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from the must-protect-endangered-competitors dept.
FAA warns SpaceX that massive Starship launch tower in Texas is unapproved:
The Federal Aviation Administration warned Elon Musk's SpaceX in a letter two months ago that the company's work on a launch tower for future Starship rocket launches is yet unapproved, and will be included in the agency's ongoing environmental review of the facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
"The company is building the tower at its own risk," an FAA spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday, noting that the environmental review could recommend taking down the launch tower.
[...] SpaceX has conducted multiple short test flights of Starship prototypes over the past year. However, the company needs the FAA to complete the environmental review and issue a license to take the next step in the rocket's testing.
[...] Starship prototypes stand at about 160 feet tall, or around the size of a 16-story building, and are built of stainless steel – representing the early version of the rocket that Musk unveiled in 2019. The rocket initially launches on a "Super Heavy" booster, which makes up the bottom half of the rocket and stands about 230 feet tall. Together, Starship a\ nd Super Heavy will be nearly 400 feet tall when stacked for the launch.
Elon Musk's SpaceX could be ordered to take down its huge Starship launch tower in Boca Chica, the FAA has warned:
[...] "It is possible that changes would have to be made at the launch site, including to the integration towers to mitigate significant impacts," the FAA letter said, per Reuters. The FAA added that it had only learned that the integration tower was being built "based on publicly available video footage."
[...] The FAA said SpaceX told it in May that it doesn't think the review is necessary because it plans to use the launch tower "for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or permitted launches," per Reuters' report.
But the FAA said that SpaceX documentation "indicates otherwise," including one document saying that the towers would be used to integrate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle, the report said.
[...] Musk blasted the agency in February for canceling SpaceX's Starship flight following a reported launch license violation, and claimed that "humanity will never get to Mars" under new FAA rules.
Maybe launch platforms in the ocean are more regulation friendly.
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @12:18AM (11 children)
keeps Fremont facilities open during a pandemic
builds unapproved tower without approval
see a pattern here?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @12:22AM (2 children)
Yes... a go-getter who doesn't let useless paper pushers hold back progress. We need more billionaires like this.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anti-aristarchus on Saturday July 17 2021, @12:58AM
FTFY!
(Of course, it was already implied.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @06:19AM
Seems like we're getting rid of them, in a kind of Robin Hood way.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @01:19AM
Ooops, he did it again! #FreeBritney
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @02:04AM (5 children)
He's allowed to do what he wants because he is rich. He's selling this Martian fantasy and certain people here are creaming in their shorts. It is the irrational hero worship like the MAGA crowd has for Trump. It is the same level of rationality that goes into both, and they both get highly agitated if you point out that the emperor's clothes aren't quite as fine as he says they are.
They will also whine about how the "system is fixed" against them, even when they are integral parts of the "system."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @02:53PM (4 children)
It's the Great Man theory all over again. Rational brain switches off, all bow to the King, die in service to his majesty.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @05:44PM (3 children)
What are the great advances that The Holy Bureaucracy has given us since it got the absolute power?
They LOST THE TECH OF 1970s is what they have done.
The experiment of "let paper-pushers control all, and await a paradise on Earth" has totally failed. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @07:46PM (2 children)
Uh, space flight? The thing your boy is doing 50 years later.
BTW I'm not advocating for infinite management no more than the unerring word of 1 True billionaire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @03:40AM
Ha ha you mean only LOW EARTH ORBIT for **five fucking decades** after our last trip to the moon?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 18 2021, @11:52AM
Exactly. 50 years flushed down the toilet. SpaceX is doing the reboot right this time.
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Saturday July 17 2021, @06:32AM
SpaceX ignored last-minute warnings from the FAA before December Starship launch
Elon Musk’s company was told SN8’s launch would violate its FAA license, but SpaceX launched anyway
-- https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22352366/elon-musk-spacex-faa-warnings-starship-sn8-launch-violation-texas
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