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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, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @04:52PM (3 children)
What authority? found this:
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title51/subtitle5/chapter509&edition=prelim [house.gov]
§50905. License applications and requirements
My reading is that FAA is sort of a single point of contact with the federal government to promote commercial space but consistent with health and safety concerns. This includes a requirement to respond in a timely manner (180 days?) to applications. Single point of contact includes the ability to consult with other departments (EPA?) to waive some regs if it is judged to be a reasonable balancing between promoting space and health and safety. That could be quite a lot of authority to grease the wheels of government to shepherd commercial space through minefield of environmental and private land use concerns.
Assuming this reading is anywhere close to the story, then in theory, by beltway standards, if you are interested in commercial space, the FAA should be your friend and working with them should be your first choice, the second option being politics to adjust the rules. This kind of puts X between a rock and a hard place. It better to ask for forgiveness than permission, but this turns out to be using the Falcon 9 test site approval to do something much bigger, which looks like bait and switch to your supposed friend. This seems dumb, but X has no choice. Even if the FAA in theory has the authority of fix the problem, it is unlikely to happen at their pay grade.
Eventually, there is going to be a reckoning deciding to use the area as a space base for the public good at the expense of the private, or not. This is a political decision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @05:05PM
You know on second thought. Maybe not dumb.
The first step for getting a political decision is to have tried to work it out thru the channels provided and failed.
It would be hard to argue the X has not tried to use the FAA channel in creative ways.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Saturday July 17 2021, @07:05PM (1 child)
I read through the section you mentioned, and it appeared to refer only to the vehicle, flight plan, etc. Nothing about the ground facilities.
Then just in case I searched the entire page for "building" "facility" and "structure", and found nothing hinting at any authority over their particularsm - only a few mentions with respect to filing flight plans needing to specify the facility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @12:54AM
" Nothing about the ground facilities."
Kudos for taking the time to try to read this. I did the same, but not sure how well this old brain can do.
I wonder if it is possible to do anything big in the US without having to jump thru multiple hoops from multiple branches of the exec dept? (OMG think of the x, where X is snaildarters, bird watchers, tree huggers, beach walkers, private land owners, or just folks doing what they do without others taking over. ) Point is that X's actions in Boca step on many right to be left alone toes. Without some sort of helpt this could never fly.
While the FAA might not regulate ground facilities past how they affect the health and safety of those nearby, other agencies do. The EPA comes to mind. The reference appears to give the FAA the power to negotiate for X on this. My question is if this is an unreasonable expectation above the pay grade. If so, X is on the best path.