Anyone visted SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne?

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Mushtang

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At the end of the month I'm going to spend a couple of days working near LA, and my first day there will be a half day free and a rental car.

My plan is to ride out to the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne and see the first booster to return safely and land, which they have on display outside the building (according to what I've read online). Apparently a tour of the facility is out of the question since they're rare and exclusive.

Is there anything else that anyone is aware of to do or see while at SpaceX? Taking pictures of the booster and looking at it will take up about 20 minutes at the most and I don't want to get home and have someone say, "I can't believe you were *right there* and didn't..."

If not, I guess I'll go try and find the building they used for the outside of Dunder Mifflin on The Office.
 
I was invited to attend a tour by a friend that works there but I don't have a confirmed date yet. I'm looking forward to it. Beyond that I don't know much more and hope you can get in.
 
If tours are the same as they are at McGregor, you only get them if you know someone that works there.
That's the hazard of having so many social media space fanbois

Say hi to the Flight-21 booster for me. Haven't seen it since before the jump
 
Not at SpaceX, but the Space Shuttle Endeavor is at the California Science Center about 20 mins away. You can stand underneath it and almost touch the tiles on the bottom.

Other than that, there's beautiful beaches not too far to the West. And if you're a DieHard fan, Fox Plaza where they filmed the movie is about half an hour north. You can do the Olympic Blvd exit to Ave of the Stars and pull straight ahead into the plaza, just like Argyle did in the movie. In fact, if you catch it on the right weekend they do a showing of the movie in the Plaza occasionally.
 
Visiting Endeavor is great. The rest of the museum is just ok.
The Petersen Auto Museum
The LaBrea tar pits
Vasquez rocks is 45 min away. You can see where Kirk battled with the Gorn.
Bronson Cave trail, the TV Bat Cave
 
I forgot about the Nike Missile control station LA96. It's in the hills between the basin and the San Fernando Valley. Last time I was there several years ago, you could either hike or drive up the dirt road to access it.

It was the radar and control site that looked west for Russian bombers. The Nike missiles were silo'd underground in a large park below the hills in the San Fernando Valley. The missiles are gone but the control station remains and is open to the public.
 
Sorry for the terrible picture, but that thing sticking up there is the booster that you are talking about. This picture was taken from a seat on a Disneyland bus heading to LAX from Disneyland, so Yes, you can see the booster, even from the 105 at 55 Mph!

Have fun!
 

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Visiting Endeavor is great. The rest of the museum is just ok.
The Petersen Auto Museum
The LaBrea tar pits
Vasquez rocks is 45 min away. You can see where Kirk battled with the Gorn.
Bronson Cave trail, the TV Bat Cave
+1 for the Petersen Auto Museum. It is incredible.

SpaceX does not have any tours or any sort of public access museum etc. They do have a Falcon 9 Booster standing up outside though, and it's pretty cool to see.

Braden
 
I have been there several times for work, but it is not open to the public even private tours are few and far between. The nature of private industry involved in classified work is they don’t have to answer to the adoring public like NASA and JPL
 
I was fortunate enough to get to the facility in January this year on a business trip to California. My work partner and I were out there to meet with Northrop Grumman for a couple of days but spent the week out there and visited other customers. One of the customers has built the arm for the 2020 Mars Rover (sorry, I promised I wouldn't share the photo of the back-up arm) and another was SpaceX. Some of our gears are on the Dragon capsules, both cargo and manned, and there is some interest in other applications. We got a great tour including some areas that may not be on a normal tour (we were shown the capsule building and simulation areas). Of course, no photos are allowed. The photo below was taken on their property (the armed security guard told me of my transgression right after I took it but you can get the same view a few feet further back on the public sidewalk). There are a few things outside their fence, a Boring Company demonstration site and a Hyperloop tube, but they really aren't much to see.

There is a nice restaurant between the headquarters and the Hawthorne airport. If you hit it midday, you might find a "friend" who could get you inside.
SpaceX cropped.jpg
 
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Of course, no photos are allowed. The photo below was taken on their property (the armed security guard told me of my transgression right after I took it but you can get the same view a few feet further back on the public sidewalk)

So you can't get photos with the booster anymore?
 
I was fortunate enough to get to the facility in January this year on a business trip to California. My work partner and I were out there to meet with Northrup Grumman for a couple of days but spent the week out there and visited other customers. One of the customers has built the arm for the 2020 Mars Rover (sorry, I promised I wouldn't share the photo of the back-up arm) and another was SpaceX. Some of our gears are on the Dragon capsules, both cargo and manned, and there is some interest in other applications. We got a great tour including some areas that may not be on a normal tour (we were shown the capsule building and simulation areas). Of course, no photos are allowed. The photo below was taken on their property (the armed security guard told me of my transgression right after I took it but you can get the same view a few feet further back on the public sidewalk). There are a few things outside their fence, a Boring Company demonstration site and a Hyperloop tube, but they really aren't much to see.

There is a nice restaurant between the headquarters and the Hawthorne airport. If you hit it midday, you might find a "friend" who could get you inside.
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My wife and I were in the area once and decided to go see the landed booster. It's tall enough, you can see it from a long way off, so we got pretty excited and weren't necessarily paying great attention as we approached the property. We pulled right into the parking lot and parked right next to the booster! I mean RIGHT NEXT TO IT. See the person walking into the building in the picture? We were in the parking spots between that person and the rocket. I hopped out of the car and immediately started taking pictures. About 10 seconds later, I heard a very loud and authoritative voice behind me say, "SIR! YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY! STOP TAKING PICTURES IMMEDIATELY!"

I turned around to see an armed guard who looked like a huge Marine walking my way with a very serious expression on his face.

"Uh... sorry. We just wanted to see the rocket..."

"Sir, you cannot just drive onto this private property and take pictures of the rocket. You drove right past me."

Honestly, we never saw the guy at all, and I really don't think he was standing guard when we pulled in, but obviously I wasn't going to argue the point.

We apologized, and things deescalated immediately, and he asked to watch me delete all the photos on my phone. And then after deleting them, he asked me to go into my deleted photos, and he watched me delete them permanently from there.

Then he told me to leave the property and take any pictures I wanted from the sidewalk or street. We parked on the next block and walked back. The rocket is on the SpaceX property right on the corner of an intersection, and there is a glass barrier between the rocket and the sidewalk, but you still can get a very closeup view from maybe 15 feet away or so.

I think it is worth seeing but I would not go too far out of my way for it or schedule much time. My understanding is it is almost impossible to get a tour. You need to have business there. On the same trip, we went to see the shuttle at the science center which was pretty cool.
 
I think I'm going to plan on going to see the SpaceX booster and the Shuttle, and if time permits I'll drive out to see the building used for Dunder Mifflin in The Office. There have been a lot of other good suggestions in this thread, thank you all.

I've seen Discovery in DC a few times and the Atlantis at Cape Canaveral once, so adding the Endeavour to the list will complete the trifecta of the flown shuttles on display. That pretty much makes that a requirement for this trip. My company's USA headquarters is in LA but in the 16 years I've worked in the Atlanta office I've never been to LA for work, so I shouldn't plan on going back anytime soon.

Incidentally, I've been lucky enough to see all three of the Saturn V stacks that are on display in Huntsville, Canaveral, and Houston on work trips over the years and will likely be able to see them all again.

Maybe I'll do what Thirsty did but quickly copy the pictures to a hidden folder before getting tossed out. Hahaha.

Is there even a gift shop at SpaceX where I can buy a model Falcon 9?
 
Is there even a gift shop at SpaceX where I can buy a model Falcon 9?

Hahahaha, that's a good one (see Thirsty's account above)

In seriousness, glad you'll get to see it from a distance and see the other shuttle.
If you do want the F9, there's their online shop, and I think I saw a couple at the Canaveral gift shop (by Space florida, not the X
 
Is there even a gift shop at SpaceX where I can buy a model Falcon 9?
I asked when I was there; no gift shop. They're not really interested in having the public visit.

So you can't get photos with the booster anymore?
As stated above by others, you can see the booster from almost all angles when you're in the area and can even duplicate my shot with the HQ from a public sidewalk. I did reach out and touch it as we walked by.
 
So I made my way to see SpaceX shortly after leaving LAX in my rental car. The booster is HUGE!! I knew it was going to be, but was still unprepared. Looking at pictures with people near it told me that it was big, but standing next to it was a whole new level of appreciation for it's size. If you're going to be in the area I highly recommend it. If you're flying into LAX it's just a 10 minute ride, so even if you have a layover of an hour or two you should consider taking an Uber there to see it.

After I left here I went to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour on display.

Falcon 01.jpg Falcon 02.jpg Falcon 03.jpg Falcon 04.jpg Falcon 05.jpg Falcon 06.jpg Falcon 07.jpg Falcon 09.jpg Falcon 10.jpg
 
This visit completed my viewing of the three Shuttles that are on display. They all have pros and cons, but I would say this is the least enjoyable to view and I hope they change the way it's displayed someday. You can walk below this one and see it pretty close from below, which isn't possible with the other two, so that's a definite plus, but the payload doors are closed and there are no walkways to view it from above. There's also very little room to back up and see the engines from behind, only from below. They've also removed the landing gear so you can't see those. It was still worth going to see. There was no entry fee so it was "free", but parking was $12.

Shuttle 1.jpg Shuttle 2.jpg Shuttle 5.jpg

The Discovery in DC is also sitting flat with the payload bay doors closed, but it's on the wheels. There is a barrier keeping you from walking below it for some reason. However, there are walkways nearby to be able to see the Discovery from above and plenty of room behind it. Nice views to be had.

The best view, in my opinion, is of the Atlantis on display at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. It's displayed with the payload bay doors open and it's mounted at an angle with walkways at several heights to give you an up close view, and you can walk under it below.
 
I’m glad you got to see both of these spacecraft. My impressions were similar to yours when I saw them — Dang, that’s a big booster! And wow, that’s a cool shuttle, but I wish it were displayed differently.

When I saw the shuttle, they told me that they are raising money for a new facility to display the shuttle in an upright launch position with the external tank (which they have) and SRBs. It’s going to cost many millions and probably a long way off.
 
Great photos

The security guard didnt shoo you away?
At SpaceX? No, I was never off the sidewalk so there was no reason to ask me to leave.

I'm not stupid enough to drive ONTO the property or anything. Haha! Can you IMAGINE doing something like that? Whew, not a chance.

:D
 
When I saw the shuttle, they told me that they are raising money for a new facility to display the shuttle in an upright launch position with the external tank (which they have) and SRBs. It’s going to cost many millions and probably a long way off.
Yep. Orbital ATK donated two empty SRB hardware sets, and they've already got an external tank. More info on the campaign is here. Take the Expo line and enjoy an LAFC game while you're in Expo park, and (if you ask nice) maybe even a tour of USCRPL.

SpaceX has good froyo.
 
my boss knew someone who worked at SpaceX and was going to set me up with a tour but his contact left SpaceX for a different job before he could make it happen :(

I still get a lot of stuff from him though, hats, stickers, pens etc
 
I was fortunate enough to get a full tour a couple years ago at Space X in Hawthorne, it was incredible seeing the huge metal 3D printers, and easily 200 people working in these huge clean rooms with full suits on. All of the rooms had glass walls so you could see everything that was happening, as they were putting a capsule together in one of them. I had a guy randomly message me one day, and saw that I was in LA, and said “hey I can get you into Space X, you just need 24 hour security clearance to get in” so a couple days later we met up and he gave me a tour of what I could see, of course we were heavily guarded from walking over the blue lines into any of the disclosed areas. At my age I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff, including the a up close and personal tour of the James Webb Telescope while the mirrors were being attached.
 
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