Enemy of the State
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grounded
THE BUREAUCRATS GO AFTER ELON MUSK: Report: SpaceX’s Boca Chica Plans Face Serious Objections from FWS, NPS. “The problem: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Park Service do not agree that launching the world’s most powerful rocket will have a non-significant impact on federal and state-managed wildlife refuges and national monuments that surround the Boca Chica launch site. Without their sign off, ESG Hound says the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can’t approve the plan using an ongoing environmental assessment that it aims to complete by Jan. 31. A more complicated and lengthy environmental review would be required. resulting in years of delays.”
There are no coastal launch sites that aren’t surrounded by “environmentally sensitive” areas. The question is whether Elon will work the system, or do something that basically tells the system to fuck itself. Either is possible.
NASA hates Musk because he’s been showing them up and threatening their monopoly by producing rockets at a 10th the cost and 10X the speed that the government seems capable of, and Musks competitors, like Bezos, but there are others, can’t produce anything at all, so the bureaucracy and the rent collectors have teamed up to destroy him. Law suits and frivolous appeals of regulatory approvals (for the broadband satellite system Starling, as well as SpaceX) have been going on for several years now. They’re just getting going.