SpaceX Acronyms

2010: SpaceX's Dragon, the first private spacecraft to return from Earth orbit

In May 2010, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent an email to the entire company. Its subject line was "Acronyms Seriously Suck."

There is a creeping tendency to use made-up acronyms at SpaceX.... Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees. 

That needs to stop immediately or I will take drastic action—I have given enough warnings over the years. Unless an acronym is approved by me, it should not enter the SpaceX glossary. If there is an existing acronym that cannot reasonably be justified, it should be eliminated, as I have requested in the past.

For example, there should be no HTS [horizontal test stand] or VTS [vertical test stand] designations for test stands. Those are particularly dumb, as they contain unnecessary words. A stand at our test site is obviously a test stand. VTS-3 is four syllables compared with "tripod," which is two, so the bloody acronym version actually takes longer to say than the name!

SpaceX employees soon came up with a name for the policy—the ASS Rule—an acronym of the email's subject line.

2013: SpaceX's Grasshopper launch, as viewed from above

photos courtesy of SpaceX