FAA Delays Environmental Review of SpaceX's Starship Yet Another Month, To May31 (space.com) 66
schwit1 shares a report from Space.com: We'll have to wait at least another month to see the results of the U.S Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) environmental review of SpaceX's Starship program. The FAA has been working for months on that review -- officially known as a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) -- which is assessing the environmental impacts of Starbase, the South Texas site where SpaceX has been building and testing its huge Starship vehicle. The agency published a draft PEA in September and estimated that the final version would be wrapped up by the end of the year. But the FAA has repeatedly delayed the final PEA, generally by a month at a time, citing the need to analyze the public comments submitted in response to the draft report and discuss next steps with other government agencies. "The FAA plans to release the Final PEA on May 31, 2022. The FAA is finalizing the review of the Final PEA, including responding to comments and ensuring consistency with SpaceX's licensing application," FAA officials wrote in an update. "The FAA is also completing consultation and confirming mitigations for the proposed SpaceX operations. All consultations must be complete before the FAA can issue the Final PEA."
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Mars colony would not be subject to Earth laws.
Well duh ! Of course they won't be subject to Earth laws.
The rule of the land in that place, as we all know, is set by K'brell and the council of elders.
This isn't legit. What is ULA/Boeing paying? (Score:1, Interesting)
Is it political, anti-competitive or both? Who is the decision maker?
Is this being done on behalf of Boeing/ULA as SpaceX is a giant threat to their Nasa contractor grift? (see SLS cost vs value)
Is this on behalf of one or more competitor in a different area? Tesla vs Detroit car companies; Starlink vs Telcos; now FB/Insta, Tictok and Alphabet may be threatened if Twitter brings back an improved Vine, actually follow
Re:This isn't legit. What is ULA/Boeing paying? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not ready to fly anyway, so it's not as if the FAA is delaying anything (yet). If it gets to the point where they have a booster and a ship fully provisioned with Raptor 2's, having completed cryo tests and static fires, and GSE upgrades for the latest ship designs completed, and the FAA has still not completed their review, then the FAA becomes a problem. But they're unlikely to get to that point before the end of May.
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You're assuming the FAA's review will approve it. I'm betting it won't; at best, there will be a long list of remediations, and a requirement that SpaceX re-submit once they have done the remediations. And this will go on and on and on.
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If NASA doesn't kill Starship, then Starship will kill SLS. No contest. If both work as expected, Starship will pwn the whole business, and SLS will be a very expensive hobby.
Why didn't they do this first? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm genuinely surprised they didn't get all this underway before they built starbase texas. The original plan was for an even bigger rocket (ITS), so it's not like the size is any surprise. Putting aside the issues around why it's taking so long to get an answer one way or the other, and what impact lobbyist might be having on the process, it does seem like a massive oversight to develop the site without getting approval for the launches they knew they needed to do.
Re:Why didn't they do this first? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because in this day and age pretty much anything like this anywhere in the USA would be denied for environmental reasons. The majority of the big infrastructure of this kind was established WW2 era when it was 100% about getting things done and the environment was not a consideration.
By committing themselves to the extent that they have, and demonstrating actual technical proficiency and achievements, SpaceX now has political and even military defense backing to put pressure against the FAA / EPA and other bureaucracies. Sometimes the only way to win against a bureaucracy is by having another bureaucracy with more clout on your side. That's pretty much what SpaceX has done here.
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I was just going to post this same question until I saw this was already addressed here!
It's utterly backwards to let someone build it first and THEN try to decide if it created environmental issues.
I get the reasoning you stated, but to me, that doesn't make it any better. When people are trying to build private businesses, they should never get caught in the middle with different government entities fighting with each other to decide their fate. This is just one more of many reasons I cling to the liberta
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Why should they have stopped SpaceX from building it? Building it doesn't do any damage, *operating* it does. If SpaceX wants to build something they may very well never get permission to operate, that's their prerogative. But it's also their gamble. If they tried to game the system and lost, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Trying to game the system is the best explanation I've heard, but I also wouldn't be entirely surprised if they simply let optimism and enthusiasm run away with them. They
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I don't think they SHOULD have stopped Space-X from building it. But my point is, IF they had good reasons to believe doing so was necessary, they needed to do that before they built the thing!
Building a large facility certainly can do damage before it's ever made operational, considering you have construction trucks driving in and out for months, delivering supplies, digging and pouring concrete, etc. And it's not rocket science to figure out that a rocket launch pad doesn't belong right next door to an es
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I wonder, is it considered good news when the review is delayed or is it considered bad news?
I know, at least in a couple of countries, where it seems a negative result from an agency tends to come fast, whereas a positive result sometimes tend to take longer. So those people tend to have higher hopes if they dont get any conclusive reply soon.
Wonder if it's the same with FAA, FCC and other US agencies.
And can SpaceX just start operations in another country if for some reason they always don't get approvals
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I'm genuinely surprised they didn't get all this underway before they built starbase texas.
In order to properly file their application with the FAA they needed be close to finishing the design of their vehicle. But to do that they had to build and test several prototypes. To build and test those prototypes they first had to build starbase.
If they had filed before building starbase the FAA would have come back questions about the vehicle that couldn't be answered. And the application would have been rejected.
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When they first began developing the site, they wanted it as an alternative site for Falcon 9 launches, so they got approval for those. However, Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center have greatly increased the number of launches they can support since then (by increasing automation they were able to reduce the turn over time between launches) and SpaceX found that the Texas site would be redundant.
Later, when the began their Starship program, they began by developing facilities in both locations (Texas an
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Absolutely - except I'm not entirely sure it will take another year or so of delays to get a first launch from Florida. It took them, what, 9-ish months to build the launch tower and support systems in Texas? And it looks like they're dramatically streamlining the process in Florida. They don't even need to have a Starship factory there, provided they're willing to trust the tower to catch suborbital hops. (though enough of a start to make the reservoir tanks would be helpful) Just hop over, separately,
This is standard practice (Score:3, Insightful)
This is standard practice for a federal agency. I mean FAA, FTC, FCC etc if they have public comments they will vigorously go through all of them taking all the time they need in order to address all concerns and serve the public. It's not like they'll just brush of concerns to serve any political or financial purposes. /s
Re:This is standard practice (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite true, not all aspects of the government are politically motivated. And for the most part their driving factor, is all the trouble they would be in if they had made a mistake.
The political bobble heads on the top, often just makes the Civil Servants doing the actual work job harder or easier, by making sure they are funded properly to do their jobs. However despite their budgets they will need to cross every T and Dot every I, and hope to God they didn't mess anything up, and if there is a problem all the documents wouldn't point to a mistake they did.
Private Enterprise is success driven: It what you do well helps to elevate you.
Government is failure adverse: It is what you screw up will demote you.
People in general are risk adverse. And if they want to admit it or not, wants their government to help reduce their risk. Either by having safety nets created, or stopping too many new ideas from becoming law, just because it is the fad of the time.
People like Musk are people who are not so risk adverse, he had made a fortune, with a lot of risky ventures, and pushing the boundaries. But if left unchecked can create a wake of disaster behind them, which can heart a lot of people. Musk for the most part has been lucky to not create too much of a wake, however a lot if it just luck, vs any individuals superior ability.
However as those like Musk succeed further, they will clash more with the government who wants to reduce the wake of damage. And becomes an unstoppable force vs an immovable object.
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Start of Environmental Review: November 2020
Start of public comment period: September 2021 (almost one year later).
Decission due: December 2021
Delayed 3 times.
Current target date: end of May 2022 (5 months after initial decission was due, 18 months after process start).
Meanwhile lauch tests have been effectively halted. Ship 20 was initially schedduled to launch on August/September 2021, and fi
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Basically there should be a deadline and limit to comments.
We have the same issue here in California. Any project can be delayed for years for environmental reviews. Thanks to CEQA any random party sue to stop any construction. And when that finishes, another one starts.
Fortunately there is some sanity. San Francisco for example has an exemption for building bike lanes:
https://cal.streetsblog.org/20... [streetsblog.org]
(In other words, they no longer have to defend bike lanes in terms of environmental impact in never ending
Bring on the conspiracy theories! (Score:1)
I'm going to bet about 60% of the comments here are one or another type of conspiracy theory.
Because of course the actual reason "They need more time" can't possibly be true. Right.
Funny thing: The same people spouting the conspiracy theories are also saying government is incompetent, generally. Which means that them taking more time should be totally normal, and actually conspiring to keep things down should be impossible.
Quite a conundrum.
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"They need more time" can't possibly be true. Right.
The FAA know how many responses they had received. They should have the experience and the people in place to know roughly how long it will take to process that number. So it is reasonable to assume that once the limit for accepting responses had passed they would have a rough idea of when their decision could be reached.
In fact, they did exactly that. To continue delaying their judgement, one month at a time when they have reached the end of the previous extension, sounds either like incompetence or that
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The FAA know how many responses they had received. They should have the experience and the people in place to know roughly how long it will take to process that number. So it is reasonable to assume that once the limit for accepting responses had passed they would have a rough idea of when their decision could be reached.
True but incomplete. Even if the FAA were perfectly accurate with their own internal predictions they aren't the only agency involved there are several others. The FAA is just the hub of things and the others are spokes that can delay things and cause issues to be passed from one to another outside the FAA control. Not to mention multiple agencies that could be subject to "outside influences" to delay things or have bosses who just don't like Musk/SpaceX.
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One obvious flaw with that reasoning occurs to me - the whole point of the commentary period is to allow the public to bring up issues the regulators may not have thought of. And if they bring up some good ones - well you can't predict beforehand how long it's going to take to address issues you haven't yet thought of. The best you can estimate is how long it will take you to actually read everything and make some noise pretending the public's concerns were considered. If anything more is called for, the
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Funny thing: The same people spouting the conspiracy theories are also saying government is incompetent, generally. Which means that them taking more time should be totally normal, and actually conspiring to keep things down should be impossible.
Quite a conundrum.
For example the corrupt incompetent Hillary Clinton while Trump was in power and the DOJ in the hands of a Trump appointee managed to murder Epstein in a high security prison where even his suicide was supposed to be impossible. Yet no proof or charges were forth coming.
Also the Maricopa board of supervisors stole the election for Biden even though only one of them was a Democrat and the other 4 were Republican. 2 years and a LONG audit process by Trump Loyalists and still no evidence.
So the question is a
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>They do not truly believe in climate change and the effects of it. If they did they would not be zooming around Ilin their limos and private planes.
That's very much not the case. Firstly, nothing they do on an individual level will make a damned bit of difference - it's one drop in an ocean. Secondly, belief in human-caused climate change is nearly unanimous among the ruling class, even among those who loudly decry it in public. It will just never significantly affect any of them. Beachfront propert
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Starship isn't about tourism, although I'm sure there will be a few. Decreasing launch costs by an order of magnitude or so make things like space-based solar and asteroid mining real possibilities.
Blue Origin and Virgin's launches aren't contributing, or going to contribute, anything important to our technical capabilities. Starship is.
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As I recall, high-altitude planes get a "pollution multiplier" because a lot of the exotic pollutants cause ozone damage (not an issue near the ground) or other catalyzed damage that keeps occurring for as long as the material is in the atmosphere, and are generally heavy organic molecules (aka incompletely burned fuel) than can stay aloft doing their damage for much longer once they're above the altitude where rain can wash them out of the air.
Methane and hydrogen don't really have that problem. One of th
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Hmmm.,,
A quick check put the CO2 emitted by volcanoes in the 150 megaton range annually.
Starship has a fuel loadout of less than 10 kilotons.
So we can launch three Starships DAILY and stay under 10% of the CO2 output of volcanoes in an average year...
So, I'll start worrying about the CO2 emissions of Starship when we get to, say, ten launches per day, I think....
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You forget about in-orbit refueling being a mandatory part of all Starship flight plans that leave Earth orbit, such sending the lunar lander to the moon, or the planned many flights to Mars. These will require up to 16 launches, presumably ideally in the same day since cryogenic fuel doesn't last forever (it boils off even in orbit). Now, we probably won't be sending Starship and Starship variants to the moon that often, but they are talking about sending more than one Starship to mars a day (on average) o
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Alas, since we've decided that the word "nuclear" is more or less synonymous with "the heat death of the universe", those coal plants are going to be churning out CO2 for a long time....
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The scariest the government can do is change.
However we all want the government to change to match our values.
Everyone's values are different.
When the government changes, it is normally towards someone else's values.
Thus the fear of government changing.
If the government changes in a way that matches our values, we give them a quick applauded and move on.
Then someone else is going to fight that change.
Thus the fear of the government changing.
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I'm going to be the reason the FAA needs more time is because 90% of the comments they have to go through are one or another type of conspiracy theory.
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I like that one! :D Very meta. (Not facebook)
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"They need more time" is looking less plausible, given the behavioral pattern. They keep changing the date and delaying. Are they incompetent to the point where they can't even estimate how long they would take to do it? it's almost like the EPA itself is run by Elon. That would be ironic. I have a friend who when people she didn't feel attraction towards would ask her out, instead of saying "no" outright she would keep making excuses. Turns out her reasons were that she was afraid of the repercussions of a
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*FAA
Confirming mitigations (Score:2)
The FAA is also ... confirming mitigations for the proposed SpaceX operations.
This sounds ominous to me. Like this may actually be the underlying reason for the delays.
But who knows? Nobody. And that's the problem. Too much double talk until the hammer finally drops and by then it's actually too late.
Regressive environmentalists (Score:2, Interesting)
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Not letting someone wantonly blow up spaceships next to the ocean with no evaluation or oversight is not 'regressive environmentalism', it's entirely reasonable.
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This kind of short-sighted, incomplete view of what's happening with Starship is EXACTLY why a review and investigation was warranted. It's not just a magical ship-suddenly-exists-and-launches-cleanly-to-glory fantasy. Why do all these Musk fanboys imagine there's no lead-up or downside to anything he does, when there clearly is?
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The generalized problem is idiots who go for absolutes, on whatever side. You can't say "Fuck the Environment!" and go all in on economy. And you can't say "Fuck the Economy!" and go all in on environmentalism. Both stances are equally mad. The problem is that nowadays politics is such that we have to choose between polarizing extremists. For example, it's either "defund the police" or "authoritarian police state". Fuck the people who make us choose extremes!
We need elect centrism absolutists.
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The generalized problem is idiots who go for absolutes, on whatever side. You can't say "Fuck the Environment!" and go all in on economy. And you can't say "Fuck the Economy!" and go all in on environmentalism. Both stances are equally mad.
No, they are not. Neither one is practical, but one of those approaches would destroy the biosphere upon which we all depend for survival, and one would not. Equating them is what's batshit crazy.
The problem is that nowadays politics is such that we have to choose between polarizing extremists. For example, it's either "defund the police" or "authoritarian police state".
Defund the police doesn't literally mean completely defund and eliminate them. It means take away the funding that they're using to abuse the populace. No more, and no less. But "partially defund the police until they don't have money they don't need to do their job" is too complex a slogan to get people to repeat.
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The generalized problem is idiots who go for absolutes.
No, they are not. Neither one is practical, but one of those approaches would destroy the biosphere upon which we all depend for survival, and one would not.
Thank you for demonstrating the point by presenting entirely unreasonable opinion that SpaceX Starship launches would "destroy the biosphere".
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The generalized problem is idiots who go for absolutes.
No, they are not. Neither one is practical, but one of those approaches would destroy the biosphere upon which we all depend for survival, and one would not.
Thank you for demonstrating the point by presenting entirely unreasonable opinion that SpaceX Starship launches would "destroy the biosphere".
Thank you for literally quoting the part of my comment that proves that's not what I was saying in your comment. Total noob move there, sporto.
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This another clear example where environmentalism is actively harming the greater good of humanity. Space program is absolutely necessary to ensure the future of humanity, by colonizing other planets we reduce chances of complete extinction by orders of magnitude.
That's utter bullshit.
Even if we tried for centuries, we wouldn't have self-sustaining colonies on other planets.
Given human nature, over those centuries the Earth and its boondocks colonies would inevitably come into political conflict, which would most likely end up in interplanetary war. Since their atmospheric bubbles would be so easy to pop, goodby colonies and back to square one.
In the meantime, we're doing all we can to risk the future of humanity on this planet before *this* century is out. If all t
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That's utter bullshit.
While you are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to present your baseless speculation as a factual rebuttal.
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OK. You are not entitled to pull "we reduce chances of complete extinction by orders of magnitude" out of your ass and then claim it has any basis in reality whatsoever.
I just pointed out why that fantasy is completely unrealistic.
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"Even if we tried for centuries, we wouldn't have self-sustaining colonies on other planets." Agreed, in fact I'll go out on a limb: Even if we tried for centuries, we couldn't build a heavier than air flying machine, or a machine that could beat humans at checkers (much less chess, and still less Go).
"...over those centuries the Earth and its boondocks colonies would inevitably come into political conflict": Sounds like the plot for a SciFi series. You could call it, oh I don't know, how about The Expans
Shakespeare was partially correct (Score:2)
Shakespeare wrote "First, kill all the lawyers." He should have added "Then kill all the bureaucrats."
It's worth noting that paper pushers rarely exist in science fiction. You won't find them in Star Trek. Why? Because we would never have achieved warp drive or fleets of star ships exploring the galaxy if we constantly had to get a by-your-leave from some shit-for-brains bureaucrat whose sole purpose in life is to prevent progress unless they approve of it. Pure progressivism is anything but. They don
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You realize the "kill all the lawyers" quote was uttered by the villain, who was seeking to get away with crimes?
Stop going though public comments. (Score:2)
If there is a single definitive thing that the internet has taught us in the last few decades, it's that the public should probably not be consulted on anything, ever.
"Boaty McBoatface" wasn't a silly exercise in consultation - it was a perfectly predictable, revealing one. That's as good as public discourse gets.
How many town hall and school board meetings do you need to see before you realize 90% of humanity should just be asked to shut up?
Actually Sounds Positive (Score:2)
"The FAA is also completing consultation and confirming mitigations for the proposed SpaceX operations." If they are "confirming mitigations", that sounds like they are prepared to approve the launches with some restrictions (perhaps not allowing launches at certain times of day). Since SpaceX seems to have needed the time to update its designs, it does not appear that environmental review has caused any significant delays.
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I'm not familiar with how "mitigations" are treated, but I can imagine this scenario: the FAA says "You need to mitigate issues 37, 20, 45, 16 [and a long list]. Get back to us when you've done that and we'll take another look at your proposal, and decide what to do next." And this could drag on for years (it already has).
Boeing Delays Environmental Review of SpaceX's (Score:2)
Mexico or Florida? (Score:1)
SpaceX has talked about moving Starship testing to Florida... maybe they should consider moving it the few miles to Mexico. I'm sure they would welcome it.
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I like that idea! Musk already has overseas plants for his cars, why not his spaceships? And twenty years from now Mexico will be the dominant space-faring nation.