Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying:
> SpaceX told the FAA in May that it did not believe the review was necessary because it only intends to use the "integration tower for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or -permitted launches," the FAA said.
Does the FAA have jurisdiction over this tower if they're not actually using it for launches?
The issue is the tower is intended to be as high as 480ft. This is significant as that means it will end up being listed on charts and factored into any nearby instrument approach procedures.
All that said, this is a case where the FAA probably shouldn't be dragging their heels. It's trivial (single digit minutes) to figure out what this impacts and shouldn't be more than a day to come to a conclusion and generate a report on necessary approach, chart, and notam updates among others. Unfortunately this isn't how these agencies operate.
EDIT: The FAA reviewed the site multiple times, including earlier this year and found no impact on aviation navigation so unclear what they're potentially upset about. The area is rather sparse and the closest airport is a small untowered field 15 miles away.
> Unfortunately this isn't how these agencies operate.
I have some state-run tennis courts nearby. In order to sign up you need to bypass the certificate warning, identify what kind of nonprofit you aren't, specifically ask for the "tennis" amenity at the tennis court location, and explain what you want to do there (tennis). Oh, and you need to sign up at least two days in advance so the bureaucrat can approve it.
It’s 15 miles away. No instrument approach I’ve flown is that low that far away. Never would I ever fly below 500 feet AGL in IFR conditions and not on final approach.
Without knowing the height it is hard to tell. As an amateur radio operator I can put up a tower that is just under 200 feet tall without any real approval. Past that I would need FAA approval. It gets expensive, mostly because you need to keep the tower illuminated at night.
I agree, it's right next to an airport, so the FAA has jurisdiction over anything over 200 feet tall. What it's meant for is basically irrelevant, except the scenario where SpaceX lied to the FAA about what it is for.
without any further context, this seems like the system working as intended: the FAA gives warning as a courtesy, spaceX says "thanks, we know, we're not using it for anything that would break the rules".
nobody has issued any orders or fines. any drama about the FAA being "angry" seems to be invented by the internet.
How much testing can you do with a launch tower without actually launching anything? Surely any launch would have to be cleared by the FAA right?
(I could totally be wrong and there's good reasons to build this, but my initial assumption is that the only real reason to build a launch tower would be to launch stuff with it)
In theory it could used for payload integration tests, dress rehearsal, or even static fires. But it seems odd to do those at a different pad than you'd actually launch from
I believe the goal is to have a launch tower catch falcon 9 rockets, then take a starship, rotate it around the tower 180 degrees and put it on top of the rocket that just landed to refuel and launch again.
Technically the tower may not be used for launches; it's only used for putting the stack on the launch pad. During the launch itself the stack may not be touching the tower at all.
>Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying
Well, the article does sort of accuse them of that, right after the part you quote:
> But the agency said description in documents "indicates otherwise."
> The FAA cited a SpaceX document that the towers would be used to integrate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle. "Super Heavy would be mated to the launch mount, followed by Starship mated to Super Heavy," the FAA letter said quoting SpaceX's May 5 submission.
I've been following Starship development closely, and I would be shocked if SpaceX was not planning to use this tower for the first orbital launch. Even as of the last few weeks, their aspirational goal was to launch this month, and the planned second tower would take months to build from this point - no evidence of progress on a second launch mount or tower foundation.
Anybody else get flashbacks to Manifold: Time?
Eccentric entrepreneur building awesome rockets in the desert while the government tries to prevent him from launching?
The FAA is in a pissing match with SpaceX. They are an organization that was setup to deal with 1 or 2 space launches a year. They don't know how to operate to accommodate the amount of launches SpaceX wants to have. So instead of changing or modernizing they flex. The old I'll show them who's in charge, will drive them out of business with paperwork and a bureaucracy. Who do they think they are wanting to expand Human civilization to Mars! Musk should just pay them off the way Boeing did.
This project appears to be on the critical path to making humanity a multi planetary species. That should be balanced against whatever impact the environmental review finds. Not that it should give SpaceX a blank check. But to the extent that the environment is fragile and needs protection, it's even more important to not have all of our eggs in it.
> This project appears to be on the critical path to making humanity a multi planetary species.
Inasmuch as "multi planetary" means multiple _self supporting_ planetary settlements (and otherwise, what's the point?), that seems to be an entirely unrealistic goal for the foreseeable future, so, by definition, there cannot really be a "critical path" to such a goal.
That may be so, but that's a different claim. If he had a plausible path to build a backstop against catastrophes threatening to wipe out humanity, a case could be made that this should outweigh everyday regulations & petty bureaucratic paperwork.
What he has is a plausible path to shipping canned apes for a brief sojourn to a far away locale fairly hostile to long term habitation. If that's what he wants, fine, but there's no reason the regular legal process needs to be waived for that.
> a plausible path to shipping canned apes for a brief sojourn
The important part of that end is a much more economical tech for putting mass into orbit. I'd argue that is currently the single most effective thing that we can do toward becoming multiplanetary. Yes it still leaves a very long road ahead, but it's a bridge across an otherwise impassible chasm. A related Heinlein/Pournelle exchange:
Unfortunately, in Blowups Happen a capability for orbiting large payloads had been developed. "Aha," I said. "I see your problem. If you can get a ship into orbit, you're halfway to the moon."
"No," Bob said. "If you can get your ship into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere."
He was very nearly right.
better to say sorry than ask permission. I know an awful lot about the FAA. Progress demands risk and the FAA is a pathologically risk averse agency. Many people in the agency understand this but outwardly must tow the party line. therefore when the FAA is being unreasonable I believe SpaceX should ignore them and push the envelope.
> FAA Administrator Steve Dickson spoke with Musk on March 12 for 30 minutes to stress "the FAA’s role in protecting public safety by ensuring regulatory compliance....
If there are legit concerns that the FAA needs to be involved in, that's fine. But the fact that Dickson is personally involved is a sign he might be the kind of person that likes to flex on people. There's almost certainly no good reason for him to be personally involved.
If Dickson is just out to engage in a public pissing contest with Elon Musk, it's not hard to predict the outcome. Musk, in 2021, is not easily bullied.
I've actually dealt with the FAA on a rocket launch. They're an INCREDIBLY bureaucratic agency. We were inside a continually restricted airspace volume (R-xxxx) as well as a TFR that was miles wide, but at the last minute we were restricted from flying a remotely controlled aircraft released at an apogee of around 2000ft AGL. We'd already received prior approval but then someone at the regional office decided they wanted to flex on the other agency we were working with. There were absolutely no safety concerns, real, procedural, or imagined. It was just someone settling a score with someone else.
The FAA claims jurisdiction worldwide. Did you not see the case where Musk launched from India because he could not get reasonable US approval and they pitched a fit?
ITAR is largely voluntary. I say this having looked at the regulations because at one time I wanted to produce/was producing things that fell under ITAR. In a lot of situations if you say it is not restricted by ITAR then it is not.
This leaves me (and hopefully you) wondering what ITAR actually still accomplishes. I guess federal contracts dictate the use of the ensuing technology? I still see issues with that depending on how IP rights are assigned.
I guess we're waiting on the next PGP-style test of export control laws.
LOL, pretty sure Musk is more scared of the Chinese government than the US government.
I've never seen Tesla/Musk apologize for anything, except when it comes to China. If Musk wants to be able to open his mouth with his opinions he'd be better to stay in the US.
"Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) came under increased pressure in China on Wednesday from regulators and state media after Monday's protest by a disgruntled customer at the Shanghai auto show went viral and forced the electric car maker into a rare apology."
Mostly nonsense. First of all Tesla has no sued the people that made false claim and its mostly about social media not the government.
A few bureaucrats from specific regions made some comments but nothing series.
Also, about the 'spying thing' this was reasonably thing by the government not to allow Tesla in military bases in China, this is no different then things like IPhones not being allowed there.
There was never concern that they would 'shutdown' Tesla.
Tesla has great support from the city and location they are in and pretty good relationship with the central government.
If anything, Tesla has most problems with German environmental (anti progress) groups and the bureaucracy there.
Would probably just declare himself his own country. Just needs his own currency (wait, didn't he do that already?), own military (it's handy to own a fleet of ICBMs with better guidance systems than anything the U.S. has), and own energy infrastructure.
> SpaceX told the FAA in May that it did not believe the review was necessary because it only intends to use the "integration tower for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or -permitted launches," the FAA said.
Does the FAA have jurisdiction over this tower if they're not actually using it for launches?