Orbital ATK

[legoclone09]

So, I my dad was driving me to get lunch and I spot the Orbital ATK logo on a sign, and I freak out about there being a rocket manufacturer behind a strip mall on Miramar road. He didn't believe me, and we drove back around to see it. I'm going to see if I can book a tour since I think they have them there.

[NovaSilisko]

Is that an actual manufacturing facility, or just some offices?

[legoclone09]

I think they make spacecraft components, I looked that up after I saw this on the Orbital ATK website.

[razark]

Umm...  People think it's odd to see an aerospace company office?

How strange.

[legoclone09]

16 hours ago, razark said:

Umm...  People think it's odd to see an aerospace company office?

How strange.

It's not offices, they make the spacecraft there (according to the website). 

[razark]

9 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

It's not offices, they make the spacecraft there (according to the website). 

Allow me to rephrase, since apparently "office" is not a general enough term.

People think it's odd to see an aerospace company facility of some sort, be it administrative/clerical offices, warehouse, production facility, testing area, sign, store, etc.?

[legoclone09]

I kind of do, since it's tucked away behind a strip mall. I would expect it to be on the street at least, not with the logo on a tiny sign in a hard to see place.

[razark]

It makes sense to me that they wouldn't be worried about prime street frontage.  They're not worried about catching the attention of passing members of the public for their business, like a gas station or donut shop or fabric store.

Of course, spending most of my life living a stone's throw from a space center, I am so used to seeing various aerospace companies all over the place.  I'm not surprised to find one tucked back in some area that's off the beaten path.

[legoclone09]

Ah ok, I live in San Diego, the aerospace would but up in LA near JPL.

[razark]

With San Diego, I'd imagine a number of defense contractors.  They tend to overlap industries with aerospace quite a bit.  (The difference between a missile and a rocket is where the guidance system tells it to go, after all.)  I know the company I'm with also holds a number of DoD contracts, even though we're not really industry-specific.  There's even a number of office buildings in the area with sealed floors requiring special access.

[Tex Mechs Robot]

On 12/21/2015 at 6:33 PM, razark said:

Of course, spending most of my life living a stone's throw from a space center, I am so used to seeing various aerospace companies all over the place.  I'm not surprised to find one tucked back in some area that's off the beaten path.

I lived near Johnson Space Center (League City) for about 3 years until this past November. While knowing that it was there, it was still really cool to drive down Saturn and see the SpaceX office. I guess I "got used to it" in some ways but I never lost that feeling of excitement knowing that I lived that close to where so much is going on.

[razark]

20 minutes ago, Tex Mechs Robot said:

I lived near Johnson Space Center (League City) for about 3 years until this past November. While knowing that it was there, it was still really cool to drive down Saturn and see the SpaceX office. I guess I "got used to it" in some ways but I never lost that feeling of excitement knowing that I lived that close to where so much is going on.

I just noticed this morning that the SpaceX sign is no longer there.  I don't usually end up on that end of Saturn, but it might have been recent.  It looked like they were painting the sign.  Of course, over the last few decades, I've seen the signs on buildings change quite a few times, depending on who had what contract, or what mergers occurred.

[Tex Mechs Robot]

1 hour ago, razark said:

I just noticed this morning that the SpaceX sign is no longer there.  I don't usually end up on that end of Saturn, but it might have been recent.  It looked like they were painting the sign.  Of course, over the last few decades, I've seen the signs on buildings change quite a few times, depending on who had what contract, or what mergers occurred.

True. The building I worked in was owned by United Space Alliance about a year and a half ago. SpaceX was there last month but haven't seen it since then.