FAA Pushes Starbase Environmental Assessment Back Another Month
FAA Statement
The FAA is working toward issuing the final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the SpaceX Starship / Super Heavy on May 31, 2022. SpaceX made multiple changes to its application that require additional FAA analysis. The agency continues to review around 18,000 general public comments.
The completion of the PEA will not guarantee that the FAA will issue a launch license. SpaceX’s application must also meet FAA safety, risk and financial responsibility requirements.
139 responses to “FAA Pushes Starbase Environmental Assessment Back Another Month”
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This not environmental review, this is politics. Gotta hand it to Musk, he started this, he’s taken the regulatory process and injected so much chaos it’s become completely political. That’s a damned shame.
Not really, it is the environmentalists deciding that New Space needs to be stopped from polluting the heavens with evil commercial activity and deciding to use SpaceX as the leading firms as their opening shot. The result is that the FAA is now stuck between wanting to fulfill it’s Congressional mandate to keep regulations at a minimum to help space commerce move forward and the powerful environmental lobby that is just waiting for the FAA decision so they are able to tie the FAA hands for years with multiple nuisance lawsuits.
What needs to happen is for the Texas Congressional delegation to step in and exempt Starbase from environmental review, just as they did for the Tennessee Valley Authority on the Tellicoe Dam, effectively blocking the lawsuits as well. Indeed, exempting all FAA launch licenses from the EPA Act allowing the FAA to just focus on public safety would be a good response.
Interesting thought, but that seems less likely with current party control of the Congress, and probably the White House, too. (This is not conspiracy theory, just a consideration that even with some friendly TX Democratic co-sponsors, it’s less likely that Democratic leadership would readily make such a carveout on environmental regulation.)
along with lying, Musk has not helped himself by the sort of slap happy way he seems to be developing his rocket.
Not sure any of us have enough insight into Starship development to offer any real characterization of it. But I am inclined to cut some slack to a company that’s launched 70% of all payload to orbit to date, and 72% of all humans to orbit in 2022, from roughly almost none of it 7 years ago.
I am really not. I’ve seen this before and its just “I dont want to play by the rules” behavior
I dont think that anyone should lbe able to do that. Not the guy running the Taco stand down the street from my farm in Texas to Elon or Trump or anyone
if anything the folks who have the high powered lawyers and all the staff help and blah blah should play even more by the rules then the folks living on the edge.
Musk should have seen, probably did that his application which I have read doesnt mention starship or lots of launches or anything. it mentions Falcon series launchers which he has never ever made a single step to launch out of BC
so screw him
Second lets not throw ourselves into the “I am not worthy” mode based on what Elon Musk has done in spaceflight. He has created a successful launching system whose cost depends on low wages and the need to not really make money and a lot LOT of this kind of behavior.
on the other hand he is aspirational a lot of times on goals which are really never going to happen. and yet he has a fan base that swoons over him because he lies a lot about cities on Mars and cost to orbit and this and that.
I think he has done an impressive job but he has not invented the DC3, nor revolutionized spaceflight for humans…and probably wont. there is no evidence so far that Starship will outdo my old ride (the B777) in terms of cost even though he says it
so no I am not willing to say “Its ok Elon get away with things that Jorge at the Taco stand cannto”. you can I wont
If Musk has money to blow on Twitter. he can file a legit report
Once again, you demonstrate that you’ll never let anything so tawdry as the truth get in the way of a self-created narrative.
“truth” coming from a trump fan
“Truth” coming from a Biden fan. Isn’t it remarkable how many of those “lies” Trump told have subsequently been proven to be the absolute truth.
Once again, there is no evidence that SpaceX broke any rules. The FAA gave him the permission to do what he was doing until the environmental lobby in Washington pressured the FAA into their current actions.
It would be the same as if the environmental lobby sided with your local government to pressure the FAA to close down your F-35 base. Even if you “followed” the rules they would make it look like you didn’t turning a simple ranch airport used by light aircraft and helicopters into a reserve military base.
actually its the Navy’s airport…and when the USN decided to upgrade the place they filed an amendment.
Musk did not. Musk never told the FAA he was launching Starships. he should have
I am curious what amendments Elon has now filed. he should have done it earlier.
Oh, please. I suppose all those launch licenses Musk got for hopping tanks and flying Starship prototypes were gotten by pretending they were just advanced models of the Falcon 9? SpaceX pretty obviously told the FAA all about its plans long before even Starhopper took its first hop. Just because SpaceX and the FAA didn’t think to copy you on the paperwork seems to make you think you can now tell ridiculous lies. But I forget, you’re a left-wing progressive and bald-faced lying is pretty much the core of your entire political philosophy.
Musk’s explody development method seems to have worked well in the case of Crew Dragon, at least when compared to the other methodology on display.
This “lying” accusation strikes me as bitter partisan theatrics.
Starship is not dragon and so far the engineering on SS has not been that impressive. and we have barely started flying. he lied to the FAA its that simple
No he didn’t. He got a Falcon 9/Heavy launch site permit. Years passed. Aside for some land “improvement,” he never developed a Falcon 9/Heavy launch site. Then he started Starship in LA. He got a Starship launch site permit for LC-39a, which seemed to be a frictionless process. Then he switched from composites to steel. Then he moved the project to Boca Chica, knowing that NASA would get cranky when he started exploding stuff at and about LC-39a (the actual friction component of the KSC site). There was no lying involved. And you were paying attention to all this the whole time, so you should know that this is what occurred.
the environmental assessment says nothing about Starship its all Falcon
he went to BC because 1) he cannot bully the range at Florida, 2) the job market there is more competitive and 3) he can control local officials . Look in Texas they bribe elected officials on the House and Senate floor. I was paying attention to what was going on. still am.
Except for Super Heavy, no parts of Starship exceed what Boca Chica would have been expected to endure had F9s and FHs actually been launched there. The FAA didn’t have a problem with that. From the standpoint of danger to the uninvolved public, even Super Heavy is only modestly more of a theoretical danger than FH. But this has never been about science or the environment, it’s been about ravening leftists attempting to assert control and of SpaceX’s commercial enemies attempting to fan the flames.
except for super heavy” except for the assassination the play at Fords theater was a great experience for the Lincolns
that is what the FAA has a problem with. Super heavy is not F9 or FH. come on
Come on, indeed.
Noise and explosive potential do not scale linearly with increased thrust or propellant mass.
You also make the casual assumption that Super Heavy explosions are all but inevitable. But SpaceX has never blown up a booster stage on the pad. The only SpaceX booster stage to ever explode in early ascent was the first-ever Falcon 1.
Starship prototypes have blown up because they must do aerobatics never previously attempted with a big rocket. That process took a few tries to iron out. Even so, said explosions all occurred in conjunction with landings, when propellant tanks are nearly empty. The only really untried thing with Super Heavy is the landing via “chopsticks.” If this fails, it would also occur with nearly empty tankage, limiting explosive damage potential.
It is also why the first Super Heavy landings will be in the ocean, so they will be able to recover the booster.
Also the reason for the plan to land on the pad is chopsticks is that they learned from experience the effort it takes to transport a F9 booster from the landing pad, retract the legs and place it on a pad again. They are attempting to eliminate those intermediate steps to speed up the flight rate.
As my saintly Great Grandfather use to say “we took this land from the Mexicans and then from the Indians. make sure it is worth something to future generations of Olers”
I am a member of Greenpeace. the whales.
You think that will be able to save you when they come for the ranchers?
https://www.progressivecatt…
Oregon ballot initiative proposes ban on animal slaughter, A.I.
Progressive Cattle Editor Carrie Veselka
Published on 30 April 2021
“An animal rights-focused ballot initiative proposed for 2022 could essentially criminalize animal agriculture practices, including humane slaughter, artificial insemination (A.I.) and castration, creating what the initiative’s sponsors term a “sanctuary state for animals.”
Greetings from a really clear Seattle hope you are well Tom
more power to them. If they can get the political will to put this on the ballot and get it approved and do it nation wide. that means that an overwhelming majority of Americans have soured on beef and long before this makes law; I or the next generation will have seen cattle sales falling and moved on to a new avenue. it wont be the first time. I changed the farm from cotton to cows.
but I am pretty sure this wont happen; at least in my lifetime and the next generation I am sure will keep the farm making money on something 🙂
maybe one day we will have replicators.
there are nuts on both sides of the political spectrum but sadly the nuts on the right wing have moved into action. they are storming the capital, thinking that they can manipulate ballots and all sorts of stuff. so I worry about them more than anything. Back in my childhood those evil peopole who wanted clean air were going to kill the oil industry. now we have clean air and we make about 300K from the pipeline patrol business
I realize its great to get excited over things you dont like. but comeon.
Answer me this. Musk has a lot of money. why didnt he do the environmental statement right? why didnt he talk about Starship? he blew 45 billion on twitter. 1 percent of that would have gotten the statement correct ?
anyway for me its a great day. getting settled in the Seattle area. got the business center up and going so now I have control over my electronic gear on the farm 🙂 Fly safe
RGO
And maybe they will restore the native ecosystem so it will be home to Prairie Chickens and others species destroyed when your ancestors plowed it under.
Again you are assuming with NO EVIDENCE that the FAA had issues with what SpaceX was doing before the environmental groups use their powerful lobby to force the FAA into its current actions.
Note the statement “FAA Rubber Stamped that”… Why would SpaceX submit an EIS if the FAA did not ask them for one when they told the FAA they were changing their plans for the area?
https://defenders.org/newsr…
Environmental organizations spotlight inadequate oversight by FAA of SpaceX’s Boca Chica testing facility, call for an EIS
BROWNSVILLE, Texas
July 7, 2020
“SpaceX basically told the FAA that they were changing the project completely, and the agency just rubber-stamped that, without requiring studies, and without involving the public,” said Jim Chapman of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor.”
And this lie… There is nothing pristine about an area that has seen military battles, seaside resorts and retirement villages. The only ocelot seen was one run over by a car years earlier when it wondered in from Mexico where they are NOT endangered. And if they are worried about sea turtles nesting there why are they calling for the beach, which the public is allowed to drive on, to be open more to public use…
“SpaceX is operating in one of the most pristine stretches of the Texas
coast, in an area that is rich with biological diversity and home to numerous endangered species, including ocelot and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles,” said Paul Sanchez-Navarro of Defenders of Wildlife. “We need the FAA to do its due diligence as a regulatory agency and ensure that the company minimizes and mitigates the impacts of its project on this special place.”
The very first Super Heavy landing will be in the Gulf, but there seems to be no expectation of an intact recovery. The goal seems to be mainly to see how accurate the GNC is under live-fire circumstances before trying the chopsticks thing.
But the purpose of the chopsticks approach is exactly to eliminate both steps and – mainly – time from the landing and turnaround process. Whether the first such try is a success or a failure, it’s going to be an epically good show.
But the time savings of the chopsticks assumes that any necessary refurb between flights can be done on the pad. Or that there will be no refurb. There is zero evidence that that is a good assumption. And lots of evidence that it isn’t.
From the really cheap seat (peeking through the fence), I think the chopsticks turnaround time is aspirational. Eventually there will be fast turnaround, so start with the gear that facilitates that. For the first many launches, I would expect successful catches to be moved off pad for refurb and inspection with alternate units into use. Possibly less wear and tear than the drone ship landings. Speculative on my part.
7:36 pm edit I would bet that the chopsticks as currently configured are not the way boosters are being recovered in five years. Makes it a bit difficult to file paperwork in advance.
Their engineers, who have the experience of recycling the F9, think its possible.
I think it is more likely they are just doing what Elon wants them to do, while hoping that they can make it work. We will see.
Why do you think that the process that worked with Falcon, Dragon and Starlink won’t work with Super Heavy?
Huh? F9 has never been caught with chopsticks, and never been turned around on the pad. All experience with F9 shows it takes much longer than a day, let alone an hour, to turn around a booster. I think the sschedules are all aspirational. I doubt they will ever happen, just like the 24 hour turnaround of F9 never happened.
So you think that they are like government contractors and need to reinvent the wheel on each project? They know how accurate their software is on landing and what are the pacing items on Falcon 9 turnarounds, so they are now applying those lessons to Super Heavy.
No, I think that based on all the experience with THEIR OWN SYSTEMS, there is no credible evidence that these <1day turn arounds will work. None. Nada. Nunca.
And what other experience is there? The old Space Shuttle system where they had to rebuild it after each flight? The New Shepard, as if the folks at Blue Origin would share it. Like it or not they are the experts with the experience since SpaceX has nearly all the relevant experience on being able to reuse a rocket.
And all that experience shows that you can’t turn a booster around in an hour, or a day. I’d be interested to know why you think it is possible.
My crystal ball being broken, I think daily might be possible before 2030. I have a hard time seeing hourly. Trains and ships don’t do hourly. Cargo planes and trucks often don’t either. Or, I don’t see a business case for hourly. Hourly implies 3,000 tons per day per booster times many boosters. A revenue business requiring millions of tons per month is not on my radar.
Technically, an hour turnaround is also quite aspirational. Catch, stack, inspect, fuel, and launch in 60 minutes?? Daily I can see from a technical standpoint if there is no refurb.
There were people who said the same about SpaceX’s recent pace of refurbishment and reuse too – and not very long ago.
If you need to see the thing actually done before believing it, okay, stay tuned. That’s at least better than being one of those who refuse to believe something even after it has been done.
Of course they are doing what Elon wants them to do – that’s the job they signed up for.
But Elon isn’t simply the boss man, he’s also the chief engineer.
A given Super Heavy won’t be doing multiple launches per day right out of the box, but the cadence will ramp up quickly. And, even if a given Super Heavy never flies more than once per day, the chopsticks landings would make it easy to support a faster cadence than a single Super Heavy could handle by using two or three or whatever in rotation at land-based pads. On the sea-going platforms where space is at more of a premium, one might just have to accept a slower cadence. But, then, sea-going platforms can be more numerous than land-based pads. One way or another, Starship will be able to support an unprecedented launch cadence.
You also make the casual assumption that Super Heavy explosions are all but inevitable. But SpaceX has never blown up a booster stage on the pad. The only SpaceX booster stage to ever explode in early ascent was the first-ever Falcon 1.
they have blown up a Falcon9 on the pad.
and it is not unreasonable to expect a Starship booster to go bang. 7 could have done that.
they shouold have done the application correctly
Yes, there was the AMOS-6 explosion. It didn’t occur on the F9 booster – that was just collateral damage. That incident was just one of many problems related to the use of helium as a tank pressurant on F9/H. Superheavy and Starship don’t use any helium.
It’s not entirely unreasonable to expect a nearly empty Super Heavy to perhaps explode due to a missed chopsticks catch, but it is not reasonable, at this point, to expect a fully-loaded Super Heavy to blow up at ignition or in early ascent. That you seem to have no such expectation anent other yet-to-be-flown rockets such as SLS and Vulcan suggests your opinion on this is simply a product of your longstanding irrational animus against SpaceX and Elon Musk.
You keep asserting that SpaceX lied on the Boca Chica paperwork. No, it didn’t. The original application and EIS were for the launch of F9/H. Years later, when the site was to be repurposed for Starship development, SpaceX obviously went through channels to get the change of plans approved. Absent that, there is no way the FAA would ever have issued any launch licenses for Starship prototype tests of several kinds – but it did. The only reason the FAA seems to have even undertaken the current review is because of pressure from Musk’s various political and business enemies. They’ve made runs at him before and likely will again. But he has prevailed before and will in this case too.
And the public letter the various environmental groups sent to the FAA basically confirms it. I suspect their high price Washington lawyers know a lot more than Robert would know being an outsider with his experience limited to how the FAA regulates aviation, a mature industry.
https://defenders.org/newsr…
“However, between 2014 and 2019, SpaceX changed the project profoundly. It transformed its site from a launch site for the Falcon rockets to a testing and launch facility for the much larger Starship and Heavy Booster. Rather than requiring a new EIS detailing the potential impacts of the expansion and transformation of the site, and a new opportunity for the public to ask questions and express concerns, the FAA simply allowed SpaceX to submit a 23-page summary of the new facility.
“SpaceX basically told the FAA that they were changing the project completely, and the agency just rubber-stamped that, without requiring studies, and without involving the public,” said Jim Chapman of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor.”
It always seems like it’s the upper stages that get you.
That was true of both of SpaceX’s F9 loss of mission accidents.
They’ve had two boosters blow up. One during boost on a cargo mission to iss, the other on the ground with some satellite on top.
The ground event destroyed the pad.
And they learned from those experiences in designing the Super Heavy.
No launch escape system then?
Why would you need a launch escape system for cargo rocket?
If it’s just a cargo rocket it doesn’t need one.
Starship is its own launch escape system anent a rogue Super Heavy. Starship, as an upper stage, will have no separate escape system for crew.
Both of those losses originated in 2nd stage failures. The boosters were just collateral damage. Both 2nd-stage failures were due to failures in helium ullage gas systems. Neither stage of Starship uses helium as ullage gas.
I didn’t point out the losses out of mallace. Anyone that builds this stuff, they have failures. Falcon 9 was done in the cheap and is giving everyone a look at reusing a booster. The airforce digs it. If.they were just the falcon 9 company, I’d probably be a fan.
Starship is never going to work. That’s my beef. It is taking the slot of something that might work. It’s costing the country a rare opportunity.
It’ll drag on for a decade and chug money like a drunk sailor.
Well, at least you won’t be stuck waiting a long time for conclusive evidence that you’re wrong.
The logical successor to the commercial contract: the faith-based contract.
…except for the assassination the play at Fords theater was a great experience for the Lincolns…
Funny! (Maybe not for the Lincolns.)
yeah its a sort of grim humor 🙂
You have no clue of the history here and it shows
Kerosene spills would have been a bigger groundwater deal than methane, to be fair, so I don’t know what their damn problem is.
They’re regulators. They have a process. It’s not like starship is ready for a launch anyway.
The environmental lobby watching like vultures to see if they dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s in the license.
It’s the same problem they always have – they’re not in charge.
Spot on, except for maybe the part about RGO “paying attention.”
That’s because it is.
Maybe you’re not following is current court appearances.
Is Musk making any court appearances currently? None that I’m aware of.
Today’s reporting indicates that he won’t be making an appearance in the Amber Heard case. He just won the lawsuit brought against him for getting Tesla to purchase Solar City. That same day, he lost a suit to void the agreement he entered into with the SEC over his “Financing secured” tweet. I don’t think he actually appeared in court for that one, but I’m not sure. Maybe he did. I haven’t followed any of the above closely. I mostly focus on the aerospace stuff, which is what this story, my comments, and this web site are all about.
I was talking about solar city. I’m amazed he won that. I was also amazed when he defended against calling that diver fellow a pedophile.
Edit: There’s no verdict on solarcity.
The news media are united in their reporting that Elon Musk was declared the winner in that legal contest. A tiny sampling returned by the Google search of Musk Tesla Solar City:
Washington Post: Elon Musk found not liable in trial over Tesla’s SolarCity acquisition
WSJ: Judge Rules Elon Musk Didn’t Act Unlawfully in SolarCity Takeover
So maybe the process has not entirely concluded — lawyers fees and what have you. But the observers in the business of observing seem to think it’s all over but the screaming. How could it have gone otherwise? Since Tesla purchased SolarCity, the stock price has doubled many times over. It’s market cap is now more than all the other major auto manufacturers combined. The next big suit may well be for monopoly protection.
I was not surprised by the verdict in the case of the Australian caver. Slander is a hard sell in the US, slander of a public figure more so. Our caver made himself a public figure when he rescued those kids from that cave, a laudable achievement that was reported around the world. It was the caver’s choice to seize that 15 minutes of well earned fame as an opportunity to talk some trash.
Musk’s insult was a retort to a rude imperative issued in public to Musk by the caver. Musk did not strike the first verbal blow. The caver was no innocent unjustly put upon, though he immediately assumed that pose. He was a tough guy when he was dishing it out and a snowflake when he was trying to cash in on the fleeting response.
And Musk’s retort was just a rude remark trading on the widely known circumstance that many male retirees from the Anglosphere, Australia in particular, travel and even emigrate to Thailand to avail themselves of the booming, low cost sex trade there, and some subset therein go to Thailand to sate their strange and repulsive appetites for children.
Should Musk have said that? Should he have punched down? Surely not. But that does not make what he said legally actionable, not in the US. In some countries, you can be successfully sued for slander even when the slanderous statement has been found to be entirely accurate. That is not the case in the US. In the US the bar is very high. The slanderous statement must be false, and the slanderer must have known it to be false, and real (money) damages must have resulted from the slander. Apparently what Musk wrote did not satisfy those criteria. Rather it likely appeared to the court that he was just trading insults with someone on the Internet. Vernon Unsworth failed to win $190 million for his rough treatment in a Tweet. No surprise there.
Yeah, he’s charmed in the courts. I thought it was poor character to call somebody a pedophile. Kind of an extreme thing to call somebody.
“Charmed” is what one calls it, I guess, when the courts don’t agree with one’s ignorant prejudices.
Correct
Falcon is an old space rocket. I know folks hate me calling it that..it’s bold…but Starship SuperHeavy really is Salvage One.
And looks it.
And scares folks about as much as Harry Broderick did.?
In terms its of origins – a pile of old parts – SLS is closer to being Salvage One. Starship, though, is like Salvage One in that it is reusable.
Haha, “You are building the largest and most reusable rocket ever but I don’t like the way you are going about it”
Robert, If I remember correctly are you not a Boeing employee?
yes and darn proud of it. however the thoughts I express on social media are my own. and my job does not have any impact on if Elon is lying are not.
He did not inform the FAA of his intentions truthfully. want to get in trouble with a agent of the sovereign. Lie to them. I was a sworn Deputy US Marshal. some time ago. lie to me. a serious lie. not a trivial one. But lie to me about something significant and you got my undivided attention
Once again, you have NO evidence to support those statements.
I’ve read the document…and there was never any Falcon9 work done there. its what rich folks do
Which document? The old launch license or the NEW document the FAA approved, that the environmentalists referenced as the FAA rubber stamping in their letter?
I am referring specifically to license LRLO20-119C that the FAA issued on May 27, 2020 for the Boca Chica launch site that triggered the letter by the environmentalists on July 8, 2022 that I have referenced repeatedly and which you keep ignoring.
How could SpaceX receive a launch license that is specifically for Starship without informing the FAA and submitting the necessary paperwork of its intentions?
I am not going to get into it because you and I are not going to move each other. But I will go with what my Dad, who read the thing said and what we filed (or he filled for me) in our response to the action
I dont know what he is doing now. this instance, but in his initial paperwork Musk was never forthright about what was going to be launched at BC. he talked falcon and the explosive effects of falcon which are well known since one has gone splat. when he had no intention of launching falcons theere. He and the Musketters brag that this is the largest rocket in the world. he should have filled for that.
you want to cut him slack because he is a great guy, changing the world going to open up the stars blah blah blah. go ahead. I wont. I dont. He is not a great guy nor is he going to change the world…but even if he was. I think we all shouldl live by the same laws. see how it works out. I hope he either is forced to do the correct thing or doesnt get the permit then he can go to the Cape and be a victim.
No. Being an obdurate lefty means never having to say you’re sorry – or wrong.
The best way to deal with this is to give all regulatory issues the green light. Let SpaceX make the milestones. They won’t, then it gets canceled.
Then hopefully there’s a real lander in the pipe.
Trying to make a career out of predicting doom for Elon Musk’s various enterprises and projects has proven to be a remarkably effective way of both going broke and of returning to obscurity.
I don’t really care about the other stuff the guy is doing. I only became upset about any of it when the lander contract went to them.
Starship is a pile of stainless steel with an engine that is not done. It is obviously not landing on the Moon with people in anything less than 15 years or for under 25 billion dollars.
Check back with us all in a year or so on that.
Next year they’re supposed to be transferring g fuel and oxygen in orbit.
The political complexion of Congress will have altered quite a lot by next January. Joe Biden may even have left office by then as he continues to quite publicly unravel. How many more “gaffes” and on-camera handshakes with phantasms that will require, I don’t know. The Dems certainly don’t want a Biden impeachment circus going on next year. But, should he still be in office, that is what they will certainly get. Under such circumstances, I suspect any number of things now regarded as politically impossible will soon seem to have been inevitabilities.
Not really, it is the environmentalists deciding that New Space needs to be stopped from polluting the heavens with evil commercial activity and deciding to use SpaceX as the leading firms as their opening shot”
thanks for the joke
You do not follow the Deep Green movement this came from do you? Here is a sample of their thinking…
https://medium.com/@deepgre…
“The other day I saw an astronomer saying why he thought it was important to explore Mars and other planets: “It will,” he said, “answer that most important question of all: Are we all alone?”
I have an even more important question: is he f****** crazy?
No, just a member of the cult of masculinity.”
This is why they do not see Elon Musk as helping to save humanity but as an enemy to it. And probably you too if you weren’t just a rancher/pilot and so too far down on their priority list to bother with.
No enemies on the Left.
I am an environmentalist. and a stickler for the rules and regulations.
No I dont follow environmental groups all that much there not causing this problem for St. Elon Elon did this all himself
“I am… a stickler for the rules and regulations.” Then why are you a Democrat?
That should read “stickler for the rules and regulations I like and can profit from”.
foundationally because right now they are the only party that believes in the rule of law. the GOP is in the world of makebelieve
I have blocked everyone you are replying to Robert so I cannot follow the conversation but…..I am with you in spirit!
taking a break from furniture assembly 🙂
we live in a difficult world; because primarily we have been selfish and we have allowed a political party ; the GOP to attack the institutions of government for about half a century while using those very same instruments to take the government and us to horrible places. go to Alabama or the JSC part of Texas and you will hear government employees or contractors raling against waste and such in government….which defending their phoney balony jobs as “essential” which they are of course. to them
Look I would not have built SLS in fact I oppossed it as Ballast Bill was pushing it…but really in the end of it…the entire notion of Elon and his magical starship taking us out into the universe for the price of a B777 is just absurd. it is about as absurd as Trump being truthful. 🙂 but the show goes on 🙂 hope Sunday is going well
I have most of it figured out…just follow the money. It is magic. As close to magic as anything can be in the real world. We started with barter and then went to precious metals and other scarce commodities, and now we have something that does not really exist, except in peoples minds, as the god of this world. Mammon, the seventh prince of hell, rules us all. That is, until the guillotines start dropping heads in baskets. Then the magic gets redistributed in that way those who had it never thought would happen.
The secret to making only greed meaningful is deception. Once you divide people on what is the truth then you can conquer them with little trouble. We are all, in this sense, children of Rome. Empires exist because they fragment and keep anything that can threaten them in chaos. But eventually the greed, like a cancer, kills them. Over and over. And it is possible that the next time will be the last time.
That is what happens if you let a Democrat and Friend of Bill into your primaries. ?
https://www.nbcnews.com/pol…
Jeb Bush: Trump Has No ‘Proven Conservative Record’
Jeb Bush questioned Donald Trump’s record as a conservative with his most pointed critique of the businessman to date at a town hall in New Hampshire.
Aug. 19, 2015, 8:02 PM CDT / Updated Aug. 19, 2015, 7:57 PM CDT
By Jordan Frasier
plase applaud Jeb. Jeb’s problem was his brother had a disastrous presidency and Jeb! never quite understood how to explain he was not Arbusto. and the GOP’s problem is that they have held the lunatics at bay for sometime getting their votes but you know not buying into their racism etc and the dance was over. And I guess something he and the old lady had in common was that it had been Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush with just Obama in between and now we were going to try another Bush or Clinton. the dance can only go on so long
I should add. I was pretty apathetic about the 16 elec tion. Hillary was a total zero to me . she really was not honest and worse not very thoughtful. I knew Trump was a liar as well but it took about 6 months of his presidency to see how big a one he was. he was uncouth but that got worse as the campaign went on because his base is uncouth. I dont like how Trump won. that is our system but its utterly flawed. I didnt vote for her or him. I was under sniper fire about the same time as Hill’s comments but he has no redeeming qualities. he is lazy doesnt really care for poor people and women and well to much makeup 🙂
Somebody is in the world of make-believe. It ain’t me.
good 🙂
Over at phys.org, authors bragged about gluing themselves to get in the way of other researchers projects. The Greens are getting worse. Texas won’t do squat.
“completely political” welcome to the club. the vaccine, etc are all political but what Musk has done is jack the system and misstate it for the joy of his ignorant fans.
They tried this with the airport that is on my farm. the City council a useless bunch of people doesnt like the airport because they are trying to sell 1/2 million to 1 million “gentlemans farms” (three acres or less) and 1 million dollar houses. the problem is that they ran up against the US Navy. and ironically for the gang at city hall the jacking around with the Navy hasa driven them to actually put airplanes (F35) Osprey and serious helicopter facilities there.
Musk problem is that he really screwed up when he lied about what was going to be launched there. lie on a federal form including this and its next to impossible to find friends.
Isn’t it just as likely that he changed his mind after the initial application?
then he should have modified the application filled an amendment
You seem certain he didn’t. That is an assumption entirely lacking any evidentiary backing.
Yes, you are assuming that SpaceX had no contact with the FAA while in fact the FAA was issuing launch permits and establishing no fly zones. Either both the lawyers at SpaceX and FAA were naïve about what was going on, unlikely, or both parties were in agreement until outside forces pressured them into changing their decisions.
So it is likely his lawyers asked the FAA if it was needed and were told no, it wasn’t, until the environmentalists lawyers in Washington pressured the FAA into saying it was.
Musk’s initial proposal was filed and vetted in 2014. You’re essentially indicting Musk for not being clairvoyant. You’re also indicting him on the presumption that he never sought any regulatory permissions for subsequent changes to original plans. That is simply an assumption you make out of animus and bias, not one based on any investigation of the actual paper trail.
Start a pissing contest with bureaucrats and they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Same as arguing with a zealot.
Even a “win” can be prohibitively expensive.
and I am good with that. Why should Musk with lots of money start a pissing contest?
I’m not aware that Musk ever has started a pissing contest. He has certainly ended a few, though.
The flexible development techniques that build on information from the previous try a week or three back is anathema to bureaucracy. From their point of view, deciding to change what is being done in weeks or days is starting a pissing contest when their normal cycle is years.
Yes, look how long it took railroads to get rid of cabooses on freight trains. The technology to replace their safety role emerged in the 1950’s, but government regulations and union rules kept them around until the late 1980’s on freights.
Yes, good example. Especially in contrast to how little time it took a much less mature railroad industry to settle on and implement a standard track gauge.
The path to avoid this was simple. Start a full EIS for SS/SH back in 2017 when they decided to operate the BFR out of Texas.
Having already received a favorable EIS for the original plans for Boca Chica, I’m sure the FAA was approached about the changed plans and initially approved.
The original plans for F9/H use at BC didn’t include any manufacturing. The plan was to truck in the Falcon cores just as is done at Vandy and KSC/Canaveral.
The decision to move manufacturing to BC didn’t happen until the stainless steel decision was made in late 2018. But the manufacturing doesn’t seem to be the crux of the environmental issues at BC, launch is.
That would seem to be a fairly easy question to settle via sub-scale experiment. Running an all-engines static fire with minimal propellant loaded to limit the size of any potential explosion, for example, would answer a lot of questions about noise.
I don’t think the opposition, though, is nearly as interested in facts as it is in simply getting its way.
I don’t know what should have been done or when. It seems the pissing contest is caused by the flexible development techniques of SpaceX. I doubt that they even know for sure what the physical form of what will be flying in five years. Or knew five years ago exactly what they would be doing now. I suspect they thought they would be able to work it out as the concept matured.
I’m not sure that the full EIS would have been all that simple. It should be, in the interests of everybody concerned. That it doesn’t seem to be should be of concern to anyone that wants progress. Fly over the phosphate mine areas in Florida and try to relate that to the concerns over a relatively tiny area at Boca. Or the hundreds of miles of beachfront condos, mansions, and motels.
All you have to do is look at the plans SpaceX had five years ago, the Red Dragon, the private flight planned around the Moon using the Dragon Crew, Dragon being able to carry 7 passengers and land on rockets. And the BFR which was much larger, made out of composites, with a different re-entry strategy.
Their strength is following the results of their testing to get technology that works. Not blindly sticking to a bad design as NASA has done with SLS.
Musk has beaten bureaucrats before. But I don’t think his main enemies anent Starbase are bureaucrats. Also, “prohibitively expensive” has quite a different meaning to someone of Elon Musk’s wealth than it does to one of us proles.
I’m not sure how to characterize all of the enemies. Faux environmentalists seem to top the current list although losers from other companies seem to be contending. Wealth shouldn’t be the deciding factor on the ability to navigate and create the obstacles. Unfortunately though, it is both by Musk and the Luddite detractors.
I agree that wealth should not permit one to create obstacles for others, but it frequently does. I am not aware, however, of any instance in which Musk has done so. Indeed, it is his efforts to eliminate current obstacles to free speech at Twitter that have garnered him the hatred of the entire progressive left.
It is the wealth that allows him to navigate the shoals of bureaucracy at all. Someone with lesser means possibly couldn’t do it. It seems to be the money/power on the other side which allows them to create the obstacles. Right and wrong in this case is mostly secondary to the contest between factions. The faction that wants ongoing cost plus pork is quite understandably upset.
There is certainly a lot of politics swirling around Starbase, but none of it appears to have materially impeded SpaceX’s progress. That has been largely SpaceX stepping on its own crank. SpaceX impicitly acknowledges this by having gone radio silent for months on public remonstrations about the FAA, etc. Even assuming that much of the delay to-date has been the result of politics, it has managed to slow SpaceX no more than SpaceX slowed itself through unforced errors.
The space explored website shows a crushed downcomer pipe, so Booster 7 wasn’t going anywhere either. Musk didn’t need this this paperwork delay though. This year has lived up to its name…2020, too.
If true, that’s a bit of a self-own by SpaceX. It takes an eternity for all the various agencies to communicate with the FAA , and longer if you change stuff.
The changes may actually have been required as part of the process, though. The process works that way, as the agenc(ies) communicate back and forth with the applicant. So, SpaceX submits their PEA, and then gets back comments and requirements from the agencies, which they take into account and modify the PEA. If there was found unacceptable at an earlier stage by one agency, SpaceX would have taken that and changed something to bring it back within acceptable boundaries.
It’s all speculation without more details from the FAA, but it’s a reasonable probable explanation.
that was my Dad’s (the lawyer) first reaction. there was some sort of SpaceX change or modification that they are either still evaluating or still shopping around the various agencies
Given that, according to the FAA, all the “birds and critters” work is now done, that sort of back-and-forth is now likely to be in the terminal ramp-down phase.
Yes, and the environmentalists are preparing their lawsuits to file the day after the FAA announces its decision if they disagree with it.
…reasonable probable…
I like that.
Dang! I sure wish that SLS had accomplished a good WDR!
They will get there. The recent issues seem fairly minor. The pace of that project was never meant to be expeditious, rather the opposite. Cost plus, baby! Contractors in all 50 states!
Yep, think of all the overtime and overhead that will be generated from fixing the problem in the WDR…
they will theses are pretty normal teething pains.
CNBC points out that this Programmatic Environmental Assessment kicked off in November of 2020, eighteen months ago. This is the expedited process adopted in lieu of a full environmental impact statement, which is one of the few possible outcomes of the current process. Things are not looking good for Brownsville. I foresee an imminent solution to their rising housing costs. Hopefully some of the locally recruited SpaceX employees will get the opportunity to relocate.
I wouldn’t be buying myself a U-Haul franchise in Brownsville quite yet.
Given that the FAA’s announcement of the latest PEA delay shows that all the Fisheries & Wildlife endangered species and fisheries assessments are now complete, I think May 31 may actually be the date the PEA gets delivered. As the FAA also referred to “mitigations,” I suspect the central PEA finding will be FONSI with mitigations.
SpaceX is still completing/correcting the GSE at the orbital launch site. It also seems to have decided to repair, rather than scrap B7. Finally, there are also ongoing modifications to suborbital pad A that will need to be completed in order to test the first Starship prototype destined for an orbital jaunt. So I figure it will be the end of May before SpaceX has the wherewithal to conduct fresh testing, especially hot-fires of a Super Heavy.
I think SpaceX will maintain the strong pushes for both production and launch facility build-out at both Starbase and KSC. Once the Starbase PEA is in hand, I think launch licenses will follow quickly enough not to impede initial orbital launch testing as SpaceX physically completes preparations. The KSC facility won’t be far behind because SpaceX also wants to ramp up early Starship operations as quickly as possible.
The rest of 2022 is going to see further bumps upward in SpaceX’s Falcon launch cadence, its construction of production and launch infrastructure for Starship, and testing of both Starships and Super Heavies with an early transition to operations.
I went looking for evidence of that. The FAA statement faithfully reproduced in the article above certainly does not make mention of it, so I went to the FAA Starship page where I found the “mitigations” reference:
Still looking for the Fish & Wildlife piece, I followed a link to the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas dashboard on the FAA site, which I had never seen before. Has that always been there? Anyway, the dashboard does indeed show the Endangered Species Act Consultation and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation portions of the PEA “completed”, a word that does more than imply some sort of finality.
Taken together, I agree that the current signalling from FAA should give both us and the securely housed denizens of Cameron County hope for a happy resolution in the near term. Fingers Crossed. I retract my gloomy prognostication.
They turned around this latest Starlink booster in just 21 days. Eric Berger just published an article detailing the acceleration of SpaceX’s launch cadence over the last 150 launches.
Hopefully Disqus does not send this comment to the comment gulag. I’ve been getting flagged a lot lately. They don’t like lots of links or lots of paragraphs in comments. They say as much in a Help document on their site. I’ll refrain from sharing my thoughts on that at this time.
I saw the “completed” statuses on a SpaceX Pink video from April 29. It was probably a screenshot of the same dashboard page you found.
There is no way to be absolutely certain of a happy ending at this point, of course, but what portents there are all seem favorable.
I saw the Berger piece too. The SpaceX operations folks now seem to be nearly as speedy and polished as a NASCAR pit crew. The remainder of this year will, no doubt, see additional records set with some regularity.
I don’t know what to tell you about Disqus. There are numerous long-standing bugs in its comment composition/editing modules. And I have lately been getting moderation notices even on comments that contain none of George Carlin’s famous word list. Mysterious are the ways of Disqus.
Maybe Elon Musk needs to buy it and fix it…?