Everyone but Elon knew what was going to happen with the launchpad... And instead of having a proper one installed that could handle the blast he launched and sent debris & particulate everywhere as well as lighting a fire on protected lands. The protected lands were there well before Elon showed up and he's continuously broken the agreements he made for keeping the area safe.
The EA and EIS included the possibility of the rocket blowing up on the launchpad. That scenario would have thrown a lot more debris and would have started a lot more fires.
There's always the possibility of a rocket blowing up during launch, which is why self-destruct devices are installed on all of them, so that range safety can prevent destruction to populated areas.
But with the launchpad being in the state that it was in, disaster was a certainty.
Why was it a certainty? There was only minor erosion during the 30 engine static fire, and the launch was only about 30% more energetic than the static fire.
It's rocket science - rocketry is a mature engineering discipline. NASA found out in the 1960's that you need a flame trench + water deluge system to manage the exhaust plume, especially the vibrations.
What happened to the idea of baking in a generous safety margin. Fred Brooks had a whole chapter on Brooklyn Bridge, at some point projects are so large that you cannot run them by pantseat.
And SpaceX has a culture of not overbuilding. "The best part is no part", "If you're not adding back 10% of the parts you deleted, you're not deleting enough parts".
That culture is a good part of the reason they are completely wiping the floor of the competition.
The Falcon9 v1.2 is the only rocket that has flown more than 5 times and has never failed a mission so it's hard to question the SpaceX safety culture.
Self-destruct devices are for the "rocket off course, headed toward vulnerable areas..." failure modes. If the rocket has already blown itself up...well, the burning wreckage will only respond to commands from gravity and air resistance.
(Yes, I know about the SRB's during the Challenger disaster. They certainly had not "blown up", and certainly were headed in unpredictable directions.)
There was some small chance of the rocket blowing up on the launchpad that was accounted for. There was a near 100% chance of the launchpad not being able to handle the launch, sending chunks of it and the dirt underneath everywhere, just to hit a launch date of 4/20 that was not accounted for.
He says he can clear out the existing launchpad and install the working one in a matter of weeks. Then the question is why he didn't do that prior to this launch. We can only speculate that if it hadn't caused a mess, he'd be making 4/20 jokes, and that is why.
> There was a near 100% chance of the launchpad not being able to handle the launch, sending chunks of it and the dirt underneath everywhere
It was expected to erode slightly, just as it did with the 30 engine fire, not to fail destructively.
> just to hit a launch date of 4/20 that was not accounted for.
The first launch attempt was 4/17, and it takes >48 hours to depress and refill. 4/20 was a coincidence.
> He says he can clear out the existing launchpad and install the working one in a matter of weeks. Then the question is why he didn't do that prior to this launch.
SpaceX is estimated to be spending $2M per day on Starship development. A 2 month delay is a big deal.
And if a 2 month delay would have resulted in a successful test then the Flight Termination System problem wouldn't have been discovered.
Pre-launch, I'd bet that the best-experts probability of a RUD on or near the pad was >5%. And the probability of massive pad damage starting a few fires was <95%.
If you recall Probability 101, and do the Chance_of_X * Severity_of_X calculations - then the vast majority of the expected* fire damage, which the FAA effectively signed off on, was from the near-pad explosion scenario.
They scrubbed a launch on 4/17, so either the launch was delayed for a dumb joke, they ran a false flag launch attempt to hide that the real launch was scheduled based on a dumb joke in case of disaster, or they don't actually make decisions like that based on dumb jokes.
Musk said he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share, and he bought Twitter at $54.20 per share. He has a habit of doing stupid things just so he can hit that number. The 4/17 launch date wasn't set until he got approval for launch just a few days prior. I wouldn't put it past him to have intended for a 4/20 launch when he applied for approval.
I don't like that people are doing this, but I also feel like Elon has been bringing this kind of negative attention on himself by acting in an increasingly awful way over the past 5 years. I hope acting like a troll on twitter is worth all the lawsuits and lost Tesla sales for him. Such a strange state of affairs.
Nothing particularly strange about it, dude is literally just an echo of all the other talented grifters in history that have managed to ride other people's genius to notoriety.
Sure I can. The man has contributed literally zero scientific or engineering input into any of the technologies he's routinely touted for being a genius for his involvement with.
20 years of contributions to open source software, built websites and payment handlers for some of the most potent nonprofit organizations on the planet, and studiously avoided taking credit for other people's work, none of which is relevant to a discussion of Elon Musk.
Where are all the other grifters riding other people's genius to the orbit and then back to Earth in one piece? If it's as simple as just (ab)using some engineers, why can't Bezos do it?
Whatever you say, there is something unique about Musk that nobody else has been able to replicate.
I think that OP in here referenced actual engineers and scientists. Musk is not one, despite taking all ghe credit as if he was.
Musk is able to convince or bully others into giving him investment money - including goverment. That is real contribution for sure. Just not an engineering.
Bezos has all the money he needs (and got government money too) and yet his rockets don't land - actually they don't even take off.
Then we could talk about NASA's SLS... (Branson isn't even worth discussing at this point)
Both organizations have the money and the engineers and scientists, only those working for Musk have a landing rocket. Clearly there's something special about Musk.
Dude has a physics degree and was accepted into a Standford graduate program (before dropping out.) This critique of him is out of spite and not accurate.
> In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.[37][38] Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), where he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School.[39][40][41][42] Although Musk claims he earned the degrees in 1995, UPenn maintains it awarded them in 1997.[43]
A court ruled in Musk's favor about this. Do you want to challenge that? Then bring more than empty claims about some donations, pls. He didn't even have the money back then - he co-founded Zip2 in 1996 and sold in 1999. Perhaps you meant the 2009 donation, but he had the degrees long enough by then ;-)
I'm a big critic of Elon, especially when he talks about things he doesn't know or understand (e.g. social media, politics, human rights).
But the one thing he actually does understand is engineering. He's not a grifter pretending to be an engineer, he's an engineer who thinks he knows everything (he doesn't). Link below contains statements by other engineers on their experience working with him:
I have a feeling¹ other rocket launches (particularly "first" launches) get a similar amount of complaints from environmental groups, just like major infrastructure projects do. Except due to Elon becoming… clown in chief? … there's a spotlight on it. It's newsworthy because flaming Elon generates clicks.
Which doesn't mean the environmental groups are wrong, or that Elon is getting shitcanned for nothing… he really inflicted this on himself.
[¹] I have no idea how to dig up data on this, unfortunately.
I could not agree more, I've never met Musk but he's probably always been kind of a jerk. My-way-or-the-highway people with Asperger's usually are, however social media seems to magnify the worst traits of someone's personality and expose it to the world over a megaphone. IMO if he'd just logout of Twitter things would get a lot better for his companies, including Twitter, but social media got him. Very few people are immune to social media's grip.
> always been kind of a jerk. My-way-or-the-highway people with Asperger's usually are
Could we could just say "My-way-or-the-highway people are jerks"?
I don't see a need to link that to people with Asperger's. Some of them have an extra challenge in some situations already, without negative prejudices adding to that.
I think doing legally sketchy things is what's causing most of the legal risk here. Being obnoxious just draws attention to said sketchiness and makes attempts at repercussions more swift.
I have never seen someone burn more goodwill than this. Funny part is he would not necessarily have to even change his political views, just act like a grown man.
It’s perhaps a cautionary tale about addiction and having one’s mind warped by social media. I really think he got his brain sucked out by Twitter.
> It’s perhaps a cautionary tale about addiction and having one’s mind warped by social media
I view it the same way, but in the opposite direction. Musk has arguably done more for the environment than anyone else alive, but his social media faux pas and the responding social media cult-like hate has made him a persona non grata to those who claim they hold the environment "sacred".
Social media drama is apparently more important than the environment to many on the left.
When the masses are watching, there is no action that does not offend some one of them. Miscommunication is in fact still at the bottom of most conflicts
The trouble is, anyone trying to build anything gets this shit. The NEPA process is beyond busted. It’s even used to make it harder to build solar and wind farms.
The problem is that there are too many veto points. It’s easy to add new ones, very hard to remove them. There is no attempt at an ROI justification at any step, so “value of one person’s enjoyment of plovers” is held alongside millions of dollars of wages paid into a community.
I don’t want to bulldoze the wilderness, I know about the burning rivers, EPA is good on net, but I think we need to chop the worst 10% of planning/environmental regulations.
Not sure what is driving this case in particular, but I doubt the average naturalist or birder really cares about Musk or Twitter. They are just geeks who want to enjoy nature, and this kind of activity disrupts nature.
Coastal birds can be very fragile to disturbance and are already threatened by lack of habitat. They often have limited energy levels and regular disruption will cause them to take flight and expend that energy. This can have an effect on mortality. Not sure if this is the case at Boca Chica, but I can understand why people are worried.
If you actually know anything about the average environmentalist you'd know they are the most hardened and experienced outdoors people in the population. It is the outdoorsy folk that are so passionate about the environment.
No they're not, they're inner city white women. None of them live life devoid of the modern convenience they're whining about. This is a lie and you know it.
Some of the most "passionate" outdoors people are hunters and fisherman that actually contribute to the land not environmentalists.
Besides, your point is moot. Merely going outdoors doesn't mean you eschew all the modern technological marvels provided to you. All of these people still have massive homes, use climate control, electricity, get their food delivered, drive etc.
Plaintiffs have members whose interests are adversely affected by direct, indirect, and cumulative harm from the FAA-authorized activities to habitat areas that such members use and enjoy, including as habitat for ESA-listed wildlife. For example, Mary Angela Branch-who grew up in Brownsville and is a member of the Center, ABC, and Save RGV-regularly visits the Boca Chica area to enjoy the beach and to swim, picnic, fish, and view wildlife, including protected birds. She plans to continue visiting the area; however, her ability to enjoy Boca Chica beach and the surrounding areas and the wildlife they support has been, and will continue to be, adversely affected by SpaceX activities, including through closures to accommodate SpaceX construction and launch activities as well as from the noise, heat, light, explosions, and fires associated with such activities.
Plaintiffs also have members that have researched, studied, observed, and sought protection for habitats and species that are adversely affected by the SpaceX activities authorized by FAA. For example, Jim Chapman, a member of Save RGV who lives in Weslaco, TX, works to protect the Santa Ana and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges, and advocates for the animals that use the tracks of brush and forest habitat to migrate between populations. Mr. Chapman is highly invested in the preservation of the Boca Chica area, as it is essential for many of the native wildlife which he seeks out and enjoys. Mr. Chapman regularly visits the Boca Chica area to view wildlife, particularly birds such as the protected plovers and migratory species that rely on the area. Mr. Chapman is passionate about the native wildlife and enjoys exposing people to the unique ecosystems of the region. His interests in observing and protecting the Boca Chica area have been, and will continue to be, adversely affected by the SpaceX activities permitted by FAA, including harm from closures, increased vehicle traffic and resulting collisions with wildlife, the intense noise, heat, and light from rocket launch and testing activities, and "anomalies.
It may seem difficult to avoid creating subjectively negative impacts such as this when launching the largest rocket in history, but careful thought will demonstrate we as an enlightened modern society could avoid such deleterious harm on the preferences of a handful of individuals by simply banning all of human civilization.
It may seem difficult to avoid creating subjectively negative impacts such as this when launching the largest rocket in history
This outcome was entirely avoidable, right from the beginning of development at Starbase -- and entirely predictable.
It's not even as if SpaceX doesn't already have a second Starship launch pad at Launch Complex 39A, at Kennedy Space Center. (Where they routinely launch rockets without environmental damage lawsuits, up to and including (historically) Saturn V and the Space Shuttle, which are the only vehicles of remotely comparable size to Starship.)
If they don't want lawsuits, they shouldn't have built a potentially explosive chemical plant on a space-constrained sites next to nature reserves full of protected species. Or should ship the Starship elements to KSC by barge for launch. Blaming the nature reserve and conservationists -- they were there first, before SpaceX moved in -- is a dick move.
The size of the launch site at KSC is soooo much larger than the one at Boca Chica[1]. Basically almost none of the large debris that was ejected by starship into the surrounding wilderness would have left the bounds of the launch pad area at KSC. The Boca Chica launch site just seems under-provisioned for this size of rocket.
This comment is all over the place. “If they don’t want lawsuits, they shouldn’t have built a potentially explosive chemical plant on a space-constrained sites next to nature reserves”.
The FAA is the one being sued. Did the FAA choose where SpaceX built their site? SpaceX got all required approval. There was no known damage to wildlife. These people sue every time. It gets tossed every time. This lawsuit is purely symbolic and frankly irrelevant. If Elon Musk wasn’t tangentially related, there’d be no market for this article, nobody would write about it and nobody would care about this lawsuit like they don’t care about all the other baseless suits these groups file.
I'd say YIMB but live further up the coast. I think:
* there is a lot to protect there, especially the migratory bird path and turtle nesting sites
* the FAA struck an honest deal to balance innovation with protection
* nature is more resilient than people give it credit
Not all nature is the same. Wetland birds often have limited energy reserves, particularly if they have just migrated in. They evolved to take off when they are disturbed. Increase in disturbance can have a real impact on mortality. And the habitats are often very scarce. A single site can be very important to a species and host a significant proportion of a regional population. But the only way to know is to study it.
My hunch is that construction will have a lot of effect on birds close to the site (say within a few hundred metres). But actual rocketry will be less of a problem as it is currently so irregular. Also, the presence of tourists may cause a lot of disturbance and closing parts of the beach, and banning dogs (scary to birds) could help a lot. Part of the solution could be making other parts of the reserve better.
Is there something about Boca Chica that makes it the only plausible launch site in Texas? I'm perpetually confused about Elon Musk's seemingly stubborn insistence on using this specific site.
a. it is by the sea so that they are not flying over populated areas
b. it is remote enough so that a 1000tonne methane explosion will not endanger anyone or their property and
c. it is close enough to civilization so that they have a good access to skilled and un-skilled labour
will have the same issues as they are having in Boca Chica
Due to the direction of rotation of Earth, for most launches you want to launch East-SouthEast. And you need a corridor ~1000 miles long, so that basically means you want to be on the Atlantic. Being on the Gulf also works, but it does limit you on available launch corridors due to Florida and Cuba being in the way.
And you also need a 4 mile undeveloped radius from the launch site. It's really hard to find 8 miles of undeveloped East Coast coastline.
OTOH for polar launches you want to launch North or South. Vandenburg is a great site to launch South from, but if Alaska is acceptable then there are many possible launch locations there.
How would one launch from Alaska and head southeast? Wouldn't that send you straight over Canada? I know of a small launchpad, Poker Flats which is north of Fairbanks but it's specifically for polar orbits. I think Kodiak has a launchpad as well?
Astra was the company attempting a launch from up there. It was a very austere site. The one that liftoff went sideways, then they lost another one launching from KSC. Rocketlab is launching the next couple payloads Astra had scheduled.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadBut with the launchpad being in the state that it was in, disaster was a certainty.
What happened to the idea of baking in a generous safety margin. Fred Brooks had a whole chapter on Brooklyn Bridge, at some point projects are so large that you cannot run them by pantseat.
That culture is a good part of the reason they are completely wiping the floor of the competition.
The Falcon9 v1.2 is the only rocket that has flown more than 5 times and has never failed a mission so it's hard to question the SpaceX safety culture.
(Yes, I know about the SRB's during the Challenger disaster. They certainly had not "blown up", and certainly were headed in unpredictable directions.)
He says he can clear out the existing launchpad and install the working one in a matter of weeks. Then the question is why he didn't do that prior to this launch. We can only speculate that if it hadn't caused a mess, he'd be making 4/20 jokes, and that is why.
It was expected to erode slightly, just as it did with the 30 engine fire, not to fail destructively.
> just to hit a launch date of 4/20 that was not accounted for.
The first launch attempt was 4/17, and it takes >48 hours to depress and refill. 4/20 was a coincidence.
> He says he can clear out the existing launchpad and install the working one in a matter of weeks. Then the question is why he didn't do that prior to this launch.
SpaceX is estimated to be spending $2M per day on Starship development. A 2 month delay is a big deal.
And if a 2 month delay would have resulted in a successful test then the Flight Termination System problem wouldn't have been discovered.
If you recall Probability 101, and do the Chance_of_X * Severity_of_X calculations - then the vast majority of the expected* fire damage, which the FAA effectively signed off on, was from the near-pad explosion scenario.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value
I am sure the swamp grasses will grow back even more robust.
What was actually harmed here?
Do you have dead animal carcasses? Piping plovers acting differently?
Whatever you say, there is something unique about Musk that nobody else has been able to replicate.
Musk is able to convince or bully others into giving him investment money - including goverment. That is real contribution for sure. Just not an engineering.
Then we could talk about NASA's SLS... (Branson isn't even worth discussing at this point)
Both organizations have the money and the engineers and scientists, only those working for Musk have a landing rocket. Clearly there's something special about Musk.
> In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.[37][38] Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), where he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School.[39][40][41][42] Although Musk claims he earned the degrees in 1995, UPenn maintains it awarded them in 1997.[43]
> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/
A court ruled in Musk's favor about this. Do you want to challenge that? Then bring more than empty claims about some donations, pls. He didn't even have the money back then - he co-founded Zip2 in 1996 and sold in 1999. Perhaps you meant the 2009 donation, but he had the degrees long enough by then ;-)
But the one thing he actually does understand is engineering. He's not a grifter pretending to be an engineer, he's an engineer who thinks he knows everything (he doesn't). Link below contains statements by other engineers on their experience working with him:
https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
Which doesn't mean the environmental groups are wrong, or that Elon is getting shitcanned for nothing… he really inflicted this on himself.
[¹] I have no idea how to dig up data on this, unfortunately.
Could we could just say "My-way-or-the-highway people are jerks"?
I don't see a need to link that to people with Asperger's. Some of them have an extra challenge in some situations already, without negative prejudices adding to that.
It hurts feelings to sincerely ask if such people should have massive influence in ver humanity?
Tough. Look at Elon being a snowflake who needs a safe space while trashing everyone else. In his case at least he’s earned being mocked.
In you pisoff enough people, someone will eventually succeed
It’s perhaps a cautionary tale about addiction and having one’s mind warped by social media. I really think he got his brain sucked out by Twitter.
I view it the same way, but in the opposite direction. Musk has arguably done more for the environment than anyone else alive, but his social media faux pas and the responding social media cult-like hate has made him a persona non grata to those who claim they hold the environment "sacred".
Social media drama is apparently more important than the environment to many on the left.
I've been calling social media companies the tobacco companies of the mind for a long time. It's an addictive vehicle for poison.
The problem is that there are too many veto points. It’s easy to add new ones, very hard to remove them. There is no attempt at an ROI justification at any step, so “value of one person’s enjoyment of plovers” is held alongside millions of dollars of wages paid into a community.
I don’t want to bulldoze the wilderness, I know about the burning rivers, EPA is good on net, but I think we need to chop the worst 10% of planning/environmental regulations.
This is just a separate area where musks companies do not care about collateral damage.
Coastal birds can be very fragile to disturbance and are already threatened by lack of habitat. They often have limited energy levels and regular disruption will cause them to take flight and expend that energy. This can have an effect on mortality. Not sure if this is the case at Boca Chica, but I can understand why people are worried.
Some of the most "passionate" outdoors people are hunters and fisherman that actually contribute to the land not environmentalists.
Besides, your point is moot. Merely going outdoors doesn't mean you eschew all the modern technological marvels provided to you. All of these people still have massive homes, use climate control, electricity, get their food delivered, drive etc.
It really isn't so bad if you put a bit of good faith in your reasoning
I'm not going react in good faith to people that aren't acting in good faith to start with.
Plaintiffs have members whose interests are adversely affected by direct, indirect, and cumulative harm from the FAA-authorized activities to habitat areas that such members use and enjoy, including as habitat for ESA-listed wildlife. For example, Mary Angela Branch-who grew up in Brownsville and is a member of the Center, ABC, and Save RGV-regularly visits the Boca Chica area to enjoy the beach and to swim, picnic, fish, and view wildlife, including protected birds. She plans to continue visiting the area; however, her ability to enjoy Boca Chica beach and the surrounding areas and the wildlife they support has been, and will continue to be, adversely affected by SpaceX activities, including through closures to accommodate SpaceX construction and launch activities as well as from the noise, heat, light, explosions, and fires associated with such activities.
Plaintiffs also have members that have researched, studied, observed, and sought protection for habitats and species that are adversely affected by the SpaceX activities authorized by FAA. For example, Jim Chapman, a member of Save RGV who lives in Weslaco, TX, works to protect the Santa Ana and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges, and advocates for the animals that use the tracks of brush and forest habitat to migrate between populations. Mr. Chapman is highly invested in the preservation of the Boca Chica area, as it is essential for many of the native wildlife which he seeks out and enjoys. Mr. Chapman regularly visits the Boca Chica area to view wildlife, particularly birds such as the protected plovers and migratory species that rely on the area. Mr. Chapman is passionate about the native wildlife and enjoys exposing people to the unique ecosystems of the region. His interests in observing and protecting the Boca Chica area have been, and will continue to be, adversely affected by the SpaceX activities permitted by FAA, including harm from closures, increased vehicle traffic and resulting collisions with wildlife, the intense noise, heat, and light from rocket launch and testing activities, and "anomalies.
It may seem difficult to avoid creating subjectively negative impacts such as this when launching the largest rocket in history, but careful thought will demonstrate we as an enlightened modern society could avoid such deleterious harm on the preferences of a handful of individuals by simply banning all of human civilization.
This outcome was entirely avoidable, right from the beginning of development at Starbase -- and entirely predictable.
It's not even as if SpaceX doesn't already have a second Starship launch pad at Launch Complex 39A, at Kennedy Space Center. (Where they routinely launch rockets without environmental damage lawsuits, up to and including (historically) Saturn V and the Space Shuttle, which are the only vehicles of remotely comparable size to Starship.)
If they don't want lawsuits, they shouldn't have built a potentially explosive chemical plant on a space-constrained sites next to nature reserves full of protected species. Or should ship the Starship elements to KSC by barge for launch. Blaming the nature reserve and conservationists -- they were there first, before SpaceX moved in -- is a dick move.
Also, they are running into capacity limits at Canaveral.
KSC and Wallops are both also surrounded by nature reserves, so if that's the argument then KSC is out too.
[1] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_...
The FAA is the one being sued. Did the FAA choose where SpaceX built their site? SpaceX got all required approval. There was no known damage to wildlife. These people sue every time. It gets tossed every time. This lawsuit is purely symbolic and frankly irrelevant. If Elon Musk wasn’t tangentially related, there’d be no market for this article, nobody would write about it and nobody would care about this lawsuit like they don’t care about all the other baseless suits these groups file.
You’re coming across like a giant baby. No one else owes deference to you either.
Grow up, child; you’re not alone in this reality.
My hunch is that construction will have a lot of effect on birds close to the site (say within a few hundred metres). But actual rocketry will be less of a problem as it is currently so irregular. Also, the presence of tourists may cause a lot of disturbance and closing parts of the beach, and banning dogs (scary to birds) could help a lot. Part of the solution could be making other parts of the reserve better.
a. it is by the sea so that they are not flying over populated areas b. it is remote enough so that a 1000tonne methane explosion will not endanger anyone or their property and c. it is close enough to civilization so that they have a good access to skilled and un-skilled labour
will have the same issues as they are having in Boca Chica
And you also need a 4 mile undeveloped radius from the launch site. It's really hard to find 8 miles of undeveloped East Coast coastline.
OTOH for polar launches you want to launch North or South. Vandenburg is a great site to launch South from, but if Alaska is acceptable then there are many possible launch locations there.
https://spaceflightnow.com/?s=astra