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Kickstarter Tumblr Art Club. Film TV Games. Fortnite Game of Thrones Books. Comics Music. I don't get a salary or anything. I don't get like health benefits, right? That's normal," he said. But lately he's been working 40 to 80 hours a week on SpaceX-related content, and his online profile has grown to the point where he has a steady stream of donations and monthly income from Patreon , which allows fans to donate directly to their favorite online creators.
I don't care," he said. As a lifelong space fanatic, Beyer said, he would rather be in a dusty Texas town watching rocket prototypes explode than anywhere else on the planet. NASASpaceflight is prolific.
The team, which has about 10 contributors, is known to spend up to nine hours hosting livestreams as they await test flights. Tim Dodd, who uses the moniker Everyday Astronaut, has amassed nearly 1 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He began streaming the launches SpaceX conducts out of Florida and producing educational videos in which he delves into the physics of and design choices made for modern rockets. Tim Dodd, founder of Everyday Astronaut, has more than 5, Patreon subscribers.
Dodd previously worked as a photographer, shooting weddings all over the world, until he began airing his love of spaceflight through a series of Instagram posts in which he donned an old Russian flight suit. That evolved into a full-time YouTube career. He's now set up a new studio space just a few miles from SpaceX's South Texas launch pad, where a rear balcony gives him a clear view of SpaceX's prototypes glinting in the sun.
Though an Iowa native, Dodd has stayed in Texas for months tracking the company's progress through a few previous rocket prototype launches. Though he pays producers, editors and other collaborators to help, Dodd mostly runs a one-person shop. His efforts have paid off. He's won the support of Musk himself, who frequently replies to Dodd's questions on Twitter, has been repeatedly photographed wearing Everyday Astronaut merchandise , and has sat for interviews for Dodd's channel.
Tim Dodd has amassed nearly 1 million subscribers on his YouTube channel by streaming SpaceX launches. He uses them to stream an endless picture of SpaceX's launch and manufacturing facilities on his YouTube channel, LabPadre. Last month, Balderas said, SpaceX employees took down a key camera — the one capturing the closest view of the launch pad — just before SpaceX's SN10 rocket prototype was slated to lift off.
The camera was perched on a piece of property he used to lease, but SpaceX had taken it over, and it took down the device without telling him beforehand. Then some of Balderas' fans complained on Twitter, and power tweeter Musk personally intervened.
We'll fix the situation," Musk tweeted at Balderas. Within a day, SpaceX had given him his camera back and replaced the rig he used to keep it elevated, and the feed was back up, Balderas told CNN Business.
SpaceX and Musk rarely share their own updates about what's happening at their South Texas facilities, which lie less than half a mile from a public beach called Boca Chica. When a prototype rocket is ready to launch, the YouTubers post feeds captured through remote cameras often set up days in advance.
They go live hours before launch — long before SpaceX publicly confirms such tests are even happening. Even without guidance from SpaceX, they're able to post estimated countdown clocks ahead of launch solely by tracking observable changes to SpaceX's fueling tanks and ground systems.
Unofficial livestreams of the SN10 prototype launch , which saw the vehicle soar about six miles high before landing upright on a nearby ground pad, wound up being key. SpaceX had wrapped its official livestream before the rocket exploded just a few minutes after landing, while independent streamers kept rolling, capturing the sudden eruption. Musk himself said nothing until hours later, cryptically acknowledging the blast by posting a tweet that read "RIP SN10, honorable discharge.
If it weren't for the webcasters, the public — and many journalists who routinely cover SpaceX — might not have known until Musk tweeted that SN10 had exploded. The cottage industry of SpaceX observers have gained new prominence on social media platforms at a time when the space community — mirroring political Twitter — is more divided than ever. There's constant infighting among space fans, many of whom come in the form of anonymous accounts that rally around SpaceX and Musk as diehard defenders, levying threats or insults at those who critique the company.
And there's an emerging counter-movement, which is known to accuse SpaceX fans of being sycophants. Dodd and Beyer both said they try to keep their heads above the fray.
Their goal is to rally excitement around space exploration and to educate the public. They rarely mention the SpaceX controversy du jour. But the online "toxicity" does occasionally seep into the streamers' comments sections, Dodd said. I hate tribalism. And I'm witnessing it happen more and more every single day I don't want to be thinking about negative things. I want to be excited about the future.
And for me, that's space. Evidence of the super-fandom the SpaceX YouTubers feed is visible on days when Boca Chica beach is open and rocket fans come by the carload, pulling off on the narrow roadway to snap pictures of the rocket.
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