The current goal is for it to launch in 2024. It will be designed for not only low earth orbital supply missions, but also deep space missions, and even human spaceflight. It will be fairing a design allowing for full reusability of the first stage and it will be lightweight, being made of Rock Lab’s own carbon composite structure. The home base for the Neutron will be at the Neutron Production Complex and the launch pad at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
‘The Neutron Production Complex will be home to a rocket production, assembly, and integration facility, as well as a dedicated launch pad for the Neutron rocket located on the southern end of Wallops Island. The estimated 250,000 square-foot state-of-the-art complex will be constructed on a 28-acre site adjacent to the Wallops Island Flight Facility and will include a Launch Control Center, Rocket Lab’s fifth global operations center for launch activities and on-orbit operations. To support rapid production of the Neutron rocket, current plans for the complex include automated fiber placement robotic production systems capable of laying up meters of Neutron’s new, specially formulated carbon composite structures in minutes. As a reusable rocket, Neutron is designed to land back on the Launch Complex 3 pad after a mission and from there it would be returned to the production complex for refurbishment and re-flight.’
With Space X dominating large-load space orbital flight and transportation, Rocket Labs, in my honest opinion, is where Space X was roughly something like 6-8 years ago. While Rocket Lab intends to compete with Space X—whether it will be considered competition in an industry this brand new and small, time will tell—for cargo and humans to the low Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and even Venus! Space X and Elon Musk have made it abundantly clear that the goal of Space X is the large-scale settlement of Mars. While later models of Rocket Lab’s Neutron will be able to go to Mars and Venus, it appears that is not their main goal. In the near term (being the next two decades), they will be looking to dominate the low Earth orbit and Moon market as well as the manufacturing of industrial space parts, applications, and proponents.

Section 2: The Space Industry & Company Fundamentals

Rocket Lab faces competition from other commercial launch providers, such as SpaceX, and Blue Origin. However, the company differentiates itself by specializing in small satellite launches, offering a tailored solution for this niche market. Rocket Lab's Electron rocket provides the advantage of dedicated launches and the flexibility to reach specific orbits, making it an attractive option for small satellite operators.
Rocket Lab has raised significant funding through various investment rounds, securing capital from venture capital firms, strategic partners, and government entities. Notable investors include Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Lockheed Martin. The company's ability to attract substantial investment indicates confidence in its business model and growth potential. Rocket Lab operates within the regulatory framework of the countries in which it launches its rockets. The company holds necessary licenses and approvals from government agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States and the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Compliance with safety regulations and adherence to environmental guidelines are crucial aspects of Rocket Lab's operations.
Despite its achievements, Rocket Lab faces several risks and challenges. The space industry is highly competitive, and the success of the company depends on its ability to secure launch contracts and maintain a steady launch cadence. Regulatory changes, launch failures, or delays could impact Rocket Lab's operations and reputation. Additionally, the emergence of new technologies or market disruptors could pose a threat to the company's market position
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the Quarterly Results. To preface, negative quarterly results mean—pardon my French—jack-shit (at least in the short term) for a company such as Rocket Lab, that is looking at penetrating a market such as the space industry. We are going to look at the past four Quarterly Results in chronological order.
Q2 2022 Report: Rocket Lab achieved record revenue of $55.5 million, showing significant growth compared to the previous quarter (36% sequential growth) and the same quarter in the previous year (392% YoY growth). Despite the revenue growth, the company reported a negative EPS of $-0.08, indicating a net loss for the quarter.
Q3 2022 Report: Another record revenue was achieved, reaching $63.1 million, with a sequential growth of 14% and an impressive YoY growth of 1,093%. The company's EPS improved slightly to $-0.07 but still remained negative. The fourth quarter revenue is expected to be lower, ranging between $51 million and $54 million, as a launch customer's push extends into 2023.
Q4 2022 Report: The company's revenue for Q4 reached $51.8 million, showing a healthy year-over-year growth of 88%. The full-year revenue for fiscal 2022 amounted to $211 million, reflecting substantial growth of 239% compared to the previous year. The EPS remained negative at $-0.08.
Q1 2023 Report: The revenue for Q1 2023 was $54.9 million. Increasing revenue by 35% in the first quarter of 2023. Revenue from their launch business was $19.6 million, up $12 million from the prior quarter. Their EPS was $-0.08, indicating a strong maintenance of their business. The second quarter is expected to show a significant revenue increase, with an estimated range of $60 million to $63 million.
Now, what does this all tell us? Firstly, they were very forthcoming with the quarterly expectations. Something one might think is not a big deal, but considering how a lot of publicly traded companies operate, this is a good thing. In each of their earnings reports, they have nearly exactly estimated their results, showing they are not attempting to mislead investors. The company has experienced impressive revenue growth throughout the reported quarters, indicating strong market performance and demand for its products/services. However, the negative EPS values suggest that the company is still operating at a net loss. From a shareholder’s perspective, the company's focus should be on achieving profitability and reducing the negative EPS, while maintaining consistent revenue growth. In my opinion, this stock is sitting just below a fair market value for what it is right now, sitting at just over $4, considering they are not fully profitable. Yet Rocket Lab continues to grow its business, making more contracts, and it stands a competitive chance. If they can turn a profit within 2-3 years, I think they will be one hell of a company. With their competitors failing left and right and none finding the success as Rocket Lab—other than Space X—they could stand to be a massive company in a few decades, so massive, they’re bigger than Earth.
One last financial point to touch upon… shorting, so here is some data, which is roughly one month outdated due to my difficulty in finding up-to-date information on the company without a Bloomberg Terminal (So, if anyone on the sub has access to a Bloomberg Terminal and would like to add to my DD in the comments, please do).
Last Record Date: May 15, 2023
Outstanding Shares: 478,660,000 shares
Float Size: 262,310,000 shares
Short Percent of Float: 9.80% (The short percent of float represents the percentage of shares available for trading that have been sold short).
Average Trading Volume: 4,044,396 shares
Current Short Volume: 25,710,000 shares
Previous Short Volume: 24,630,000 shares
Change Vs. Previous Month: +4.38%
Dollar Volume Sold Short: $111.58 million
Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover: 7.7 (This ratio indicates the number of days it would take for the short sellers to cover their positions based on the average daily trading volume.).
The short interest in Rocket Lab has increased from the previous month, with a change of +4.38%. The short percent of the float is 9.80%, indicating that a significant portion of the available shares for trading has been sold short. Now, Rocket Lab’s short interest is relatively low for a company that has had consistent negative EPS and revenue. Showcasing that the big players in markets either A) believe this company will make a massive turnaround in the near future (1-3 years mark) or B) Rocket Lab, due to its size, is thankfully not on their radar. However, that said, the off-exchange short percentage is 57.69%, showcasing that A) public on-exchange short volume is a complete hoax and Hedge Funds, and other big players are beating down on the stock or B) all of this information is completely misrepresented to retail traders on purpose and the entirety of the United States market system is a complete farce.

Section 3: Future Prospects & Big Moves

Rocket Lab has demonstrated strong performance and growth potential in the emerging small satellite launch market. The company continues to refine its launch processes, aiming to increase launch frequency and reduce costs further. Additionally, Rocket Lab has plans to develop a larger reusable rocket called Neutron, targeting the medium-lift market segment, which would expand its capabilities and market reach. The company has the potential to be the go-to company for low Earth orbital launches in the short term and in the long term, one of, if not the go-to company, for transportation to the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
Peter Beck, founder, and CEO of Rocket Lab, did an interview last month on his take on the industry and their future prospects. I wanted to touch briefly on this (you can find the video on YouTube).
Firstly, the video begins with the commentator stating, "With the Space Race this week," the Space X rocket, the most powerful ever built, has scrubbed its launch. While Rocket Lab is adding a new service for testing hypersonic sub-orbital launches, being a welcome addition to the company’s wide array of services. Beck states that it is a very exciting time, stating that “the United States is kind of lacking behind in hypersonic technologies and this is a great opportunity to have high cadence, test flight environment for these payloads to really move forward the US’s hypersonic research.” He goes on to talk about how these capabilities are essentially repurposed from Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket capabilities: “We take a standard Electron orbital-class launch vehicle and we fly it in some really unique trajectories to provide these hypersonic trajectories… it is taking an Electron and making a couple wee tweaks to it and having a great high frequency hypersonic testing platform that hasn’t existed.” Beck goes on to speak on the launch cadence “being on target for 15 flights” this year with the fastest turn around this year being 7 days between flights, saying “the machine is cranking and the vehicles are flying successfully and the last flight was a reusable vehicle and we splashed that down successfully and now we’re kind at the point where we are recycling and harvesting engines and components off of those launch vehicles and getting ready to put them back into service and re-fly them.” He continues, stating, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say exactly, but… a whole multiple gambit of reused components that are all now re-entering the production line and going back into service.” Morgan Brennan, the interviewer then speaks to how there is this emerging mismatch between supply and demand when it comes to the satellite launch market, with the fact that there are so many satellite constellations that are poised to go into orbit in the coming years and not enough capacity in terms of launching them. So, she then asks about the reusability of Electron and the development of the Neutron. Beck states that, “Electron is really serving that market very well, and there are lots of flight opportunities that are sort of just doing its thing, Neutron is the new flight opportunity for us… 2026 to 2030 timeframe there is a massive deficit in launch and there are lots of constellations that are all really vying for an ability to get in orbit, so we saw that coming and started work on the vehicle and hopefully we can bring it into service in 2024 and really solve some of those problems and take advantage of that market opportunity.”
Now, I don’t have to tell you all that this is very good to hear from Beck and this is very exciting, showcasing that he really believes Rocket Lab can penetrate this market and become a big player in the ever-evolving industry.
Rocket Lab Making Big Moves Lately:
· Bought Virgin Orbit HQ in California, this was a big win for the company, and folk on the sub were very excited to see this happen. Yay! But, sad and unfortunate for Virgin Galactic, which I am sure many of us space enthusiasts had higher hopes for, oh well, not everyone can achieve their dreams.
· Rocket Lab reached a new Company record of nine launches within a calendar year.
· Achieved a record of 100% mission success for Electron launches for the year.
· Successfully launched CAPSTONE mission to the Moon for NASA, including the first demonstration of Lunar Photon spacecraft platform.
· Successfully deployed two satellites to space for NASA’s TROPICS mission on the first of two dedicated launches on Electron for the constellation scheduled in May 2023.
· Secured another NASA mission to Electron’s 2023 launch manifest with its Starling mission. Rocket Lab was selected by NASA to launch the Starling mission on an expedited timeline due to long delays and uncertainty with the mission’s original launch provider.
· Signed multiple new launch contracts on Electron for 2023 for undisclosed commercial satellite customers previously manifested on another small launch vehicle, demonstrating Electron’s strong position as a reliable and dependable ride to orbit for small satellite operators.
· Introduced Rocket Lab’s new HASTE launch vehicle, a suborbital testbed launch vehicle derived from the Company’s Electron rocket to provide reliable, high-cadence flight test opportunities to support the development of advanced hypersonic systems technology.
· Announced that the Company will fly a pre-launched 3D printed Rutherford engine on an upcoming mission in Q3’23, a major step in evolving the Electron launch vehicle into a reusable rocket.
· Delivered financial results that exceeded the high end of prior guidance for revenue and gross margin.
· Launched three successful Electron missions in the first quarter for commercial constellation operators HawkEye 360, Capella Space, and BlackSky.
· Successfully completed the Company’s first launch from its U.S. launch site, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2, at the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on January 24, 2023. The mission deployed three satellites for radio frequency geospatial analytics provider HawkEye 360.
· Successfully completed the Company’s fastest turnaround between launches to date – just seven days between its 34th Electron launch, “Stronger Together”, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 in Virginia on March 16, 2023, and its 35th Electron launch, “The Beat Goes On”, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on March 24, 2023.
· Rocket Lab remains the only U.S. commercial small launch provider to successfully deliver satellites to orbit in 2023. Secured a multi-mission contract with Capella Space to launch four more dedicated launches on Electron in 2023.
· Achieved programmatic milestones for the Company’s two Photon spacecraft to support NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars, and for the Photon spacecraft for a Varda Space Industries’ mission to manufacture high-value products in zero gravity. Both Photon programs include Rocket Lab star trackers, reaction wheels, solar panels, flight software, and radios – demonstrating the value and strength of the Company’s vertical integration and in-house supply chain.

Conclusion: An Ode to Humanity's Future

Rocket Lab has established itself as a leading player in the small satellite launch market, offering dedicated launch services tailored to the needs of small satellite operators. The company's technological capabilities, solid customer base, and innovative approach position it well for future growth.
Those who lived and grew up in the 1960s and 1970s believed that by the 21st century, mankind would be a space-faring civilization. People had a fascination with the unknown. It was embedded in pop culture, in movies like the 2001 Space Odyssey, Alien, and the Star Trek series. But the unfortunate truth is that after Apollo 17 on the 19th of December 1972, mankind has not left low-earth orbit. The American public lost interest, the government cut funding, and the Saturn V rockets were dismantled and replaced by space shuttles in the 1980s (spaceships not even built to leave low-earth orbit). The curiosity and desire to unravel the mystery of the universe are now again filling the hearts of people. Technology is becoming more advanced and cheaper.
With companies like Rocket Lab and Space X, the future is looking bright. We currently live in an era of mass information. One of the hardest aspects of life in the early-21st-century is learning how to filter all this information. The news of the accomplishments of Rocket Lab, Space X, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Space Force, are lost in the large volume of collective data. The average person does not believe how close we are to colonizing Luna and Mars; how close we are to becoming a multi-planetary species. If you walked up to someone on the street of New York City, today, and told them that in the mid-2040s, and by the latest, the 2050s, there will be hundreds if not thousands of people living in Earth's orbit, the upper atmosphere of Venus, the Moon, and Mars, the person would dismiss you in disbelief. But the same would have happened if you walked up to a person on the street of New York City on the 19th of July 1962 (before Kennedy’s speech) and told them that mankind would step foot on the moon in seven years. Companies like Rocket Lab, which will make orbital flight and transportation affordable, will allow for a new era of civilization, one which was only present and dreamed of in science fiction of the past.
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The Earth, as imaged from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, was suspended in a sunbeam, as the interstellar craft exited the Sol system in 1990. Earth is nearly 4 billion miles away in this image. That is us. That is humanity, all of us that have thus far, ever existed. We take to the stars in search of not only answers but in search of a purpose.
Edit: Made some fixes to some mistakes I wrote
submitted by cosmoshistorian to RKLB [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 13:10 Martha12378 Noteworthy Flight Data APIs For Aviation Professionals‍!

Noteworthy Flight Data APIs For Aviation Professionals‍!
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In today’s world of digital transformation, emerging technologies are revolutionizing the aviation sector like never before. When speaking about transformation, API integration plays a vital role in the aviation sector and brings a lot to the table. Information-providing APIs have transformed professional aviation services altogether by addressing the bottlenecks posed by legacy systems. They obtain information from authentic sources resulting in effective and accurate data collection. This makes room for timely actions and strategic planning. For instance, using Flight Data APIs, airline authorities can provide real-time flight-related data on their website to keep their customers updated with the latest information about their flight schedules.
APIs also provide crucial aircraft information to aviation professionals. This information helps aircraft operators identify, analyze, and address risk factors and ensure operational safety. Besides airline companies and passengers, APIs have something in store for almost every stakeholder of the aviation industry including travel agencies and airport authorities.
However, there are various types of APIs available in the market and it’s important to choose the solution that will suit you best for obtaining productive outcomes. This post enlists the noteworthy APIs providing flight data along with their offerings. Take a look!

What is meant by Flight Data APIs?

These are APIs that collect, process, and analyze flight-related data. This involves an automated process that generates reports regarding aircraft engine conditions, flight reviews, and safety trends. Developers employ REST/JSON or SOAP/WSDL for writing queries using these APIs. Using standard web protocols like REST (Representational State Transfer) or SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) these APIs retrieve and send data across different systems.
The API extracts data directly from the sources. Only authorized individuals can access this data and use it without having to distort the initial codes. Using this data one can access and retrieve historical as well as real-time data related to flights, airlines, airports, etc. As such, aviation professionals can effortlessly track flights and retrieve other crucial information while passengers can book flight tickets without any hassles.
The APIs are like a centralized repository of fight-related information that can be utilized by software developers, travelers, airline companies, and airport authorities. Any business related to the aviation industry can use such APIs. Some examples are airline companies, airports, ticket booking brands, tour operators, destination marketing agencies, corporate platforms for booking, etc.

Why are Flight Data APIs important for Aviation Professionals?

Flight Data Service APIs are valuable tools that provide vital information to transform aviation operations. Aviation professionals use such APIs to track the real-time status of flights. This makes it easy for airline companies and airport authorities to keep track of crucial aspects like flight delays, cancellations, and route diversions. As such, managing aviation operations become effortless and hassle-free. With the help of Flight Data-generation APIs, aviation authorities can collect real-time data regarding weather conditions, flight paths, and airspace congestion. etc. This information helps in optimizing fuel consumption, minimizing carbon emissions, and reducing operational costs.
The API data facilitates aviation industry tasks like flight route planning, flight time estimation, and accurate calculation of fuel requirements. Such data is used for optimizing flight schedules and reducing delays. Also, airlines can provide up-to-date information to customers on the status of flights, delays, and cancellations. This leads to improved customer service.
Flight APIs can help aviation authorities identify potential safety and security issues as well. APIs can quickly represent actionable data and accurate stats about each moment during an ongoing flight. For example, an API produces data on safety aspects like the degree of deviation from the mandated aircraft limits or anomalies in the standard operational procedures. This way, aircraft operators get valuable insights regarding a flight’s safety and can identify potential safety risks.

Noteworthy Flight Data APIs to consider

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FlightAware

The FlightAware API is compatible with all programming languages making it a preferred choice for professional aviation solutions. Using this API’s flight data, you’ll be able to track any commercial flight across the globe including the flights belonging to the general aviation sector in Canada and U.S.A. Once you furnish details like the flight’s number, route, airport code, etc. you can view the real-time status of that flight. You can also view full-screen live maps for ongoing flights including the NEXRAD radar overlay. It sends users to push notifications to provide crucial information like flight-related alerts, nearby flights, airport delays, etc.
The FlightAware API has two different categories- AeroAPI and FlightAware Firehose.
The AeroAPI (earlier known as FlightXML) is a query-based web service API. It gathers real-time data for flight tracking and also the latest historical data. It’s suitable for you if you’ve small-scale aviation data requirements.
If your data solution is large-scale and enterprise-grade, FlightAware Firehose will be an ideal pick. It is a data feed on TCP with TLS/SSL that offers real-time data of aircraft positions across the globe. It’s a live streaming API that provides data like information on an airplane’s weather conditions and surface positions, something that AeroAPI is not capable of.

Aviation Edge

This Flight Information API gathers data from multiple different reliable sources. These sources include aviation sector associates like airports or airline firms and genuine official authorities. The accuracy levels of the information provided by this API are very high. Also, the Aviation Edge team ensures that the information available to users is always updated as per the latest available data.
They offer six kinds of different APIs including free as well as premium ones. These cater to airport schedules, flight tracking, airline route, nearby airports, aviation databases, and an autocomplete function for the names of airports and cities. Check out their uses:
Schedules API- This API caters to digital airlines, flight delay platforms, cab booking agencies, insurance firms, airplane spotters, corporate booking firms, cargo forwarders, analysts, etc.
Flight tracker API – It furnishes data related to interactive flight maps, aviation traffic analysis, early detections regarding flight delay, booking, cargo forwarding data, etc.
Airline Routes API- It provides information on flight route analysis for new opportunities, destination marketing, the opening of new connections, etc.
Historical Schedules API- Get comprehensive historical data about airport timetables around the globe. This data can be based on any particular data or a range of dates from the past. The response time of this API is really very fast.
Flight Delay API- It displays information on flight delays and cancellations. Users can scan and check whether a particular delayed or canceled flight is eligible for compensation.
Nearby Airports API- Locate airports near cities or find cities near airports. Identify the exact location based on latitudes and longitudes.
Future Schedules API- Find the flight schedule, departure gate information, timetable, etc. for a future date.
Autocomplete API- Put an input value containing hints - some letters of the name of an airport or city. The autocomplete function provides an output in the form of the full name of the desired city or airport.
Aviation Database- This API provides information regarding airlines, airports, cities, countries, taxes, time zones, icao, iata, etc.

Skyscanner API

This software solution for the aviation sector facilitates flight search and flight booking. This API comes with a RESTful API format and XML and JSON responses. It offers an advanced search experience as this program understands long-form queries. With this API, users can identify real-time flight fare trends and pick the best deals.
The Skyscanner API comes with a mobile-first approach with a flexible and easy-going travel search mechanism. It enables real-time price streaming and users can browse through live feeds displaying flight fares. Besides fight fares, this API provides handy information on airplanes, airlines, and airports across the world. This makes them a valuable resource for business brands that have a global presence.
You get a huge variety of geo formats. Also, you can effortlessly integrate this API with the already existing geo-tagged pages on your website. The Skyscanner API offers technical support for integrating with an engineering team, a dedicated account manager, and a developer hub. The developer portal empowers you with abilities like online test harnesses, log modification, etc.

Kayak API

This API is a travel fare aggregator with a travel metasearch engine. Travel partners can leverage the functionalities of this travel metasearch engine to offer amazing services to customers. This API enables one to query location-related information. Users can obtain different kinds of information including live airplane routes & fares, car rental bookings, and hotel bookings.
The API enables users to identify the best flight fare deals from among numerous airline tickets. This API provides a Price Forecast Tool. This tool determines the possibility of a flight ticket price change for a specific destination within the next seven days. It uses historical data to draw such inferences. This information guides customers to decide the right time when they should book tickets.
Thanks to Kayak’s detailed documentation and other available resources, you can easily implement this API into your mobile or web app.

Aviation Stack API

This API offers a wide range of real-time aviation data services. It includes every aspect of the aviation industry right from airline routes, historical flight schedules, country lookups, and the list goes on. Its services are utilized by diverse service providers related to the aviation sector like ticket booking platforms, aircraft monitoring applications, visualization programs, etc. This is an ideal solution for accessing global flight data as it covers over thirteen airline companies and more than 250 countries.
This API delivers live flight data as well as historical flight-related data ensuring high accuracy levels. It provides updates about ongoing flights in real-time within thirty to sixty seconds. Users get live updates on the status and schedules of flights. Moreover, this flight API is versatile and comes with a host of endpoints, enabling one to access data without hassles. So, users can easily obtain the latest updated information on airplanes, airports, aviation routes, destinations, etc.

Flightslogic

With FlightsLogic API, one can access information from over 750 GDS airlines and over 200 LCCs. It helps in monitoring PNRs, providing the latest flight status updates, and furnishing information on the schedules and connections of airlines. This API is valuable to aviation service providers and travel agencies. It delivers an improved customer experience while reducing software development and operational costs.
FlightsLogic API offers an array of tools that gather and analyze data covering various types of safety-related aviation data metrics. So, users can identify the already existing risk factors and also the emerging risks.
This API runs on Microsoft Azure and hence, promises high-grade security, availability, and reliability.

OpenSky API

This API data service is one of the most reliable options for generating flight data. With OpenSky, you can extract live data and also partial historical data. This exhaustive database not only allows you to track flight data but also update this information. It offers numerous functions that help you to track a specific airplane, a sensor, or the entire network. You can use this API with any language that supports REST APIs based on JSON. You can also capture live airspace data that is beneficial for research and other non-commercial tasks.

OAG Flight Status Data

OAG Flight Status Data helps you get accurate and reliable real-time and historical flight data . OAG extracts data from every booking, journey, departure, delay, landing, etc. to make sure that all data are available to users whenever needed. They use predictive software tools to provide alerts to users. These alerts are so fast and timely that consumers are completely in sync with their scheduled flights. Employing this API, you can offer your customers valuable flight-related information such as flight delays, flight-time changes, cancellations, etc. You also get updates on the existing weather conditions and weather forecasts for a certain period.

FlightLabs

The FlightLabs API provides a wide variety of flight data to users. This includes real-time information about flight schedules, status, delays, flight fares, and many more. Their data is up-to-date, accurate, reliable, and secure.
The FlightLabs API is highly flexible as it comes with multiple API endpoints. So, users can access any particular data that they require. Users can also customize their data feeds based on their distinct requirements. Furthermore, this API provides comprehensive documentation and a dynamic support system. This assists software developers to integrate FlightsLabs into their systems effortlessly and get started without any hassles.

Trawex

This API offers data related to flight performance. This API aggregates information from various reliable data partners across the world and delivers it to their users. This information caters to airspaces, airplanes, airports, airline operators, air traffic, audit outcomes, and occurrences. World’s top airport authorities, airline companies, and travel agencies can utilize this data to deliver elevated customer experiences.
This API helps you to investigate aviation hazards to ensure flight safety protocols and compliance with the latest aviation guidelines and standard regulations by authorities. This is a customizable solution that can analyze the entire flight data with minimum possible user interaction.
The data obtained from Trawex helps developers to build web plugins and software apps. It also helps in efficiency analysis and insurance claims.

Closing Thoughts

Flight data-producing APIs are handy tools for aviation professionals. The real-time data and insights generated by Flight APIs help aviation authorities to boost efficiency, strengthen security, and improve customer service. APIs have something in store for every stakeholder in the aviation sector. However, every API comes with a unique set of functionalities, terms of usage, and pricing strategy. You need to pick the one that is the best fit for your requirements.
If you are a novice in this arena, it’s advisable to partner with an experienced software development services company that will create a professional aviation solution, advise you on selecting the right APIs, and integrate those APIs flawlessly with your existing system. Professional services can also take care of your customization requirements to meet your unique needs.
submitted by Martha12378 to u/Martha12378 [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 06:49 anthony523233 Contact JetBlue from Mexico

Need to contact JetBlue from Mexico? Look no further! Get in touch with JetBlue's customer support team for any assistance or inquiries. With JetBlue's extensive flight network and excellent customer service, you can expect a seamless experience. Whether you have questions about reservations, flight status, baggage, or any other travel-related concerns, JetBlue's dedicated representatives are ready to assist you. Enjoy the convenience of contacting JetBlue from Mexico and get the information you need to make your travel experience smooth and hassle-free. Don't hesitate to reach out to JetBlue's customer support team to address any queries or issues. Contact JetBlue today and have a stress-free journey!
submitted by anthony523233 to u/anthony523233 [link] [comments]

2023.06.06 03:45 sneakattack2010 Booking w/o one of party's passport?

I really want to book my flights today but my nephew is coming along with my husband, son, and I and he does not have his passport yet. Does anyone know if I will be able to book on JetBlue with our three passports, but not his? I don't want to hold off on the airfare and he's not going to get a passport by tomorrow. Is there a way around this?
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2023.06.05 21:15 Frank_Leroux Molossus, Chapter Seventeen

First Chapter
Chapter Sixteen
Parvati Devdhar was, by now, used to a lot of nonsense getting flung her way. There were times when she wished she was back being some no-name trying to claw her way up the film-industry ladder. Sure, that also had its particular flavor of horribleness, but at least then she knew where she was and what she was doing.
Now? Now she was lauded by all, worldwide, but that just meant that she was a bigger target for every bunco artist who thought themselves a movie producer. She’d already had multiple offers from supposed Hollywood executives and she’d rebuffed them all. When she wanted to make the move into so-called ‘Western’ films, she’d do so on her terms.
One of the things which helped her keep her cool was Ravindar. Dear Ravindar, the jeweled bearing upon which her entire life now turned. He’d…well, it was hard to describe how he’d come into her life. He’d just…shown up in her orbit, somehow, and she’d gratefully accepted that fact. But now Parvati knew that he was the main thing keeping her sane, just by his mere presence.
She looked at the message on her phone again, as if trying to will it away with her mind. She then looked up at Ravindar, who stood with his usual phlegmatic calm next to the only door into her room. As usual, his black turban was immaculate and neatly wrapped, forming a triangle which met perfectly in the middle of his forehead. His loose blue shirt and white pants were also perfectly composed. His long dark beard, neatly combed, shone with fragrant oil. At his wrist one could just make out the glitter of his ‘kara’, the physical representation of his bondage to truth. Across his substantial chest stretched his ‘gatra’, the harness which Parvati knew held his his kirpan ready at all times. She also knew that the latter weapon was not something worn merely for religious reasons, it would indeed be deadly sharp. Parvati had never seen it, nor would she ever ask for him to display it, but she knew that Ravindar would never wear a weapon unless it was functional and capable of killing.
“Is this serious?” she asked him. At the moment the pair were speaking English; they switched up languages every month or so, just for practice. Parvati was now an international star, after all.
Ravindar didn’t do anything as crass as shrugging; he merely raised one eyebrow. “It appears to be, ma’am.”
“The actual government. Of the actual United States. Wants to meet us?”
“I’m sure they only want to meet you, ma’am.”
“Well if they want to meet me then they’re going to bloody well meet you as well. You can be assured of that.” Her English still held a tinge of a British accent, a holdover from the lessons when she’d first learned the wretched language.
“I will be there if you wish, ma’am.”
She motioned towards the other end of the couch she perched upon. “Ravindar Bhindal, you have now been standing for at least six hours straight. There is a reason we humans invented couches and chairs and such things. Please, I invite you to take advantage of our forefathers’ ingenuity.”
He gave a rare smile. “I prefer standing. But I also thank you for the offer.”
Parvati looked again at the offending message on her phone. “How did they get my number?”
“The Americans are quite clever about such things, ma’am,” said Ravindar.
“They don’t even want us to go anywhere. They just want us to stay here for a while and they’ll arrive.”
Ravindar’s rare smile didn’t fade. “The mountain thus comes to Mohammed, yes?”
She laughed. “I’m not a Muslim, you giant silly-billy.”
“Silly-billy,” said Ravindar as he rolled the syllables around in his mouth. “Where did you pick up such a delightful phrase?”
“You have never seen the Venture Brothers, then? Good. We have something to watch when we next have some downtime.” Parvati tapped at her phone. “Whenever that might be. Okay. I’m going to say ‘yes’, but I need you to agree.”
“Ma’am, whatever you do…”
“No!” snapped Parvati, harsher than she meant to. Then, more softly, “Ravindar, it isn’t fair for me to just drag you into this. This could be a scam or some sort of strange kidnapping attempt. I’ll have my hackles up, as they say, and I trust your judgement and abilities. But I want you to agree to this.”
To his credit, Ravindar did consider her words for several seconds. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll be there, ma’am.”
Parvati tapped at her phone to send the reply.
__________
Ravindar watched with a gimlet eye as the troupe entered the hotel suite. First through the door were two people in black suits, with obvious earpieces and matching haircuts. They scanned him while he scanned them. The three then nodded at each other with the familiarity of those who earn a living escorting VIPs.
Parvati Devdhar sat facing the door, and now she was seated like cross-legged royalty in the middle of the couch instead of slouched against one end. Her hair was neatly combed and lay like a wonderful dark waterfall over one shoulder. If Ravindar was honest (which of course he was) she’d chosen quite the stunning green sari to greet her new maybe-employers. It was still a bit hazy as to what the bloody hell the Yanks wanted.
One of the dark-suited newcomers touched his earpiece, then nodded. “Thank you for making time in your schedule to see us, ma’am.” His eyes flicked up towards Ravindar. “We have four more coming in, all right?”
“Do as you will,” replied Ravindar.
The next one through the door was a shorter and darker-skinned American, wearing casual clothes. But Ravindar was not fooled. This one held himself like a warrior, and he when he met Ravindar’s gaze the two came to an immediate and mutual understanding. But then the newcomer’s eyes got big when he saw Parvati seated upon the couch.
“Oh wow!” he burst out, then composed himself. “I’m, ah, I’m Corporal Luca Martinez. US Army. Pleased to meet you, um, I meant meet the two of you.”
Ravindar kept up his stone-faced exterior, but inside he smiled as yet another person fell into fanboy exclamations upon seeing the person he protected.
After Martinez followed three others, but not just any three. First was a dumpy white man who looked vaguely familiar to Ravindar, but the next two…
Well, the next two were, by now, very well known. One was a small, narrow-shouldered woman with skin almost as dark as Parvati’s. This was the woman who’d first talked to aliens, and speaking of which, the next person through the door was an even shorter…woman? Yes, woman with blue scales and golden horns and this was the point at which Ravindar’s brain shut down as he tried to keep from just passing out.
“Hi!” said Chao Me Chu, with an unnecessary chipper tone to her voice. “Um, I’m Chao and this is Captain Sadaf Ta’Shakka, of the Shakka clan and current captain of the Exultant Finger of Rithro. You might have heard of her.”
The latter bowed and then chirped something which sounded like a budgie falling down a flight of stairs.
The dumpy man turned to the two of them. “They don’t have translators, Sadaf.”
Parvati un-crossed her legs and stood with a regal air. “May I approach?”
Chao looked in a bit of panic at her compatriots, who all nodded. “Um, sure. Hang on, I think I have some translator earpieces somewhere…” She began digging in one pants-pocket, only to be interrupted by the dumpy man who now held out two pieces of plastic in his palm.
He looked up at Parvati and Ravindar. “Pablo Rosas, ma’am and sir. Pleased to make your acquaintance. If you want to understand our guest, you’ll need to wear one of these. It’s your choice.”
Ravindar looked over the scene; his training kicked in as he judged avenues of attack and escape. Finally he stepped around the couch and plucked one of the earpieces off of Rosas’ hand. He screwed the plug into his ear, his eyes fixed upon the smaller blue alien in front of him.
Sadaf waited until his earpiece was settled before speaking. “Can you understand me now?”
He nodded to her, then nodded back to Parvati. “It is as they say, ma’am. Do as you see fit.”
She stepped forward and daintily picked up the remaining ear-piece. Ravindar did not know how she did it, but somehow Parvati make the act of shoving a chunk of plastic into one’s ear look like a masterclass in elegant composure.
“I bid you welcome to our humble country,” she said to Sadaf. “I hope you find it pleasing.”
“Very much so!” exclaimed Sadaf. “It is so…I don’t know the proper term…vibrant? Forgive me if that comes across badly. The translator matrix can only do so much.” Her horns flattened back against her scalp in a clear unspoken message of please don’t yell at me.
Parvati laughed that silvery, liquid-like laugh which had made her a world-wide star in the first place. “Oh, my dear captain, ‘vibrant’ is quite a fitting appellation.” She stepped forward, making sure that both Ravindar was at her back and that she was in eye-line of the two security guards flanking the door. “I also, of course, saw you when you first appeared to us humans. And then, of course, there was that other time.” She bit her lip…that was a bit too theatrical of a touch, if Ravindar was honest (and he was). “I am glad to see you uninjured.”
Sadaf gave a very human-looking shrug. “Only because of some supreme effort by some of your species. I’m just glad that nobody died. I guess the Sacred Mothers were looking out for us all, eh?”
Ravindar now felt a need, an almighty need, to buttonhole the little alien captain and start questioning her about her religion. But instead, he stood back and remained content to merely observe.
“I’m sure the Sacred Mothers were,” responded Parvati. “I also must say I appreciate your choice of clothing when you first appeared to the world.” She spread her arms and nodded her head down towards her own emerald-colored sari. “As you can see, it’s a fashion style I myself quite appreciate.”
The little lizardoid alien waved one clawed hand. “Oh, I can’t take credit for that. Teresa Vila was the one who made my dress for that occasion. I’m sure our people can set her up with your people, just in case you want to use her.” Sadaf looked up at the looming figure of Ravindar, and one of her amber reptilian eyes gave him a wink.
Somehow, that made him feel better. He still had his guard up, but this didn’t feel like a trap.
Parvati now made a great show of examining Captain Sadaf’s uniform. “My, that does look quite nice. Ravindar, do you think something similar would look good on me?”
“Um, ma’am…” He desperately tried to figure out what the hell to say. He was supposed to be part of the scenery, why was she drawing him into this? “It is quite a good color combination.”
“Indeed. I may retain the services of Teresa Vila and ask her to make me look this…distinguished.” Parvati motioned at Sadaf’s uniform. “Not exactly the same, of course. This is a military uniform?”
Sadaf glanced at those behind her as if to seek support. “Well, not quite. The Coalition Exploration Bureau is not strictly a military organization, but our ships do carry considerable weaponry.”
Parvati smiled in a regal manner. “Then I shall not copy your uniform, out of respect for those brave people who serve in your ranks. I’m merely an actor.”
“A very good one!” said Martinez with excitement, “You should have seen her in ‘Ashutosh’!” He then pulled himself back in. “Sorry.”
Chao laughed and stepped forward. “Ms. Parvati, may I shake your hand?”
“Of…of course.” The Indian woman looked a little confused as Chao gave her hand a firm shake.
The Thai woman pointed a thumb behind her at Martinez. “This dude has, in every situation I’ve met him in, acted like the stone-cold professional. I mean, he is one but he still tries his best to act the part. Five seconds after meeting you? He’s tripping over his own tongue. I just wanted to thank you for letting me see that.”
“Well, you are very welcome,” said Parvati, “Now. While I do appreciate the visit, and I do feel privileged, I’m sure you’re all very busy people. I sense there is some reason you’re here rather than because of some whirlwind world tour. You see, your mysterious message did not tell me why you’re all here.”
With the actor’s hand still in her own, Chao blurted out, “How would you like to go into space with me?”
Parvati fixed the smaller woman with her gaze automatically, then the full import of Chao’s words struck her. For once, she looked flustered. “I’m sorry, what?”
Rosas performed a truly epic facepalm. “What Ms. Chao is trying to say, ma’am, is that…”
__________
“Why do I have to go into space?” Martinez, for once, did not look comfortable in his own skin. He and Matt were waiting for the final briefing to start, at some undisclosed location. Even Matt didn’t know exactly where they were, and that was saying something.
But for the moment the latter smiled, his eyes still closed. “Why are you complaining? You all will be safe as houses. Seven or eight days, max. Plus you’ll be riding in comfort the whole way. Hell, the Apollo guys managed to go to the moon and back in about the same time and they had to piss into a tube and shit into bags the whole time.”
“But they’d trained! For years! I mean, I’m just some fuckin’ idiot grunt.”
“It’s the deal we made. If Parvati goes, then Ravindar goes with her. That part is non-negotiable. So, if Chao also goes then we’ll need a Ravindar for her…or a Ravindar-lite, if you will…”
“Fuck you, Toke.”
“Buy me a drink first, Martinez. I mean, it does look good. We got the two main people, each wearing body-cams the whole time to capture the full experience, each with their own badass studly bodyguard to get the ladies and/or gents who swing that way all worked up.”
“Studly?” Martinez looked down at himself. “I mean…who’s gonna get worked up over me?”
“Lean dude with serious abs, takes care of himself, tracker beyond compare who is also death on foot and, oh, is also very honorable and nice and handsome?” Matt opened one eye to look down upon him. “Trust me, even if Chao says no, after this you’re gonna have to beat the ladies and/or gents who swing that way off with a stick.”
The subject of his gaze turned it back upon him. “Wait. How do you know I have serious abs?”
Matt just chuckled. “It’s all just part of the scenery, my man. You go through enough deployments, you find out what everyone’s packing, in every department.” He grinned at Martinez. “You ask her out yet?”
“…no.”
“And why not? This is the perfect time. Once the agreement is done, it’s gonna be a couple of weeks of whirlwind training, then you all get to go up.” Matt pointed his thumb at the ceiling. “Aaaall the way up to L5. You’re gonna be farther out than anyone except the Apollo astronauts. But you’re gonna be on camera the whole time, not exactly a good time for some covert kissy-smoochy stuff, even if some of you want to be the first humans to do it in freefall. Right now is the golden opportunity, if you ask me.”
“I just, I…is it the right time?”
Matt fixed him with that glare, the one which had made even the most senior of senior sergeants soil themselves. “I am not going to put up with this dancing-around horseshit anymore. Corporal, if in the next twenty-four hours you have not declared your feelings to Chao, you WILL wake up and find yourself duct-taped and shoved inside a closet with her for the following twelve hours. She can do what she likes with you, or she can walk out. However it goes, you will not get released until those twelve hours are up.” He leaned back.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Then don’t test me, bitch. You’d better hope that she doesn’t have a bondage fetish and view you as a sub. I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing that’s great, I won’t judge you. I never judge such stuff.”
“That’s not how it works, Toke. BDSM has rules, okay? You gotta set things up right, you gotta discuss it beforehand, with safe-words and aftercare. Aftercare is the key…” Martinez trailed off as he realized how much he’d just revealed.
“Why, Martinez, I didn’t know you swung that way. By the way, I still don’t judge.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m now going to ask you a direct question. Do you want to get duct-taped up and shoved into a closet for Chao to, heh, ‘discover’ you afterwards? Does that sound like Seven Minutes In Heaven to you?”
Corporal Luca Martinez tapped his fingers together as he stared at the floor. “I mean…okay, yeah. I kinda want her to take charge like that. But I mean…I dunno, she’s gonna think I’m some kind of freak.”
Martinez flinched as a weight settled on his shoulder. But Matt’s hand was kind, as were his eyes. “I got news for you, Luca. We’re all freaks, each in our own way. The best thing we can to is to help each other find another fellow freak. So here’s what I’m gonna do, seeing as how I am such a nice guy. I’m gonna approach Chao, talk to her, make sure that she’s down for getting a little or maybe a lot kinky with you.”
He pulled Martinez in closer. “So, then, if you wake up in a closet somewhere, with your wrists and ankles duct-taped together and another piece of tape over your mouth, you will know her answer was ‘yes’. The safe-word, or rather safe-gesture, will be this.” Matt made a weird waving motion with the fingers of one hand, like an octopus trying to hail a taxi. “Got it?”
“Um, yeah. I got it.” Martinez was still in the midst of trying to get his brain back into order. “We should also have a safe-word. I mean, once she gets the tape off of my mouth. Speaking hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course,” replied Matt with deadly calm. “Let’s nominate…hmm, tapioca. That’s a perfectly cromulent word.”
“Tapioca.” Martinez shuddered. “Eugh, I hate tapioca.”
“It’s not about the actual word, it just needs to be far enough off from anything in the particular scenario to make sure the dominant one realizes that something is wrong and that they need to stop the scene right now and proceed right to the aftercare and cuddles.”
“How do you know so much about this shit, mystery man?”
Matt just smiled. “I am vast. I contain multitudes.”
“Fine.” Martinez looked at the far wall. “Go ahead. Ask her. I just…I know I’m being all kinds of a stupid cowardly idiot. I know I should take you and McCoy’s advice and go up and talk to her. But I just…” He curled into himself on the chair. “I just can’t. Not with her. I don’t wanna mess it up. She’s…fuck, I hate to say shit like this, but what if she’s the one?”
Matt’s big mitt gave his shoulder a slight squeeze. “Well this is what friends are for, Martinez. So. I’ll ask her, and she’ll say yes or no. And a ‘yes’ will involve you getting taped-up and shoved into a closet so that she can step in and let her freak flag fly upon your defenseless person. So I will ask you once last time, are you cool with that?”
“…yeah."
“Right. Remember, you said ‘yeah’.”
“I did.” Martinez looked up as his primary duty then came crashing back down upon him. “What about Ravindar?”
“What about him?” asked Matt.
“I mean, do you think he’s a solid dude? They’re still trying to track down the insiders for that whole shit at Camp David. I met him, he seems like he’s okay, but I could never forgive myself if Chao gets hurt because I was a star-struck doofus.”
Matt dropped his hand from Martinez’s shoulder. “Now, corporal. Do you remember the lesson they told you your very first day in basic training? The one that wasn't in the official manual?”
The latter thought hard. “Don’t fuck with the Gurkhas?”
“Yes, that is indeed wise advice. What did they say after that?”
“Um…don’t shit where you eat?”
Matt sighed. “I see they’ve skipped a bit in your training. You see, right after Paragraph One (which is all about the Gurkhas), there should be a subsection A which should say ‘the same also applies to Sikhs’. Yeah, Ravindar is a solid dude.”
__________
“Beta-amyloid plaques?” asked Dhuz. “Interesting.”
Zawahir Ibn Harith shrugged. The two of them stood in a small room, examining a giant screen which showed a high-contrast image of a human neuron. “It’s what builds up over time,” he said. “We’ve looked at various ways to scrub these plaques out of the brain, but nothing seems to work.”
Dhuz touched her wrist, and the much-coveted holographic display formed. “It might be because you’re tackling the problem too late. We auhn have a similar disease. It’s a protein derangement issue, similar to your ‘mad cow disease’, and this is what we found out…”
As Zawahir looked at the data scrolling past her display, he felt a sense of God’s presence resting on himself. He now knew what exactly to do.
It was the most obvious thing in the world.
__________
The man was clad in a dark-blue polo shirt, and he smiled into the camera with the perpetual cheer of someone who is doing what they love for a living. His glasses were clean, and there was the merest hint of gray at both of his temples. “Good morning folks, I am John Insprucker, Principal Integration Engineer here at SpaceX, and it is my great pleasure to be here with you to witness this rare launch of a Falcon Heavy, one which will be fully expended. This is a big one, folks, this isn’t any satellite or gaggle of Starlinks. No, today we're putting serious tonnage into orbit. I’m pleased to be joined by a very special guest, one Salvatore T. "Tory" Bruno, CEO of our sister company United Launch Alliance.”
The camera pulled out to reveal a bald, smiling man sitting next to John. He was more formal, wearing a snazzy-looking suit complete with red tie. “I’m very glad to be here, John. But we must not forget our other guest.”
Insprucker laughed. “Why, of course I didn’t forget! To everyone watching, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you all Grakosh, engineer of the Coalition Exploration Bureau corvette known as the Exultant Finger of Rithro.”
Everyone watching online (which was pretty much everyone on Earth) gasped as a pale, meter-long form wriggled his way from up under the table. Grakosh coiled around John’s shoulder and nodded his strange, three-jawed head at the camera.
“Very pleased to be here, John. Tory.” He nodded over at Tory Bruno, who held out a fist. Grakosh responded by bumping his ‘nose’ into that fist. “This will be a big throw, as you humans say.”
Bruno laughed. “Or a big yeet. The kids today would say that instead.”
“Ah, the kids.” In spite of a distinct lack of shoulders, Grakosh managed to somehow shrug. “They will always come up with new words to confound us elders, right?”
Bruno laughed. “That they will.” He and John now looked up towards the screen above them, which showed a white triple-rocket next to a tower clad in dark metal. The center core was mostly pristine, but the two rockets flanking it looked well-used, with lots of soot extending up the sides.
The trio watched for awhile while John kept up the patter to avoid any dead air. They all knew this livestream was not a mere PR stunt.
“How much?” asked Bruno at an appropriate pause.
“Twenty tons,” responded John.
“And then we’ll send up fifteen tons after this, on Vulcan.” Bruno’s face became set in determination.
“Then we can go to work!” said Grakosh with enthusiasm. “Plus we’ll be shepherding Ms. Parvati and Ms. Chao!”
“That you will,” said John. He turned to address the camera. “As you probably know, the aforementioned two humans’ visiting the Rithro will be a live-stream event broadcast without ads, free to the entire world.”
“Four humans,” added Grakosh.
“Of course,” said Bruno. “Truly a historic moment for our species, in any case.”
Grakosh twirled his head, his species’ equivalent of throat-clearing. “May I say here, in front of the whole world, you humans never cease to amaze me with your cleverness. Why, only a few weeks ago we were discussing details on what the patching material had to behave like and now we’re in the midst of launching literal tons of that material into orbit!”
“We just hope it works,” said Bruno. “But if it doesn’t, we’ll just have to try again.”
“Indeed!” The little alien wiggled against John’s shoulder in obvious happiness, not knowing that the gesture would result in an entire shadow-economy revolving around what the kids called ‘the cute alien snake dude!’, one with lots of knock-off plushie simulacra of himself. Forty years afterwards, the copyright lawyers were still sorting through the entire mess.
“We are now at T-minus seven minutes,” John said as a clipped, feminine voice sounded throughout the studio. “Engine chill has begun.” He was not your typical PR type, but he knew how to keep talking. “What that means, is that chilled vapors of the oxidizer and fuel are now begin fed through the engines…”
“Twenty-seven engines,” added Bruno. “You are all madmen.”
John grinned as he realized that he could tag-team with Bruno, who was himself a born PR person. “Twenty-seven engines, or one, or two, or three…after awhile it’s just numbers.”
“Still. Twenty-seven? Gives me a case of the vapors just thinking about it. Anyways, folks, as my colleague here says we’re now getting the engines used to being cold. There’s gonna be a lot of cryogenic fluid getting flung through them in the near future and we need all of the metal components in there to be ready for that…”
“Strongback retract. T-minus five minutes.”
John stepped in smoothly. “And that means that the transporter-erector structure, which carried this Falcon Heavy out to the launch pad, will now uncouple from the rocket. The TE will continue to ‘top off’ the tanks inside the craft until T-minus zero.”
John and Bruno continued their back-and-forth banter over the next few minutes, with Grakosh interjecting here and there in a very cute manner, which again created more headaches for those poor lawyers forty years hence.
“Falcon Heavy is in startup.”
John straightened up. “All right folks, we are less than one minute from launch and the vehicle itself has now taken control of the countdown.”
“Intriguing,” said Grakosh. “You don’t control it yourselves?”
“I mean, we could still do that,” said Bruno. “After all, we did in the past. But with computers nowadays it’s a lot faster to let the rocket itself figure out if things are copacetic. If not, it can shut itself down faster than we ever could.”
Another voice sounded throughout the studio at T-minus forty seconds. “This is the mission director, we are go for launch.”
“Excellent news, folks!” exclaimed John with true happiness. “Forty seconds to go, and nothing has cropped up to scrub this. The weather looks good…man, Tory, look at that view.” The screen next to him showed an azure sky, chilly but with not a hint of clouds.
“That does look nice,” said Bruno. “Of course, I’m glad I’m not out there. Even Florida winter is still winter. I’ve been living in warm weather for too long, my blood’s too thin to put up with any serious cold.”
“Me too, brother.” John and Bruno shared a fist-bump, then after a pointed glare from the non-hands-using member of the trio they performed a mutual three-way bump with Grakosh participating using his head.
“T-minus ten. Nine. Eight. Six. Seven…”
The three of them stared at the screen with rapt attention. Like any proper missile men, the trio could get excited about a model-rocket launch from some grand-daughter’s back yard.
“…Five. Four. Three. Two…” A brilliant orange flame appeared from the bottom of the triple rocket.
“…Engines at full power, and liftoff! Liftoff of Earth Repair Mission One!”
Behind him, John could faintly hear the cheers of the SpaceX crew as the screen became flooded with light. The huge rocket surged off of its launch pad, before the view cut away to one much further off. It was equally as bright; twenty-seven rocket engines were now working in sync to convert RP-1 and oxygen into go-fast juice.
John then realized he was on his feet, screaming his damn-fool head off. His little alien comrade didn’t seem to mind; Grakosh was waving his tri-fingered tail at the screen and whooping it up as loud as any human. Tory Bruno now stood beside him, also whooping and dispensing back-slaps and head-bonks to all and sundry.
He’d watched humans get launched into space but somehow, John knew that this was different. This was not just some publicity stunt. This launch mattered. Humans were taking that first proper step into the galaxy. One which said, ‘we are here to stay’.
submitted by Frank_Leroux to HFY [link] [comments]

2023.06.05 14:46 Lex_Ravenhart I Can't Be This Bad!?

So I started up X4 Foundations less than 36 hours ago. I've been a long (as in ... long) time space flight simmer of SC and ED. I figured I'd give this one a try. I'm a new Dad so I don't have the luxury of an ever moving economy and events while I'm logged off. This game is perfect that I don't miss anything. Anyway, got through flight school, got my ship, did some easy non-combat missions to get me my first paycheque and ship upgrade. Took a "very easy" combat mission somewhere in Haktivah space and 3 Xenons blew me up on my first try. Reloaded the game, tried 4 more times, nadda. I tried a different "very easy" combat mission in the (Holy Order?) space to find and kill one ship...got blown up too. What the hell?
Is combat supposed to be avoided until I get something better? I bought a Quasar with MK1 pulse, MK1 bolt repeater, and a missile tracker. MKII shields, combat engines and thrusters. I know the game is supposed to go on and there are events and circumstances where I have no control of until I get bigger ships and such, but dogfighting against 2 or 3 shouldn't be this hard. I'm still working on their shields when I get shot down. Are there regions I should be avoiding? Is there a level per region or NPC I am not aware of? I don't see questions marks or red/purple colours indicating I'm fighting NPCs that are stronger than I, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
Thanks.
​
EDIT: First off, wow! I got a ton of advice in less than 30mins of posting. You guys are awesome. So as some of you already pointed out, you pretty much confirmed some of the things I was thinking. Maverick would probably not do so well in this game; "it's the plane, not the pilot".
EDIT (yet again): Holy crap! I just found out from one of you guys that boost shares the same pool as shields.
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2023.06.05 13:23 TELMxWILSON New Music! Pendulum, Metrik, Satl, Amoss, Workforce, DJ Sofa and more! Review include some Hiddem Gem bleeps & bloops as well as some deep liquid from Geostatic. [+weekly updated Spotify playlist] New Music Monday! (Week 23)

 
Weekly updated Spotify Playlist H2L: New Drum & Bass
Soundcloud Playlist H2L: New Drum & Bass Soundcloud
Youtube Playlist H2L: New Drum & Bass Youtube
Youtube Music Playlist H2L: New Drum & Bass YT Music
Apple Music Playlist H2L: New Drum & Bass Apple Music
Retroactive Playlist H2L: Retroactive New DnB
Last Week's list http://reddit.com/13urrql
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Picks Of The Week (by u/lefuniname)

1. Niallo - Dreamland EP 💎 [DIVIDID]

Recommended if you like: [BORDERS], The Caracal Project, Tom Finster
It's no secret I'm a big fan of the innovative, all-around strange sounds that come out of the newschool movement, spearheaded by the likes of IMANU and The Caracal Project. While these two, especially the latter, already come up with some truly puzzling sound design that would cause your nan to lose the last bits of hope she might have had for future generation's music, the up-and-coming artists inspired by them arguably push the envelope in that regard even further, making even millennials scratch their head sometimes. Or should I say millen-nial-lo? You guessed right, we're once again talking about Bristol-based badboy Niall Overend, better known as Niallo!
After talking about his introspective debut EP in 2021 and taking a closer look at his unsettlingly good follow-up EP in 2022, it has basically become an annual (an-niall?) tradition to expose you guys to the weirdest of bleeps and bloops that the scene has to offer. However, since we last talked about him, he has been expanding his sound even further! After an excursion on Incurzion and a double tracker on Surveillance Music, he realised how hard it was to find a home for his most out-there stuff, eventually leading him down the path of self-releasing earlier this year. Still not quite creatively satisfied, he even started another alias called Everdone just last month, for the less club-oriented side of the Niall. In the midst of all this (positive) creative turmoil, he managed to reinvent himself and his sound once again, this time dreaming up a whole new, more uplifting aesthetic, while still retaining the otherworldly alien-esque sound design he has become known for at this point. That unique combination of flavours got the attention of an imprint Niall has been looking up to since basically forever, DIVIDID, promptly resulting in label manager ABIS signing him on for a full EP! Let's see what the fuzz is all about then, shall we?
We ascend into the ethereal sky islands created from Niall's wicked sound design wizardry, with the title track Dreamland. After easing into it all by synths so dreamy they immediately earn the track its title, a most wonderful, distinctly retro-futuristic and otherworldly choir makes it clear that this release is different from most others. I can't quite explain why, but this whole intro gives off such strong retro-futuristic dystopia vibes that I just can't help but picture BioShock Infinite in my head. Following this unique introduction to it all is an equally, if not even more so, eccentric drop, driven forward by a syncopated, ever-changing flow and brought to life by all sorts of different bleeps and bloops.
As residents of the sky islands, we of course don't have any clouds blocking out the sun, so we end up becoming early risers and Niall already has the perfect anthem prepped for us: Holding On (6AM). With slightly dissonant chords, injected with strong white noise, creating a real sense of unease in a matter of seconds and the heavily processed, high-pitched vocal expanding on this experimental atmosphere, the rather strange journey continues. While I already kind of love this intro, the real highlight is what follows. Slow-moving, swinging drums act as the foundation for an incredibly catchy melody, whose each and every hit carries multiple waves of dissonance with it. Might sound weird, but it absolutely works. Throughout the drop, Niall effortlessly switches back and forth between this swinging, multi-layered madness and the chords from the buildup, with the occasional fake-out thrown in for good measure, really pushing the levels of dissonance to their limits. I absolutely love it.
With what sounds like a Japanese vocal sample, which has of course been slammed through various processing pipelines, and dissonant piano chords, Niall welcomes us to the next level of existence: Hyperreality. Even more syncopated than before, with little rolly bois chiming in every now and then, and an avalanche of melodies falling over each other, somehow forming a coherent rhythm in the process, this third stop makes you feel like you are living inside the glitchiest but simultaneously also prettiest videogames out there. EP closer Blue Snake takes this glitchy idea and runs with it. You know that sound you get, when you are watching something and your OS crashes on you, that millisecond-long snippet of audio just looping forever? That's what the buildup is like, but somehow melodically pleasing! As if that wasn't enough, we continue by hopping on a fast-paced joyride up and down the bleepy bloopy scales, with seemingly randomly appearing gaps in the melody creating an unpredictable yet well-flowing rhythm that will wrinkle your brain. Not only do we get loads of variation in the same tempo this way, Niall even pumps the brakes in the second half so hard we end up in a Half-time rhythm!
I have been a fan of Niallo's sound from the start basically, but this new direction is such a bold departure from the norm and just so wonderfully strange that I can't help but be even more ecstatic about his future projects than I already was before. Undenia(llo)bly one of the most unique releases of this and probably also previous years.
Other bleepy and bloopy things from this week: - skantia - Politics - A.way, Moment - Inception - B3D3-R, Asli, SEMPLE. - Summer Bounce EP

2. Geostatic - Worth Fighting For / Unpredictable [Celsius Recordings]

Recommended if you like: Sub:liminal, Invadhertz, Alix Perez
While he's slowly gaining a more sizeable audience and thus technically not a Hidden Gem™️ anymore, Geostatic is still incredibly underrated in my eyes. So, let's talk about him a bit!
Straight outta Austria's second largest city and one of its many DnB hotspots Graz, Philipp Hochegger aka Geostatic has been making geological, expressedly non-static waves in the DnB scene for years now. As part of the ehrliches BUM BUM or EBB crew, he is responsible for all sorts of ablaze Dancefloors not just in the area, but also at festivals like Outlook, Break & Lake and LakeSide. Inspired by the likes of Alix Perez, Phil of course also eventually wanted to fill up his playlists with tunes of his own. Around 2020, it was then finally time for the Geostatic project to ascend to the next level, with debut releases on Italian imprint Delta9 and its sister label DLT9. In the same year, Phil also participated in a competition for Graz-based artists, organised by springfestival graz, and managed to become one of the winners, with his track New Horizon even being used to promote the project on national television! After this first, already quite successful year, the Geostatic project swung into the next few ones with quite a lot of momentum, leading to releases on Transparent Audio, where he became a pivotal part of the ensemble, Ekou, Incurzion and, of course, Delta9, and collaborations with fellow Austrian talents Moekel, Screamarts and Anthropic.
After his arguably biggest EPs so far earlier this year, the Power Of Knowledge EP on Transparent Audio, which I kind of regret not covering here, Philipp continues his hot streak with some double trouble action on legendary Dutch label Fokuz's sister label, Celsius Recordings. And that's what we're here to talk about today! For the opener, Worth Fighting For, Phil recruits a certain someone, who has been making some serious moves in the scene lately: Dresden-based Scurrow. Together, the newcomer powerhouses craft a rather lovely roller of a tune, with soft pianos tugging at your heartstrings, a gentle vocal allowing your mind to drift away from the dreadful problems of day-to-day life, and warm bass to soothe the most anxious of souls. Speaking of bass, the flipside Unpredictable shows the polar opposite side of the Geostatic sound: Uncompromisingly huge, goosebump-inducing basslines, with a menacing atmosphere and forward-driving, rolling drums for maximum effect. What remains from the opener, albeit amped up to 11 here, is the soulfulness of it all, thanks to the wonderful vocal sample and its sublime processing.
Magnificent vibes, precise production, simply great! This is your invitation to also jump on the Geostatic hype train. Trust me, you won't regret it.
Other liquid and deep stuff from this week: - Trail - Resident EP - Satl, Brandy Haze - Today - Duskee, Deadline, Slay - CHICA - Reburf - In Deep EP 💎 - Amoss - A Stroke Of Luck EP - Waeys - Objection VIP / Simula Remix - Apparition - Guardian EP
 

New Releases

General DnB / Mixed

Dancefloor

Liquid

Deep / Tech / Minimal

Jump Up

Jungle

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2023.06.05 08:18 blueshampagne booking a nonstop flight but it has two airline’s name?

i was looking up flights, and was a little confused. say im planning to do sfo-sin, on google flights, there is this $1.3k ticket. it has SQ’s logo but it states SIA • Air India. my question is, what does this mean? when i typed AI7203 (supposed flight number) into a flight tracker, it has Air India’s logo but it states “operating as SQ31”. i concluded that the plane is SIA’s. so when searching up that exact flight on SIA’s website, the ticket is $1.5k. why the slight discrepancy if its the same flight? and what’s with the Air India thing? as far as i am aware, only United and SIA fly sfo-sin nonstop…
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2023.06.05 02:54 SimbaTheSavage8 Potato Panic

My dream last night featured the humble potato. After it was announced as the subject of the latest magic exam, the whole school set out to get one. After receiving my starter potato from the school I managed to buy 3 more at a corner store nearby, before escaping with my life to a hospital to pick up medicine for my family. Since I expected people to come after me to steal my potatoes in my pocket, I used one hospital as a decoy, duplicating potatoes and leaving them in trash cans, while picking up medicine in another hospital. Yet some people saw through my ruse, forcing me to flee.
I ended up booking a flight out of the country, but the plan failed when I discovered a tracker in one of my potatoes which then blew up in my face. Losing another potato to a hungry pursuer, I made my way to the ‘hostage’ event where the winner can score more potatoes for themselves. I decided not to join in the event, lest I lose all of my potatoes and show up empty-handed, but simply observed it from the balcony above. While there, I also passed the time by completing a paper about human psychology, given how everybody was crazy about potatoes and would do anything to get them.
Then I woke up.
submitted by SimbaTheSavage8 to Dream [link] [comments]

2023.06.05 01:04 pugpug11 WTF I FOUND 2 CMTS IN LIKE 5 RUNS NOT EVEN GOING FOR IT

WTF I FOUND 2 CMTS IN LIKE 5 RUNS NOT EVEN GOING FOR IT submitted by pugpug11 to borderlands3 [link] [comments]

2023.06.04 20:11 MrMusAddict Rivian is wasting 100,000 kWh per day (and counting)

Hey gang. I'm probably what you'd consider a superfan of Rivian. I don't have one yet, but I'm eagerly waiting my Dual Motor config. So eager that I happily spend my free time maintaining the Community Delivery Estimate Tracker.
But, I keep seeing posts about vampire drain. And I wanted to comment that it's NOT common for an EV to be wasting as much energy as people are claiming. I personally have a 2020 KIA Niro EV, and letting it sit unused for a week consumes less than 1% of my battery. AND, the battery pack in my car is ½ of what's in the Large Pack. So I waste what's effectively less than 0.5% of the Large Pack per WEEK with my KIA.
Claims that people are losing 10% per week. Assuming 0.5% of loss is normal, that's 9.5% wasted per week.
As of March 31st, Rivian has produced 35k vehicles. They produced 10k vehicles in Q1, so an extra 10-15k vehicles in Q2 is not far-fetched. That's around 50k vehicles.
If we take 9.5% wasted energy per week, extrapolated into kWh by day across an estimated 50k total vehicles produced, we get 93,500 kWh. If we factor in charge efficiency loss, that's 103,900 kWh pulled from the energy grid per day.
To put that into context, that's the equivalent of:
All of this simply by having your Rivian sit in your garage. There really is no reason for this to be the case.
submitted by MrMusAddict to Rivian [link] [comments]

2023.06.04 18:58 Fysen1 Flying United Polaris with little kids

Looking at doing an la to NYC flight with our 2yo and 3 month old. Well give the 2yo his own seat and keep 3 month old on lap with mom. Seat configs are a little funky - does anyone have experience flying in Polaris with a little one who will need some parental oversight? Any other recs? Also looking at JetBlue mint
submitted by Fysen1 to FATTravel [link] [comments]

2023.06.04 04:07 BigBlueMagic BE HEARD!!!! Last chance to stop TERRIBLE STADIUM HANDOUT!!!!

(I also posted this in /vegaslocals. If reposting here isn't allowed, I apologize, and feel free to take down).
Hey Everybody!!!
I just want to keep you in the loop on what’s going on with Oakland A’s owner John Fisher’s request to have the Nevada Legislature give him up to $380 million in public funds for a new stadium. The Legislative session ENDS MONDAY, which means that they will ram this through very quickly in the next 48 hours or so or call a special session.
NOW IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO SPEAK OUT!!!! I have put together a fairly well-documented argument below demonstrating that this is a bad deal and Fisher is a terrible partner. Please share this post and information as widely as you can! Most importantly, contact members of the Legislature and BE HEARD!!! Be sure to tell them that you live in Nevada!!!
Contact your Assemblyperson and State Senator!!
Assembly contact info: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/LegislatoA/Assembly/Current
State Senate Contact info: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/LegislatoA/Senate/Current
If you would like, you could use or modify this sample letter which contains URL links supporting the claims.
Dear Senator or Assemblyperson [Last Name], I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed public funding for John Fisher's baseball stadium in Nevada. I believe this project should be stopped for several reasons: Lack of transparency: Fisher and his team deliberately released funding details at the last minute and scheduled the only public hearing on Memorial Day evening, during a Golden Knights playoff game, limiting public awareness and participation. This is a shameful subversion of democracy and I hope you had no part in it. Neglected education system: Nevada ranks 49th out of 50 in educational attainment. Our focus should be on improving public schools, not funding a billionaire's stadium. Unrealistic economic projections: Expert analysis discredits the claim that the stadium will attract an additional 400,000 tourists, which, even if true, would only be a 1% increase on an annual basis. A Stanford economics professor expressed his belief that Fisher’s Stadium will result in the equivalent of a few hundred, permanent, long-term jobs. Fisher’s economic projections are detached from reality and unreliable. Fisher's history: His track record with the San Jose Quakes, another publicly funded stadium venture, raises concerns about his commitment to investing in player payroll and creating a competitive team. Fisher owns the Quakes. After he was given a public handout for a stadium, he did not change or competitively fund his soccer team. Troubled partnerships: Mark Davis of the Raiders, who shared the Oakland Coliseum with the A’s, has expressed frustration with Fisher's management group. MLB owners are also frustrated by doing business with Fisher. Nevada should expect to have the same experience if we proceed. I urge you to oppose public funding for John Fisher's stadium. Let's prioritize transparency, education, and responsible use of public funds for the benefit of all Nevada residents. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please consider my perspective as you make your decision. Should you require further information or have any questions, I am available to discuss this issue. Sincerely, [Your Name]
Feel free to modify, expand or use as-is. You can also write your own letter too. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for everyone so that we are HEARD!
TLDR Bullet Points For Big Argument Below:
PUBLIC FUNDING FOR JOHN FISHER’S STADIUM MUST BE STOPPED!!!!
1. They Don’t Want to Hear From You
Fisher and Kaval strategically waited until the 11th hour to release details about the handout. From USA Today:
The A’s, their cadre of lobbyists in Nevada and friendly politicians and tourist officials are doing their best to hide the sausage, introducing, finally, legislation for state funding of myriad projects on the Friday night of a holiday weekend, and then offering public discussion on the evening of Memorial Day. Pretty slick! And it sounds like Gov. Joe Lombardo’s signature would be waiting.
The only public hearing on giving away hundreds of millions of dollars occurred on Memorial Day. And not just on Memorial Day — it was in the evening during Game Six of the Western Conference Finals where the Golden Knights punched their tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals. A hearing at 4:00 AM on Christmas morning would have received a higher profile and greater public scrutiny.
They didn’t want you to know about the hearing and your opportunity to be heard. And if, by chance you did hear about it, they didn’t want you to be able to show up and be heard. They are not very subtle about their preference to not hear from you, the unwashed masses.
Guess who else wasn’t there? A’s owner John Fisher and President Dave Kaval. I am not making this up. They didn’t bother to show up to the Memorial Day hearing. They want us to give them hundreds of millions of dollars, but couldn’t be bothered to show up at the hearing and answer questions themselves? Where were they Monday night? What was so important they couldn’t be bothered to show up for a public hearing to answer questions in public? Fisher and his army of lobbyists have had weeks to meet privately with lawmakers behind closed doors. Are you telling me Fisher couldn’t give us regular folks two hours in public?
2. What Are Our Priorities?
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nevada, and in particular the Clark County School District, fail to provide adequate public education. Nevada ranks 49th out of 50 for educational attainment. Of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Las Vegas ranks second worst for schools. This is unacceptable, yet real education reform is never a priority for the same politicians who are willing to pull the Memorial Day/Stanley Cup Playoff hearing shenanigans for Fisher.
If our elected officials can turn on a dime to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to a billionaire for a sports stadium, why can’t they act with similar urgency for our disastrous public school system?
Our failed public schools, especially CCSD, are the most significant impediment to economic growth and diversification. The number one reason companies and individuals are reluctant to relocate to Las Vegas are our terrible public schools. If we want to create economic growth, we need to fund and fix our public schools, not build another billionaire a sports stadium.
3. The Numbers Don’t Make Sense. They’re Basically Fraud.
Whenever a billionaire asks the public to finance his stadium, the ask is always accompanied by a series of fantastical economic projections. If you watched the Memorial Day/Stanley Cup Playoff hearing, you saw a powerpoint presentation made by Fisher’s hired lobbyists. The numbers presented by Fisher’s lobbyists aren’t simply slightly embellished, they are disconnected from reality.
First, there is the claim that Fisher’s publicly funded stadium will bring an additional 400,000 tourists. John Mehaffey breaks down this non-sensical claim in the Nevada Independent:
The 400,000 number seems inflated to me. The A’s host 81 baseball games per year. This projection assumes 4,938 tourists at each game that would otherwise not be in Las Vegas. Considering only one American League market is within a reasonable driving distance, most of these tourists would fly to see their home team. Many or most of these tourists would go to two or three games in a series to justify this travel. If the average number is two games, that puts 9,877 visitors in the stadium per home game. If those fans go to an entire three-game series, that number is 14,815. If the 1.8 million locals attendance prediction is accurate, and visiting fans tend to go to a series as opposed to just one game, the A’s project that they will sell out the stadium's 35,000-seat capacity every home game. If visitors go to only two games, that is 90 percent of capacity. That is a bold projection for a team that was last in attendance in 2022 and at the bottom so far in 2023, especially since no MLB team comes close to selling out all its home games. The lack of flights makes 400,000 new visitors seem impossible Most teams that would visit the Las Vegas A’s stadium are in the American League. Most are in the east where nonstop flights to Las Vegas are scarce. For example, I found five or fewer nonstop flights per day from six of the other 14 American League cities. Four of those six teams had home stadium attendance below 20,000 per game in 2022. It’s hard to imagine that 10,000 or 15,000 fans will fly across the country for a series when that is around the average attendance for the 81 home games in their own cities. Some displaced fans may be within driving distance, but the point is one that needs to be considered. Las Vegas would need dozens of flights per series that don’t exist to accommodate this prediction.
Mehaffey also points out that Miami, which recently built a publicly financed stadium, also has 40 million visitors a year, just like Las Vegas. However, the Miami metro is substantially larger than Las Vegas. “In 2022, the Miami Marlins averaged 11,204 per game. A market with a much larger metro population that posts similar tourism numbers does not come close to the A’s projections. There is no reason to think Las Vegas will be different.”
Stanford economics professor Roger Noll agrees with Mehaffey that the attendance numbers Fisher projects are not credible. From USA Today:
“Baseball is different than the NFL,” Roger Noll, professor of economics emeritus at Stanford University, tells USA TODAY Sports. “This notion that of those 162 baseball games, I've got to see those three that are between the A's and the Royals in Las Vegas - it's just nonsense, right? It's not true, it's not going to happen. “That's the fundamental reason why economists, when they do research on the impact of sports teams, typically find that the effect on local incomes and employment is slightly negative.”
But what about job creation?
Noll says the hours that stadium workers put in – for 81 games a year – computes to roughly 15% of a full-time job. “So the 500 people who work at the stadium on game day, you got to multiply that by .15 to get the number of full-time equivalent jobs, which means it's less than 100. Wow,” says Noll. “You know, $1.5 billion to create less than 100 jobs, right? Wow.”
4. Grossly Underfunded Payroll
The total payroll for the 2023 A’s is just $59,630,474, just 37% of the MLB average payroll of $116,112,414 and just 17% of the highest-spending New York Mets ($345,474,042). To provide context, the highest paid players in the league, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, will each make $43,333,333. Verlander’s salary, by itself, is 72% of the entire A’s roster!
This meager spending is by choice, not necessity. It’s a strategy that works. From Sports Illustrated:
The A's were a top-5 team in 2022. Not on the field. The A's finished with a 60-102 record, second-worst only ahead of the Washington Nationals. On the spreadsheets though, they netted $62.2 million according to a report from Forbes. The only teams they finished behind were the revamped Seattle Mariners who made the playoffs for the first time in two decades, the San Francisco Giants, the Boston Red Sox, and the Baltimore Orioles who had a Mariners-esque upswing and an A's-esque payroll.
When the A’s do develop talent, they quickly jettison those players to avoid paying them their true worth on the market. As Review-Journal columnist Ed Graney explained, when Fisher’s A’s have experienced success, the response has been to break down the team and sell off the parts. Graney concluded: “John Fisher is an owner with deep, deep pockets who (incredibly) has always acted in a way that he can’t afford to hand out exorbitant contracts to his best players. About him, an overwhelmingly popular opinion is that he simply doesn’t want to.”
Why do this? Wouldn’t a competitive team generate more revenue? In Major League Baseball, there is a revenue sharing agreement among the franchises, intended to help smaller markets field competitive teams. Fisher uses revenue sharing, and dumping talent, to be one of the most profitable owners in baseball. From the New York Post:
At least a few rival MLB club owners are annoyed at the Athletics for conducting a major fire sale to enhance their bottom line soon after being added as a new revenue-sharing recipient in a vote by owners. “The idea of revenue sharing is not to make money, it’s to field a competitive team,” one rival owner complained Thursday during the owners’ meetings at MLB headquarters in Midtown. “That money is supposed to go toward player salaries. [The A’s] took the money and put it in their pocket.” Yet another owner, also upset that the A’s didn’t use the money to buy new players, but instead did the opposite and sold three major stars and drastically cut their payroll, referred to the franchise generally as “a mess.”
Fisher will not fund a competitive team in Las Vegas if we give him a stadium handout. That would destroy his very profitable business strategy. Why would he do that? The payroll of the Las Vegas A’s will be 30th out of 30 MLB teams, just like the Oakland A’s.
5. History Repeating: Quakes Publicly Funded Stadium
There seems to be some hopeful thinking that if we give John Fisher a stadium handout, he will increase the A’s payroll to become more competitive. A’s President Dave Kaval stirred excitement when he insinuated that the franchise would bankroll a World Series championship team with a new stadium in Las Vegas. “But with more revenues, we want to turn a playoff team into a World Series team. That’s why we’re fighting so hard for a new stadium, whether it’s in Las Vegas or Oakland,” Kaval told the Review-Journal.
Many people, including our elected officials, want to believe this, in good faith. It would be awesome to have a Las Vegas MLB franchise win a World Series!
This isn’t Fisher’s first rodeo with a publicly funded stadium. Fisher is also the owner of the San Jose Quakes of Major League Soccer. From an Associated Press article in the May 25, 2006 Salinas Californian on public financing for a new Quakes stadium: “The Quakes won MLS championships in 2001 and 2003 led by former star forward Landon Donovan but attendance slid to an average of just 13,037 fans last season.” Sound familiar?
So what happened? Did Fisher increase player payroll once he obtained his publicly financed soccer stadium?
From the San Jose Mercury News:
Out of the 29 MLS teams, the Earthquakes rank 21st in guaranteed player compensation and base salary, both on a per-player and teamwide basis. The Earthquakes’ average salary came in at $434,079, nearly $100,000 lower than the overall average salary for an MLS player ($530,467). San Jose’s total spending ($13.022 million) comes in at more than $2.8 million below the average team spending across the league (15.822 million). It’s a continued trend for the Quakes, even after they moved into the state-of-the-art PayPal Park in 2015. The Earthquakes have consistently ranked in the bottom half of the league in spending, per Spotrac, even as the MLS has continued to add new expansion teams over the years. Earthquakes spending rank in MLS by year · 2015 (20 teams) — 15th · 2016 (20 teams) — 11th · 2017 (22 teams) — 16th · 2018 (23 teams) — 19th · 2019 (24 teams) — 19th · 2020 (26 teams) — 17th · 2021 (27 teams) — 24th · 2022 (28 teams) — 22nd · 2023 (29 teams) — 21st That has been reflected in on-field results, too. Since the Earthquakes moved into their new home, they have never finished a season with more wins than losses — the closest they came was in that first year, at 13 wins, 13 losses and eight draws.
Nevada should expect Fisher to act in the future as he has in the past. His business strategy is clear: spend as little as possible on player payroll regardless of venue. If Nevada gives Fisher a handout, nobody — nobody — can act surprised when his miserly payroll does not change.
The Raiders and A’s shared the Oakland Coliseum for decades. Aces and Raiders owner Mark Davis is very familiar with what it means to “partner” with John Fisher. Davis did not hold back when he spoke with the Review-Journal:
“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland. They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium,” the Raiders owner said in a phone chat Thursday afternoon, referring to the stadium the A’s and Raiders once shared, the Oakland Coliseum. “They were looking for a stadium. We were looking for a stadium. They didn’t want to build a stadium, and then went ahead and signed a 10-year lease with the city of Oakland and said, ‘We’re the base team.’” … Davis was asked if he could envision an environment where the Silver and Black would cross-promote with the green-and-gold Las Vegas Athletics. “Not with that management group,” Davis said. “I just have, again, a lot of personal animosity toward the front office. But with a new management group? Absolutely.”
Mark Davis did business with John Fisher for decades. Davis knows Fisher. Nobody in Nevada has done business with Fisher as much as Davis. Davis’ reaction to Fisher, basically unfiltered instinctual revulsion, should be a massive red flag to our elected leaders who are being plied with sweet nothings by Fisher’s hired guns.
Sources:
“A’s Stadium Math Doesn’t Add Up.” The Nevada Independent, May 30, 2023. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/as-stadium-math-doesnt-add-up.
Graney, Ed. “Graney: A’s Penny-Pinching a Reason for Las Vegas to Reassess.” Journal, March 18, 2022. https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/sports-columns/ed-graney/graney-as-penny-pinching-a-reason-for-las-vegas-to-reassess-2547852/.
Gutierrez, Ana. “Nevada Ranks as the Second Least Educated State in America.” KLAS, February 17, 2022. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/nevada-ranks-as-the-second-least-educated-state-in-america/.
Jenkins, Bruce. “MLB Has Punished Other Owners. Why Is A’s John Fisher Getting a Pass?” San Francisco Chronicle, June 3, 2023. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/jenkins/article/john-fisher-mlb-oakland-18130516.php.
Katsilometes, John. “Raiders Owner Rips Oakland Athletics’ Likely Move to Las Vegas.” Journal, April 27, 2023. https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/raiders-owner-rips-oakland-athletics-likely-move-to-las-vegas-2765229/?xxyy.
Lacques, Gabe. “Why A’s Las Vegas Stadium Gambit May Be a Losing Bet: ‘It’s Just Nonsense.’” USA Today, June 1, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/athletics/2023/06/01/oakland-as-move-las-vegas-stadium-gambit-losing-bet/70277528007/.
Lozito, Nick. “‘this Is Not Our Fault:’ Oakland A’s Fans Are Defending Their Image.” The Oaklandside, May 5, 2023. https://oaklandside.org/2023/05/01/oakland-athletics-leaving-las-vegas-john-fisher-dave-kaval-fans/.
“MLB 2023 Payroll Tracker.” Spotrac.com. Accessed June 3, 2023. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/.
Oakland Athletics made over $60 million in 2023 - Sports Illustrated ... Accessed June 4, 2023. https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/oakland-athletics-made-over-60-million-in-2023.
Shea, John. “Don’t Believe John Fisher’s Propaganda: A’s Fans Are the Best in Baseball.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 1, 2023. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/athletics/article/oakland-a-s-fans-aren-t-reason-team-las-vegas-18126429.php.
Simon, Alex. “Would New Oakland A’s Ballpark Lead to More Spending? John Fisher’s Other Team Shows That May Not Be the Case.” The Mercury News, May 17, 2023. https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/05/16/would-new-oakland-as-ballpark-lead-to-more-spending-john-fishers-other-team-shows-that-may-not-be-the-case/.
Wootton-Greener, Julie. “Las Vegas Area Schools Ranked Second-Worst in Nation for Quality.” Journal, December 9, 2021. https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/education/las-vegas-area-schools-ranked-second-worst-in-nation-for-quality-2493177/.
submitted by BigBlueMagic to Nevada [link] [comments]

2023.06.04 03:48 BigBlueMagic BE HEARD!!! Last Chance To Stop the Legislature From Giving Away Hundreds of Millions in Terrible Stadium Handout!!!!!!!

Hey Everybody!!!
I just want to keep you in the loop on what’s going on with Oakland A’s owner John Fisher’s request to have the Nevada Legislature give him up to $380 million in public funds for a new stadium. The Legislative session ENDS MONDAY, which means that they will ram this through very quickly in the next 48 hours or so or call a special session.
NOW IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO SPEAK OUT!!!! I have put together a fairly well-documented argument below demonstrating that this is a bad deal and Fisher is a terrible partner. Please share this post and information as widely as you can! Most importantly, contact members of the Legislature and BE HEARD!!! Be sure to tell them that you live in Nevada!!!
Contact your Assemblyperson and State Senator!!
Assembly contact info: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/LegislatoA/Assembly/Current
State Senate Contact info: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/LegislatoA/Senate/Current
If you would like, you could use or modify this sample letter which contains URL links supporting the claims.
Dear Senator or Assemblyperson [Last Name],
I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed public funding for John Fisher's baseball stadium in Nevada. I believe this project should be stopped for several reasons:
Lack of transparency: Fisher and his team deliberately released funding details at the last minute and scheduled the only public hearing on Memorial Day evening, during a Golden Knights playoff game, limiting public awareness and participation. This is a shameful subversion of democracy and I hope you had no part in it.
Neglected education system: Nevada ranks 49th out of 50 in educational attainment. Our focus should be on improving public schools, not funding a billionaire's stadium.
Unrealistic economic projections: Expert analysis discredits the claim that the stadium will attract an additional 400,000 tourists, which, even if true, would only be a 1% increase on an annual basis. A Stanford economics professor expressed his belief that Fisher’s Stadium will result in the equivalent of a few hundred, permanent, long-term jobs. Fisher’s economic projections are detached from reality and unreliable.
Fisher's history: His track record with the San Jose Quakes, another publicly funded stadium venture, raises concerns about his commitment to investing in player payroll and creating a competitive team. Fisher owns the Quakes. After he was given a public handout for a stadium, he did not change or competitively fund his soccer team.
Troubled partnerships: Mark Davis of the Raiders, who shared the Oakland Coliseum with the A’s, has expressed frustration with Fisher's management group. MLB owners are also frustrated by doing business with Fisher. Nevada should expect to have the same experience if we proceed.
I urge you to oppose public funding for John Fisher's stadium. Let's prioritize transparency, education, and responsible use of public funds for the benefit of all Nevada residents.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please consider my perspective as you make your decision. Should you require further information or have any questions, I am available to discuss this issue.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Feel free to modify, expand or use as-is. You can also write your own letter too. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for everyone so that we are HEARD!
TLDR Bullet Points For Big Argument Below:
PUBLIC FUNDING FOR JOHN FISHER’S STADIUM MUST BE STOPPED!!!!
1. They Don’t Want to Hear From You
Fisher and Kaval strategically waited until the 11th hour to release details about the handout. From USA Today:
The A’s, their cadre of lobbyists in Nevada and friendly politicians and tourist officials are doing their best to hide the sausage, introducing, finally, legislation for state funding of myriad projects on the Friday night of a holiday weekend, and then offering public discussion on the evening of Memorial Day.
Pretty slick! And it sounds like Gov. Joe Lombardo’s signature would be waiting.
The only public hearing on giving away hundreds of millions of dollars occurred on Memorial Day. And not just on Memorial Day — it was in the evening during Game Six of the Western Conference Finals where the Golden Knights punched their tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals. A hearing at 4:00 AM on Christmas morning would have received a higher profile and greater public scrutiny.
They didn’t want you to know about the hearing and your opportunity to be heard. And if, by chance you did hear about it, they didn’t want you to be able to show up and be heard. They are not very subtle about their preference to not hear from you, the unwashed masses.
Guess who else wasn’t there? A’s owner John Fisher and President Dave Kaval. I am not making this up. They didn’t bother to show up to the Memorial Day hearing. They want us to give them hundreds of millions of dollars, but couldn’t be bothered to show up at the hearing and answer questions themselves? Where were they Monday night? What was so important they couldn’t be bothered to show up for a public hearing to answer questions in public? Fisher and his army of lobbyists have had weeks to meet privately with lawmakers behind closed doors. Are you telling me Fisher couldn’t give us regular folks two hours in public?
2. What Are Our Priorities?
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nevada, and in particular the Clark County School District, fail to provide adequate public education. Nevada ranks 49th out of 50 for educational attainment. Of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Las Vegas ranks second worst for schools. This is unacceptable, yet real education reform is never a priority for the same politicians who are willing to pull the Memorial Day/Stanley Cup Playoff hearing shenanigans for Fisher.
If our elected officials can turn on a dime to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to a billionaire for a sports stadium, why can’t they act with similar urgency for our disastrous public school system?
Our failed public schools, especially CCSD, are the most significant impediment to economic growth and diversification. The number one reason companies and individuals are reluctant to relocate to Las Vegas are our terrible public schools. If we want to create economic growth, we need to fund and fix our public schools, not build another billionaire a sports stadium.
3. The Numbers Don’t Make Sense. They’re Basically Fraud.
Whenever a billionaire asks the public to finance his stadium, the ask is always accompanied by a series of fantastical economic projections. If you watched the Memorial Day/Stanley Cup Playoff hearing, you saw a powerpoint presentation made by Fisher’s hired lobbyists. The numbers presented by Fisher’s lobbyists aren’t simply slightly embellished, they are disconnected from reality.
First, there is the claim that Fisher’s publicly funded stadium will bring an additional 400,000 tourists. John Mehaffey breaks down this non-sensical claim in the Nevada Independent:
The 400,000 number seems inflated to me. The A’s host 81 baseball games per year. This projection assumes 4,938 tourists at each game that would otherwise not be in Las Vegas.
Considering only one American League market is within a reasonable driving distance, most of these tourists would fly to see their home team. Many or most of these tourists would go to two or three games in a series to justify this travel.
If the average number is two games, that puts 9,877 visitors in the stadium per home game. If those fans go to an entire three-game series, that number is 14,815. If the 1.8 million locals attendance prediction is accurate, and visiting fans tend to go to a series as opposed to just one game, the A’s project that they will sell out the stadium's 35,000-seat capacity every home game. If visitors go to only two games, that is 90 percent of capacity.
That is a bold projection for a team that was last in attendance in 2022 and at the bottom so far in 2023, especially since no MLB team comes close to selling out all its home games.
The lack of flights makes 400,000 new visitors seem impossible
Most teams that would visit the Las Vegas A’s stadium are in the American League. Most are in the east where nonstop flights to Las Vegas are scarce. For example, I found five or fewer nonstop flights per day from six of the other 14 American League cities.
Four of those six teams had home stadium attendance below 20,000 per game in 2022. It’s hard to imagine that 10,000 or 15,000 fans will fly across the country for a series when that is around the average attendance for the 81 home games in their own cities.
Some displaced fans may be within driving distance, but the point is one that needs to be considered. Las Vegas would need dozens of flights per series that don’t exist to accommodate this prediction.
Mehaffey also points out that Miami, which recently built a publicly financed stadium, also has 40 million visitors a year, just like Las Vegas. However, the Miami metro is substantially larger than Las Vegas. “In 2022, the Miami Marlins averaged 11,204 per game. A market with a much larger metro population that posts similar tourism numbers does not come close to the A’s projections. There is no reason to think Las Vegas will be different.”
Stanford economics professor Roger Noll agrees with Mehaffey that the attendance numbers Fisher projects are not credible. From USA Today:
“Baseball is different than the NFL,” Roger Noll, professor of economics emeritus at Stanford University, tells USA TODAY Sports. “This notion that of those 162 baseball games, I've got to see those three that are between the A's and the Royals in Las Vegas - it's just nonsense, right? It's not true, it's not going to happen.
“That's the fundamental reason why economists, when they do research on the impact of sports teams, typically find that the effect on local incomes and employment is slightly negative.”
But what about job creation?
Noll says the hours that stadium workers put in – for 81 games a year – computes to roughly 15% of a full-time job.
“So the 500 people who work at the stadium on game day, you got to multiply that by .15 to get the number of full-time equivalent jobs, which means it's less than 100. Wow,” says Noll. “You know, $1.5 billion to create less than 100 jobs, right? Wow.”
4. Grossly Underfunded Payroll
The total payroll for the 2023 A’s is just $59,630,474, just 37% of the MLB average payroll of $116,112,414 and just 17% of the highest-spending New York Mets ($345,474,042). To provide context, the highest paid players in the league, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, will each make $43,333,333. Verlander’s salary, by itself, is 72% of the entire A’s roster!
This meager spending is by choice, not necessity. It’s a strategy that works. From Sports Illustrated:
The A's were a top-5 team in 2022.
Not on the field. The A's finished with a 60-102 record, second-worst only ahead of the Washington Nationals. On the spreadsheets though, they netted $62.2 million according to a report from Forbes. The only teams they finished behind were the revamped Seattle Mariners who made the playoffs for the first time in two decades, the San Francisco Giants, the Boston Red Sox, and the Baltimore Orioles who had a Mariners-esque upswing and an A's-esque payroll.
When the A’s do develop talent, they quickly jettison those players to avoid paying them their true worth on the market. As Review-Journal columnist Ed Graney explained, when Fisher’s A’s have experienced success, the response has been to break down the team and sell off the parts. Graney concluded: “John Fisher is an owner with deep, deep pockets who (incredibly) has always acted in a way that he can’t afford to hand out exorbitant contracts to his best players. About him, an overwhelmingly popular opinion is that he simply doesn’t want to.”
Why do this? Wouldn’t a competitive team generate more revenue? In Major League Baseball, there is a revenue sharing agreement among the franchises, intended to help smaller markets field competitive teams. Fisher uses revenue sharing, and dumping talent, to be one of the most profitable owners in baseball. From the New York Post:
At least a few rival MLB club owners are annoyed at the Athletics for conducting a major fire sale to enhance their bottom line soon after being added as a new revenue-sharing recipient in a vote by owners.
“The idea of revenue sharing is not to make money, it’s to field a competitive team,” one rival owner complained Thursday during the owners’ meetings at MLB headquarters in Midtown. “That money is supposed to go toward player salaries. [The A’s] took the money and put it in their pocket.”
Yet another owner, also upset that the A’s didn’t use the money to buy new players, but instead did the opposite and sold three major stars and drastically cut their payroll, referred to the franchise generally as “a mess.”
Fisher will not fund a competitive team in Las Vegas if we give him a stadium handout. That would destroy his very profitable business strategy. Why would he do that? The payroll of the Las Vegas A’s will be 30th out of 30 MLB teams, just like the Oakland A’s.
5. History Repeating: Quakes Publicly Funded Stadium
There seems to be some hopeful thinking that if we give John Fisher a stadium handout, he will increase the A’s payroll to become more competitive. A’s President Dave Kaval stirred excitement when he insinuated that the franchise would bankroll a World Series championship team with a new stadium in Las Vegas. “But with more revenues, we want to turn a playoff team into a World Series team. That’s why we’re fighting so hard for a new stadium, whether it’s in Las Vegas or Oakland,” Kaval told the Review-Journal.
Many people, including our elected officials, want to believe this, in good faith. It would be awesome to have a Las Vegas MLB franchise win a World Series!
This isn’t Fisher’s first rodeo with a publicly funded stadium. Fisher is also the owner of the San Jose Quakes of Major League Soccer. From an Associated Press article in the May 25, 2006 Salinas Californian on public financing for a new Quakes stadium: “The Quakes won MLS championships in 2001 and 2003 led by former star forward Landon Donovan but attendance slid to an average of just 13,037 fans last season.” Sound familiar?
So what happened? Did Fisher increase player payroll once he obtained his publicly financed soccer stadium?
From the San Jose Mercury News:
Out of the 29 MLS teams, the Earthquakes rank 21st in guaranteed player compensation and base salary, both on a per-player and teamwide basis.
The Earthquakes’ average salary came in at $434,079, nearly $100,000 lower than the overall average salary for an MLS player ($530,467). San Jose’s total spending ($13.022 million) comes in at more than $2.8 million below the average team spending across the league (15.822 million).
It’s a continued trend for the Quakes, even after they moved into the state-of-the-art PayPal Park in 2015. The Earthquakes have consistently ranked in the bottom half of the league in spending, per Spotrac, even as the MLS has continued to add new expansion teams over the years.
Earthquakes spending rank in MLS by year
· 2015 (20 teams) — 15th
· 2016 (20 teams) — 11th
· 2017 (22 teams) — 16th
· 2018 (23 teams) — 19th
· 2019 (24 teams) — 19th
· 2020 (26 teams) — 17th
· 2021 (27 teams) — 24th
· 2022 (28 teams) — 22nd
· 2023 (29 teams) — 21st
That has been reflected in on-field results, too. Since the Earthquakes moved into their new home, they have never finished a season with more wins than losses — the closest they came was in that first year, at 13 wins, 13 losses and eight draws.
Nevada should expect Fisher to act in the future as he has in the past. His business strategy is clear: spend as little as possible on player payroll regardless of venue. If Nevada gives Fisher a handout, nobody — nobody — can act surprised when his miserly payroll does not change.
The Raiders and A’s shared the Oakland Coliseum for decades. Aces and Raiders owner Mark Davis is very familiar with what it means to “partner” with John Fisher. Davis did not hold back when he spoke with the Review-Journal:
“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland. They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium,” the Raiders owner said in a phone chat Thursday afternoon, referring to the stadium the A’s and Raiders once shared, the Oakland Coliseum.
“They were looking for a stadium. We were looking for a stadium. They didn’t want to build a stadium, and then went ahead and signed a 10-year lease with the city of Oakland and said, ‘We’re the base team.’”
…
Davis was asked if he could envision an environment where the Silver and Black would cross-promote with the green-and-gold Las Vegas Athletics.
“Not with that management group,” Davis said. “I just have, again, a lot of personal animosity toward the front office. But with a new management group? Absolutely.”
Mark Davis did business with John Fisher for decades. Davis knows Fisher. Nobody in Nevada has done business with Fisher as much as Davis. Davis’ reaction to Fisher, basically unfiltered instinctual revulsion, should be a massive red flag to our elected leaders who are being plied with sweet nothings by Fisher’s hired guns.
Sources:
“A’s Stadium Math Doesn’t Add Up.” The Nevada Independent, May 30, 2023. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/as-stadium-math-doesnt-add-up.
Graney, Ed. “Graney: A’s Penny-Pinching a Reason for Las Vegas to Reassess.” Journal, March 18, 2022. https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/sports-columns/ed-graney/graney-as-penny-pinching-a-reason-for-las-vegas-to-reassess-2547852/.
Gutierrez, Ana. “Nevada Ranks as the Second Least Educated State in America.” KLAS, February 17, 2022. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/nevada-ranks-as-the-second-least-educated-state-in-america/.
Jenkins, Bruce. “MLB Has Punished Other Owners. Why Is A’s John Fisher Getting a Pass?” San Francisco Chronicle, June 3, 2023. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/jenkins/article/john-fisher-mlb-oakland-18130516.php.
Katsilometes, John. “Raiders Owner Rips Oakland Athletics’ Likely Move to Las Vegas.” Journal, April 27, 2023. https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/raiders-owner-rips-oakland-athletics-likely-move-to-las-vegas-2765229/?xxyy.
Lacques, Gabe. “Why A’s Las Vegas Stadium Gambit May Be a Losing Bet: ‘It’s Just Nonsense.’” USA Today, June 1, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/athletics/2023/06/01/oakland-as-move-las-vegas-stadium-gambit-losing-bet/70277528007/.
Lozito, Nick. “‘this Is Not Our Fault:’ Oakland A’s Fans Are Defending Their Image.” The Oaklandside, May 5, 2023. https://oaklandside.org/2023/05/01/oakland-athletics-leaving-las-vegas-john-fisher-dave-kaval-fans/.
“MLB 2023 Payroll Tracker.” Spotrac.com. Accessed June 3, 2023. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/.
Oakland Athletics made over $60 million in 2023 - Sports Illustrated ... Accessed June 4, 2023. https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/oakland-athletics-made-over-60-million-in-2023.
Shea, John. “Don’t Believe John Fisher’s Propaganda: A’s Fans Are the Best in Baseball.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 1, 2023. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/athletics/article/oakland-a-s-fans-aren-t-reason-team-las-vegas-18126429.php.
Simon, Alex. “Would New Oakland A’s Ballpark Lead to More Spending? John Fisher’s Other Team Shows That May Not Be the Case.” The Mercury News, May 17, 2023. https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/05/16/would-new-oakland-as-ballpark-lead-to-more-spending-john-fishers-other-team-shows-that-may-not-be-the-case/.
Wootton-Greener, Julie. “Las Vegas Area Schools Ranked Second-Worst in Nation for Quality.” Journal, December 9, 2021. https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/education/las-vegas-area-schools-ranked-second-worst-in-nation-for-quality-2493177/.
submitted by BigBlueMagic to vegaslocals [link] [comments]

2023.06.04 02:23 nayorikolka What kind of plane could this be?

What kind of plane could this be?
Today I was filming the moonrise and I accidentally captured a ?plane? What I don't understand about it is that this was taken with a 600mm telephoto lens and then I zoomed in on it in the video editor app and it still looks tiny. What kind of ... ehm... flying object(?) could look this small? I checked flight trackers but the planes that were close to my location would look much larger on video.
Location: 47.944948, 21.373036, facing East~South-East Sometime between 21:00~21:40 CET (June 3rd)
(I know nothing about airplanes so forgive me if my question is stupid).
submitted by nayorikolka to Planespotting [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 19:26 LtTrashcan Please help me find this pilot

Recently, I accidentally captured a plane crossing the moon, when I was waiting for the ISS to transit: https://www.reddit.com/Astronomy/comments/13xveaa/plane_photobombing_my_iss_lunar_transit_capture/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I was thinking if I were the pilot, it would be cool to have a still like this picture I edited: https://www.reddit.com/useLtTrashcan/comments/13zd621/fly_me_to_the_moon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
So I set out to find out what flight this was, and who the pilot would've been. Using an internet live air traffic tracker, I matched the exact time and direction to the correct flight: https://www.reddit.com/useLtTrashcan/comments/13yhjwy/i_identified_the_plane_i_captured_flying_across/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
So, now I know it was Lufthansa flight LH2519 from Dublin to Munich on May 31st. Now all that's left is to find out who piloted this flight, and get in touch. I got a feeling Lufthansa customer support doesn't care enough/won't share this kind of information. Do you guys/girls know how I would find out?
submitted by LtTrashcan to Lufthansa [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 17:03 Proletlariet Craig Bond

After the absurd heights that Pierce Brosnan’s Bond climbed to, Eon Productions decided the best course for the Bond franchise was a full reboot. For the first time since the 60s, the British agent was a completely different individual separated from the rest of the timeline. This made for a sharper, more grounded action film with 2006’s Casino Royale.
Daniel Crag’s Bond feels more human, and despite his incredible athletic ability and great skill in fistfights or gunfights, he gets hurt. Like a lot. He definitely feels as if he takes more punishment than any Bond before him. He has a much smaller arsenal than previous incarnations, but his skill with a basic sidearm is usually all he needs to get the job done.
Feats come from Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Specter. Hover over a feat to see which film it’s from.

Physicals

Strength
Endurance
Blunt Force
Other
Agility
Movement
Reaction

Skills

Combat
Mostly Unarmed
Mostly Armed
Gunfighting
Driving/Piloting
Other

Equipment

Weapons
Gadgets
Vehicles

Miscellaneous

submitted by Proletlariet to u/Proletlariet [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 16:48 Proletlariet Thirteenth Doctor

Respect the Doctor

🎵

"Bit of adrenaline, dash of outrage, and a hint of panic knitted my brain back together. I know exactly who I am. I'm the Doctor. Sorting out fair play across the universe. Now please. Get off this planet while you still have a choice."

So you've come to see my respect thread? mmmm I love respect threads. In fact, I invented them right after 4 slice toasters. So... where was I? Oh, that's right. Me. Doctor, the Doctor. I was born on this little planet on the Constellation of Kasterborous... or was I? Things get a bit complicated there... where I came from or who I am. I've been lots of people, some of them I don't even remember. The person reading this might be the Doctor too (?)... Anyway, back on point. The person who I am now is an easy-going travelehigh-speed engineebiscuit-lover. Me and my fam explore the universe in muh good old TARDIS, righting wrongs and chilling like there's no tomorrow (which is a possibility wink-wink). I'm happy to be your bezzie mate if you play nicely, but if not --- well, you'll get an idea if you keep reading. (scronch)

Source Key

Hover over a feat to view its source.
  • Doctor Who (2005) series # episode # = S#E#
  • Twice Upon A Time = TUAT
  • Resolution = R
  • Revolution of the Daleks = RotD
  • Eve of the Daleks = EotD
  • Legend of the Sea Devils = LotSD
  • The Power of the Doctor = PotD

Intelligence

Technological Aptitude
Understanding Technology
Using/Operating Technology
Building Technology
Modifying Technology
Disabling Technology
Repairing Technology
Computing
Observation
Deduction
Persuasion, Trickery & Manipulation
Resourcefulness
Medical
Planning & Strategy
Miscellaneous Skills

Mental Abilities

Mental Resistance & Willpower
Mind Reading & Communication
Mind Manipulation
Sensing & Feeling
Other

Physical Attributes

Strength
Speed & Agility
Durability
Senses
Regeneration
Time Lords can survive fatal injuries through the process of regeneration whereupon every cell in their body is rewritten, radically transforming their appearance and personality. This regeneration produced some interesting changes...
Miscellaneous Time Lord Biology

Equipment

Get the full rundown of the TARDIS and Sonic Screwdriver in the comments

Psychic Paper
The psychic paper is a blank piece of paper that telepathically projects the Doctor's thoughts into the eyes of whom she presents it to.
Futuristic Technology
Mundane Items

Miscellaneous

"She was the universe."

submitted by Proletlariet to u/Proletlariet [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 16:44 CypherZel Grabs don't break regardless of distance

Grabs don't break regardless of distance submitted by CypherZel to cataclysmdda [link] [comments]