Reaching For Stars While The Government Holds You Back
SpaceX Gets Unwelcome News From Army Corps Of Engineers, Space Policy Online
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withdrawn SpaceX’s application to expand its Boca Chica, TX test site because the company failed to provide required information requested last year. The environmental evaluation by the Corps is in addition to a separate ongoing environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration.”
Thumbs on the scale folks. Thumbs on the scale.
Evidence?
While not good news, this is not yet bad news as long as the FAA PEA comes out well on April 29, 2022.
If the FAA PEA is further delayed or comes back negative it will be hard for me to believe this is not political.
Even if the PEA is a bad result it looks like with Cape Canaveral construction plus the two floating platforms means a Starship orbital attempt this year.
I cannot help but wish a tiny fraction of the money spent on SLS was spent on Starship and Space X.
I doubt the platforms and the launch site will ready this year.
They’ve been doing cryo tests of the launch Mount at Boca Chica for the last week or two, with a booster on it.
In addition, SpaceX is getting ready to stack the launch Tower at lc39a, having been busy building the segments at the Roberts Road SpaceX Operations Area. Compared to Boca Chica, the LC 39a Starship pad should go up rather quickly
https://youtu.be/BHPl2DbNJQE
According to the video they are still pouring concrete on the base so it going to be a while before that tower will be finished.
Also during the last Musk interview by the EDA when asked about the sea launch platforms Musk said they haven’t started on those yet and they have more important things get done first. Such as reaching orbit.
I see nothing here that eases my doubts the sea launch platforms or the KSC launch site will be ready before the end of the year.
SpaceX is getting $2.9 billion from NASA for the starship HLS lunar lander system..
Yep, in addition, a quick Google shows that prior to that award, Spacex had received ~$200M of Starship related contracts, so a total of ~$3.1B. Guesstimating that NASA has spent roughly $60B on SLS + Orion development, they’ve spent roughly 5% of that on Starship. I’d be surprised if ed2291 didn’t know all that, so puzzled by the post.
In comparison, apparently (according to Wikipedia) NASA spent $922M on Lockheed Martin’s X-33 through 2001. Not sure what inflation adjustment would give, but I imagine in adjusted dollars it would be close to the funding they’re providing Starship.
This isn’t as ominous as it sounds. The permit that expired was for the expansion of their existing facilities, not the launch permit.
Also SpaceX can file another application if it so wishes.
Hopefully Phobos and Deimos platforms can be brought online soon because things onshore seem to be red tape nightmares.
An EA for the KSC LC-39a Starship pad is in place.
That may cover the environmental issues there is still range safety/fear of explosion or bad landing, plus getting the launch windows for such frequent test flights with all the other cape traffic you would have to deal with. Hopefully by may starships at Boca is resolved and flies, hopefully by the end of the year ksc is brought on line.
Seems like if they didn’t want to be held back ？SpaceX could have submitted the info. I don’t see how it would be fair or legal to approve something that hasn’t been properly applied for.
Some of the info they need to submit is from the repeatedly delayed PEA, which hasn’t been published.
Move it all to Florida!
I wonder if there is a lot more in the background, info that is not public or issues of such as availability of water, electrical power (perhaps not, but similar resource issues of long range effects?). Maybe the Corps of Engineers needs to be satisfied that building a huge spacelaunch complex will not have disasterous impacts decades later, kind of like back in the days where a military base is build, employs thousands but these days a superfund cleanup site that is never funded for cleanup. And a place you never want to live nowadays.
“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming” — Wernher von Braun