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posted by martyb on Sunday June 21 2020, @05:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the planning-ahead dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

SpaceX hasn’t given details about its motivation for this seemingly complex and expensive undertaking, other than a reply tweet in which Musk said the launches and landings had to be “far enough away so as not to bother heavily populated areas.” The company’s plan to eventually carry out up to three launches and landings per day would certainly necessitate putting some serious distance between the launch site and people; most of us could only handle about one sonic boom a month, if that.

A wide no-fly zone and road closures go into effect on launch days. And if Starships do eventually shuttle people around Earth or beyond on a daily basis, the takeoff and landing points would need to be conveniently located; going a few miles offshore is likely better in this regard than finding a huge empty swathe of land in, say, New Mexico or Nevada.

Rather than building the launchpads from scratch, it’s possible SpaceX would refurbish existing oil rigs; the bigger rigs are about the size of two football fields, and there are plenty of them in the Gulf of Mexico, though only a couple very near Brownsville. Given the ailing state of the oil industry, especially after the pandemic, it’s likely there will be rigs to be had for cheap.

One outstanding question is what sort of impact the launch pads would have on marine life, especially if something were to go wrong.


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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by legont on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:58PM (1 child)

    by legont (4179) on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:58PM (#1010735)

    Now, an ecological footprint of moving a rich ass this way is huge, but I hope nobody here really thinks Musk cares.

    After all, the sooner we burn this planet, the sooner we will have to move to Mars.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Monday June 22 2020, @03:21AM

    by legont (4179) on Monday June 22 2020, @03:21AM (#1010930)

    Wow, somebody really trying to score me high :)

    Let me remind you how we got ground oil economy. Simple - we killed all the whales who used to provide all the oil. Nothing much changed since then.

    What about brick and concrete housing? We cut all the trees.

    This is the story of capitalism. No business will move forward if it can milk whatever it has. The only way to force them into progress is to eliminate their resources.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.