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Citing slow Starship reviews, SpaceX urges FAA to double licensing staff
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The Washington Post has a similar article out today:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/17/spacex-congress-licenses-faa-starship/
...with some additional interesting details, like FAA officials saying they agree with SpaceX, they just need the funding. And confirmation that consultation with FWS will delay the current Starship launch license until November.
Wayback machine helps with the paywall / sign in issues.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231017151515/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/17/spacex-congress-licenses-faa-starship/
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A thousand downvotes won't ever change your mind, will they?
But I am curious, what is your assumption in the counterfactual world in which SpaceX waited with the first flight and instead upgraded the launch mount first with the new deluge system. Would the second (and third) flight be quicker than in our world?
Things that would stay the same:
The launch mount still needed to be excavated and the new deluge system installed.
The FWS would still cause the same delay in examining waste water into the wetlands, just for the launch permission of the first flight instead of the second one now.
The flight termination system would still have failed and needed recertification (I think consensus is that this is the biggest item?).
Upgrading of quick disconnect arm and fire proofing the launch tower
And do we know if the deluge system was installed as planned or if the plan was upgraded after the first flight? I would think they overengineered now a bit just to be on the safe side. If there is the possibility that it could have been underengineered in the first place than there is the small risk in the parallel world, that while first launch did go better, SpaceX still underestimated it, and needed to redo all the concrete and rebar to upgrade, which is more work than doing it (hopefully) only once.
SpaceX needs to get to 2 or 2 1/2 month turns in the flight rate for Starship, and for orbital refueling tests, there needs to be a couple of launches only a few days apart.
The point higher up in the article about the log jam is not just Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship, but soon, New Glenn and Vulcan will also be draining the FAA's limited resources. It is very good that electronic filing and response has speeded up routine items like Falcon 9 launches but the Air Force, NASA, and maybe the Space Force have overlapping resources that can spread the workload, instead of doing duplicate work.
This is an issue that the whole launch industry can get behind, and unfortunately it’ll only get worse as more rockets become operational
That is their point yeah.
Yep, that is what the article said.
Sir, this is reddit. We don't read clickbaity articles before commenting on them.
We don't read articles, period. Skimming through the title is enough.
I actually just wait for the first comment to offer quotes and explanations to be perfectly honest
As someone who deals with a lot of federal permits, this is widespread - federal agencies drastically need more funding to be able to adequately review and provide the oversight that they were intended to have.
More funding? or less redtape? Maybe somewhere in the middle?
Perhaps, though most of the delays and issues I've had dealing with agencies like US Fish & Wildlife and the Corps of Engineers had far more to do with delays coming from that reviewer having a backlog of other things rather than steps I thought were unnecessary.
The United States has lost approximately 17 million acres of wet-dry lands since the mid-1950s... Thus the Western Snowy Plover, once at home in most of west coast has TWO homes remaining: San Clemente Island & 12% of their nesting area on the the Western Test Range (Vandenberg) both military reservations. To real estate Developers just exploitative wasteland. US Fish & Wildlife? Just one more captured regulator for most of 60 years. See Using Decision Science for Monitoring Threatened Western Snowy Plovers to Inform Recovery https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/2/569
More funding for more personnel. The federal government can't pay like private contractors can.
Most of the $2.0 billion for FY 2023 budget of US Fish & Wildlife is spent in support of Hunting and Sport Fish Restoration, the remaining 42% supports boating access and infrastructure, aquatic education, and coastal and wetland conservation. See https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45265.html
Funding is easy, the launch providers can pay. Any amount is trivial in the business of space.
More funding, more redtape. Corporations get away with murder.
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Well, when you make the most powerful rocket by a huge margin, things are going to break.
while at the same time elon doesnt want to pay his taxes and is supporting right wing politics that will gut these agencies.
Maybe you could ask your bosses to stop sending all that American money to crazy war mongers? I’m no math whiz, but a couple hundred billion could put at least a handful of people that can read into these positions.
I'm on the private consulting side, but the bosses at most agencies are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress, so if you have an issue with how they are run, vote.
Fully aware.
Elon should pay his taxes.
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He makes nearly all of his money via stock awards/exercising stock options. So he pays taxes at the time of the award or when exercising the option, but from then on he (from what I understand, and this is commonplace among the actually wealthy) borrows using his stock as collateral. So (unless he does something brash, like impulse purchasing a social media platform) he just lives off the loans, and rolls one loan into a new bigger one to keep on going. As long as the appreciation of your assets is higher than your loan interest rate, you can just keep doing this ad infinitum.
For now there is no tax on an appreciating asset until the time of a sale. So doing this loan thing means you don’t pay tax on your normal living expenses (other than sales and local taxes, property taxes, etc.). Most people get the money they pay for normal living expenses as taxable income. Truly wealthy people don’t, assuming they have a decent financial planner.
People always talk about that, and it does happen to some degree, but I don't think it's as big of a problem as people think it is. Bezos and Musk still sell billions of dollars of stock and pay according billions in taxes on it on a regular basis. Bezos in particular does that to raise the money he uses to fund Blue Origin. I'm all in favor of increasing taxes on the wealthy personally but I think the current system works plenty fine, the rate should just be higher.
That was a lot of words to say, "I didn't know that Elon has paid tens of billions of dollars in taxes. In fact, I had no idea that he has paid more in taxes than the combined payments of tens of millions of Americans. Wow! I learned so much today!"
I don't see the issue? Sooner or later the debt has to be paid and the assets are either sold or dividends paid. On a nation level economy it doesn't matter if a billionaire sells every year assets or every 5 years (or 50 years after death) there is a bigger cash out. We also probably want rich people to consume and stimulate the economy instead of living frugally (not from a moral standpoint, but from an economic one).
Functionally it is not different from a company financing an investment via loans, is it? Google and Fidelity Investments both own 8% of SpaceX, but my guess is they have the lowest book value possible of that asset on their balance sheet?
Elon paid over $10 billion in taxes in 2021.
Community notes ftw
He should pay 25% like the rest of us.
He paid 41%.
10b, 11b, 15b, Whatever. See https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/07/elon-musk-faces-a-15-billion-tax-bill-which-is-likely-the-real-reason-hes-selling-stock.html And [Musk] paid 53% taxes on my Tesla stock options, 40% Federal & 13% state taxes. See http://google.com/
The approval of new drugs by the FDA involves a lot of government bureaucrats. If you apply and wait you will wait many, many years. So, companies pay the FDA to hire as many people as necessary to move the process along. This was allowed by congress many years ago. I’m talking many millions of dollars paid to have the government evaluate the product you want to sell.
Bad precedent but that would easily work for the FAA and space
That's the exact opposite from with the FDA. It is also dramatically underfunded and understaffed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Za45bT41sXg
It would work until there is a disaster involving hired reviewers, that takes human life. Maybe that is a risk worth taking, because commercially supported reviewers do not necessarily have to be crooked.
The company is funding the FAA to hire more staff without actually supplying staff, FAA gets to choose their people. I'm ready to be convinced this could be a good thing. It would be a bad thing if that new special purpose staff finds reason to be easy on the company that is funding them. It's a matter of how this is structured.
Why not just increase the permit fees. You want a launch permit? Pay enough fees to support adequate employees to review the application.
Perhaps some sort of progressive fee, so as not to lock out smaller players trying new stuff?
How can they not? They know that if they aren't useful to SpaceX they would be fired (SpaceX stops funding), which is incredibly reasonable if they have to take care of their family with the salary they bring in.
I think it depends on whether it’s “here’s money, go hire additional qualified staff to complete the tasks per your process” or “we’ll pay for/delegate staff from our company to help you move things along” or worse “let our company take on some of the review tasks since we’re most familiar”.
That’s not how it works in the real world. Even if you just give money to the FAA to hire more staff, it means you now have a lot of power over the FAA, and yes it always leads to corruption and bad decisions. FAA should only be funded by the government
And didn't Boeing basicly do some of the government side of things themselves? Which didn't end well at all..
I don’t see how funding only by the government leads to anything different.
Corruption and bad decision-making skills are inherent in the person. The only difference is how to money is passed (i.e., direct or indirect bribe).
At least with direct funding by third parties you allow public market-forces to allocate oversight resources to those that needs it most urgently. The market knows better than some bureaucrat what the market needs.
Since 1983, the Government has turned away from regulating risk in many industries, and yet the October Aerospace Corp/FAA report, for example, argues that A global risk of >0.5 deaths per year is forcing regulators to intervene. See https://www.statnews.com/2015/12/11/untold-story-tvs-first-prescription-drug-ad/ And Acetaminophen overdose is the leading cause of Acute liver failure in the United States, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2504411/ and the leading cause of liver transplants, a growth industry:(
The FDA should definitely be doing something about acetaminophen.
The FAA has been highly successful, in civil aviation.
The biggest problem with this is that it is essentially a hidden in processing fee. If it used to take $1,000 to get my application approved now it takes $30,000 since I need to hire them a contractor to just work on my app. This means that smaller start up companies get priced out of the market and the agency comes to depend on these whale companies.
Furthermore, the outcome from those reviewers need to be substantially better than not hitting the renewal or else the company won't pay for it. As the agency comes to rely on these contractors more they wind up being forced to rubber stamp anything that the large companies ask for.
Well yeah... because ensuring that a manufacturer has truly met the legal burden of proving safety & efficacy of a drug for human use instead of phoning the deets in is actually a time-consuming and very involved process. It's the only way we can keep the market from devolving into a pile of race-to-cut-all-costs, snake-oil anecdotes where nobody knows what the fuck anything actually does. IMHO, only exception should be for compassionate care cases (e.g. terminally ill patients), but it's actually the manufacturer's that typically slow that particular process because they don't want to tank their stats on patients who are already on death's doorstep and therefore more likely to experience complications / die.
Similarly, I do actually kind of want someone to check out the engineering / calculations / emergency plans for ANY company that is about to launch 1.4 kilotons of metal into the air above us. We're talking about shit with enough kinetic/chemical energy to level a small city if things don't go according to plan (e.g. an abort failsafe is a dud). There's a reason we don't let people just yeet whatever they want into the airspace above us. IMHO, if SpaceX is singularly placing an undue burden on the regulatory agency due to their launch/development schedule, they should be on the hook for funding additional regulatory resources, not the tax payers that just want to avoid being crushed by Elon's shit.
SpaceX is placing an undue burden by actually doing what the government is asking them to do? This is an investment by the government into their own space capability and infrastructure. An investment that has already paid dividends time and time again as spacex cuts launch prices down. Why not use the half a bil saved on the Europa mission?
Tax payers already got more than we were expecting with the falcon 9 and heavy. Even hiring a few hundred people will never even come close to the savings on a single launch.
also a conflict of interest
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You hire consultants, who already have their own office space.
For 4x the cost, or more
Yep, just pointing out what SpaceX are advocating for in the article.
Is this how the vaccines were approved in months instead of years? Seems mistakes might have been made by those rushing things.
I think long term a better solution is to take this away from the FAA and create a new body for space flight only, things are only going to get busier
"For example, when SpaceX sought to move its tank farm at Launch Complex 39A in Florida, it submitted paperwork and received approval from both the US Space Force and NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The company was not seeking to move the fueling operations outside the fence line, but rather just to reposition them inside.
However, it also had to get approval from the FAA, and this, again, diverted resources away from reviewing Starship activity. Was this the best use of FAA resources when the Space Force and NASA had already signed off on the plans?"
this is absolutely WILD! why in the heaven's name would FAA need to sign off on this? can someone come up with any credible reasons?
Do you think the FAA is choosing to be understaffed? Feds don’t choose their budgets for personnel
The whole point is that they have been stagnating in a rapidly growing sector.
Old space operates at a snail's space so they dont particularly care but the new companies like spacex seek rapid prototype iterations and a high launch cadence. The FAA is just slowing things down. Waiting months for permission to test a rocket is detrimental for everyone involved.
No they always spend up to their budget. They requested more staff as part of the last budgeting process and were turned down.
Yes. They choose which departments get more funding. Right now they are underfunding this by having more workers doing something else.
If the FAA is short staffed, they need to balance the shortage across all departments. Screwing spacex over to avoid slow downs on the air travel side is bullshit. The FAA should not be picking and choosing.
the whole point is that this part of the process is pointless, shouldn't even be happening
Bullshit. If you read between the lines, they're saying FAA is mismanaged and doesn't care to prioritize.
They probably have enough people, but they're used to redtaping
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Work for a government agency for a year and come back to me
Hopefully this is just a lack of experience for the FAA and going through the process once means they'll be able to do it faster later on.
Otherwise this is a monumental government failure. Instead of enabling they are inhibiting.
Don't be hyperbolic, this isn't anywhere close to a "monumental government failure"; The US government has many "oopsies" that are far bigger in scope than some--let's be real here--marginal edge issue.
It's easy to forget because this is a small community of very hyper-focused people, but big picture, this is just childish whining about a something that everyone already knows. Like, "Oh no, SpaceX is waiting on a license to try something very dangerous that's never been done like this before and now they have to wait... a couple months!??!? The absolute horror! What a travesty of epic proportions!"
It would be a travesty, if, for example, there simply were no agency or process for something like this in 2023, but there is, and someone has to do it first, and that's just the way things are. Regulations and safety rules, particularly in Aerospace, were often literally written in blood, and they need to be respected. Sure, the scope of the industry has grown and this needs to be reflected in the size of the responsible government agency, but that's no reason to call this a "monumental failure". It's just sad that our forward thinking, progressive, and in-tune-with-the-times assembly of geriatric politicians haven't gotten to this yet.
Well if the claims/reports are to be believed, the large quantity of launches are causing the FAA to have to backburner some requests in favor of others.
If they are unable to perform their duties, they need to fix their process and possibly get more skilled individuals in place who can set up processes that work.
This should be a much clearer and defined process than what now appears to be a lot of bespoke artistic decision making.
It’s the second one.
Correct, that is what government regulations do.
In all fairness, not always. Good crafted regulations do help enable competition and innovation. I worked in electric vehicles and while some regulations are bad, others are good. As a regulator, you cannot make it perfect but it can be better than no regulations.
A lot of regulations are inhibitions written in blood. I’ll take safety over speed
This too.
Overall, we'll move faster with imperfect regulations we can tweak over time rather than being reckless and having deaths.
This is such a gross over generalization I can’t really even think of how to respond.
Haha govt bad
I have 20 years experience in the GA space
Yes the FAA could use funding and bla bla, the real issue is finding the actual humans that both can and are willing to do this job, requiring relevant experience and pay.
the problem is almost always just on one side: Pay. If you pay million a month, you will find almost anything and anyone. If you do not, it's just a question of how much more do you have to pay to find enough good staff. If it's too high for you, you can drop some requirements.
Bitch: We must de-fund the Govement. The only good Gov is a small Gov.
Moan: I depend on Gov services. Increase the size of Gov now!!
That's missing some of the points SpaceX made, they did recommend increasing staff but they also said the company is willing to fund contractors to do the work if government doesn't have the staff:
Also they pointed out that some of the work FAA did is duplicative and unnecessary:
BTW, the commercial space department of FAA (called AST) has an annual budget of $40~50M, so they're a very very small part of the federal budget, they're not what people are thinking of when they say we need a smaller government.
Every actual agency other than DOD, medicare/medicaid, and social security are a very small part of government.
No one raindrop is responsible for the flood.
Arguably it is damaging to our rights to allow government the authority to deprive us of our rights and then not give them adequate avenues to give them back to us.
Rights are not absolute in a democracy.
Or if you like there are countervailing rights for people to not have a rocket drop on their heads.
SpaceX is taking a constructive approach to say that government departments should have the resources to do their job efficiently.
They depend on government services in a sense that the government requires they use their licensing service. Now, it is reasonable to argue that government should be in charge of safety reviews and a government-issued license should be required. But that is a separate issue. If government didn't require SpaceX to obtain a license *from them*, SpaceX wouldn't depend on the government service. Mandating something and then saying someone depends on it is backwards logic.
Entirely correct. I find Musk's politics abhorrent, but there's no hypocrisy here.
In 1958, I believe that some students in Texas, supervised by their high school chemistry teacher, built a rather large solid rocket motor. I believe they were inspired by Sputnik. 7 students died in the explosion. This led to regulation of privately built large rockets.
Some regulation is a good thing.
First, I've not argued against regulation. I've disclaimed that demanding regulation is reasonable.
Second, that incident and SpaceX work shouldn't be regulated the same way. These are different situations and the issues would fall under the jurisdiction of different government agencies.
It's a good thing spacex isn't 7 high school kids in Texas, and they're a billion dollar company with a decades long track record of launching and landing rockets, and is quite literally the sole provider of human certified space flight to leo in the us.
I would personally argue that even with the faa regs right now, they're not actually stopping anyone from doing what those kids did. Best case scenario the only get involved after it's happened.
Kids did a dumb (but cool and admirable) thing, likely without any safety precautions
The relation between that and the operation commercial space launches is 0
Did you watch the Pythom Space video before they edited it to remove the obvious safety violations?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-its-rocket-with-questionable-safety-practices/
Ruining child space adventures forever
Seriously?!? That’s a terrible reason for regulation.
What do you mean? That is mostly how regulation starts in the USA. Someone gets killed, and the papers raise an outcry. Then, legislators respond, sometimes intelligently.
Around 1900, there was a fire in a clothing factory (the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory). Dozens of workers were killed. This led to fire regulations.
Around 1922, at the Radium Watch Dial Factory, someone notice the production line workers lived an average of 6 weeks, and they ~all died of the same kind of cancer. This led to regulations of radioactive materials.
In the late 1920s, there were so many plane crashes/deaths that congress established regulations and agencies to enforce flight regulations, to do research, and to improve aviation, as well as issue pilots licenses. This led to both the FAA and NASA.
I could go on about the FDA, the EPA, and OSHA, or go back in time and look at the Texas Railroad Commission, or other agencies.
What is your complaint?
So are we just gonna ignore government contracts?
You want to fly the government satellites, those are the ones that pay well, you gotta jump through the government hoops.
These aren't opposite sides of the argument. They are the same argument. People who are saying the government should be small also believe the regulations should be that much fewer. Whether this would be a good or a bad thing can be argued either way
Not necessarily that regulations should be fewer, but rather that they be SMARTER... we have seen this with OSHA, who once mandated backup beepers on equipment be so loud that they exceeded the allowable noise limits and required all workers to wear hearing protection... We should hold bureaucrats responsible to insure that regulations don't micromanage one problem while creating a bigger one elsewhere or get so all encompassing that they become useless; the California Prop 65? warning that has to be put on so many things due to microscopic trace components that all manufacturers have begun slapping it on EVERYTHING that even MIGHT contain a part per billion of something on the list.
I think you’re fundamentally over estimating the potential competence of government.
Out of curiosity, i havent been able to find any OSHA standard on how loud backup beepers should be, just that they are supposed to be audible, is there anything from them which says specifically how loud they should be? Because i remember seeing this mentioned before but I never recalled being able to find any sort of actual standard for it.
This was back in the 80s when OSHA was new and flexing their newfound power over EVIL industry and was stripped from the standard when companies went to Congress (and the press) and bitched... but as I recall, originally the backup beepers were specified at something like at least 20 db over the maximum sound of the equipment, which was allowed to be up to 70 db, and workers were required to wear hearing protection everywhere the noise level could exceed 80 db... and apparently nobody at OSHA did the math.
I never saw the standard itself, but when I worked at DOW, I remember the maintenance folks griping about having to replace all the backup beepers, being issued earmuffs for whenever I went out in the plant, and then the following year maintenance griping at replacing them again.
Exactly, people just so stubborn. Why everything get slow down on the governmental side, too much regulations and bureaucracy. And you combine that with limited resources. What do you expect to happen?
Regulations are written in blood.
Many or most are, but there's exceptions. The article points out:
Just maybe there's some things the FAA shouldn't need to approve if both the US Space Force and Kennedy Space Center already approved.
I mean that’s ever much a case of “mom said it’s okay to do X” when dad needs to check on it
Also: Too much federal spending is wasted!
The people who are in charge of auditing and verifying that money isn't wasted have had their budgets cut too. My friend's department hasn't had any staff increases in over 20 years, yet they have to manage the finances of more projects than when she was first hired 20 years ago when they had a larger staff. They can't attract good candidates to fill positions either due to the difficult work environment (high work load and the relatively high odds of government shutdowns happening at some point, causing you to go without pay for extended periods at a time).
If the FAA didn’t require this process to take place then the Moan category of your post wouldn’t exist.
This is a problem caused by big government which could be solved easily by narrowing the scope of government.
Small government isn't a government that has lots of regulations and few people to work on that, thus getting in the way of progress. Small government is a government that has little regulations so that a few people are enough to work on that quickly, so that private entities can progress without obstacles.
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I didn't argue in favour or against small government. I merely explained the concept
They don’t depend on gov services. Gov is requiring them to use their slow services.
spacex does not depend on govt services. they are required to submit to the faa's whims for no technical reason whatsoever. spacex would be much happier if the faa just ignored them entirely.
Wouldn't doubling FAA staff solve absolutely nothing as we are now waiting on FWS rather than the FAA?
Yes - more staff for FWS as well. Or more likely external consultants for FWS who then just pull together and review the final report.
This is why I have said over and over again there should have always been an exemption under NEPA rules for high technology and nationally strategic industries, of which SpaceX is both.
That would require taxes. Maybe just dissolve the FAA since the market would regulate itself anyway. /s
If you read the article, SpaceX are suggesting that applicants be allowed to opt in to pay for whatever external consultants the FAA want to hire to help them expedite the review process.
That’s an interesting proposition. If you remember the Boeing debacle the root source of the problem was that Congress asked for the FAA to get more expedited reviews and the use of the Boeing analysis was a problem.
This might work but it could have a similar problem depending on how much control SpaceX has on how and where the money goes. I would expect at some point someone to state that the FAA process for these experts is slowing things down and that they should be given more freedom to improve and accelerate it. In a sense it risks a different type of regulatory capture.
If you let the one being regulated to control financially the regulatory process do you really have a regulatory agency or just a rubber stamp?
I don’t know how antagonistic the process has gotten with all the political noise Elon has been making. Putting public pressure I don’t think works either. I know civil servants will not bend over process. If they do then they get fired. It’s usually the political appointees that do and move one before the shit hits the fan. If the process needs updating then there is a process for that. It does take time. There are industry associations that do they exactly.
My experience is on the drone side and we have been working together with ASME and IEEE and the FAA in developing standards that better fit things like electrical propulsion and vehicles without a pilot onboard. So far it’s been many years of piecemeal work. The problem is that you are trying to change the tire while the car is going around and being replaced by a new car at the same time. Maybe the political and public pressure is warranted but then congress should fund the work to review and update the process and give the FAA a clear mandate.
Sorry… which Boeing debacle? Starliner or 737MAX?
Star liner has nothing to do with the FAA or regulations. Very snarky though, it makes a good try to imply that regulation is not needed because it didn’t keep Boeing from doing a botched job of fulfilling a contract with NASA. It’s a logical fallacy though. I guess you want what you want and you want it now. Do you blame the FAA for starliner failure to launch?
I can hire a midwife to help deliver, but it won't make the baby come any sooner.
It seems like there would be a lot of overhead in making sure the consultants are doing their work properly, because the FAA are the ones that have to accept responsibility. When the job is oversight, you kind of have to do it yourself.
Some managers in fact know what their team does on a technical level and are capable of reviewing and checking the work of a team. The team gets more work done than if the manager had been the only person doing any work on the task. SpaceX has three different launch vehicles and the amount of work that's requiring of the FAA is now a problem. The solution isn't the same number of people doing more work. The solution is staffing up and dividing the work for three different launch vehicles.
It's a rational critique by SpaceX but I suspect some of the delay from the FAA is old fashioned slow walking. They're under a lot of political pressure to give the appearance of "keeping Musk in check".
Even if the FAA had been actively following SpaceX and been a direct part of all the upgrades in the past few months, immediate approval would have been bad optics for the agency.
That's the real issue until more granular process details reveal otherwise.
Probably not far off. Also they don’t want another lawsuit so they need to cover some extraneous bases. The FAA are not the bad guys. For the most part they are aviation enthusiasts themselves. But the government does little if anything efficiently. Why would they? Unfortunately they’re a necessary evil sometimes. Let’s hope they can learn to streamline because I don’t think congress is in the mood to spend more. But when you’re $30 trillion in debt what’s a few hundred million?
This way they get cover either way:
Goes well: See, our process worked!
Goes sub optimally: See, our process would have worked but SpaceX made us!
Clear fabrication propagated in echo chambers.
It’s not that I wouldn’t believe it if evidence were presented, it’s that the premise is unsophisticated and comes from a group of people sucking down Elon libertarianism and/or deep state conspiracies. The dynamic of SpaceX with the FAA, NASA and other federal agencies is not comparable to the relationship between our last President and the department of justice
Come on. It's no secret biden hates musk's guts
i doubt biden personally has the mental capacity for that right now, but his cabinet for sure does.
Yeah everyone knows the REAL enforcer political appointees go to the FAA when they want free reign to crack the skulls of the opposition.
Lol wut? He might have pissed off military intelligence last year, why do you weirdos think these politicians are so obsessed? It’s such a simplistic narrative. Some members of Joe Biden’s cabinet probably have to think about Elon Musk, and rightly have to hope he doesn’t do or say something else that makes SpaceX’s deep deep relationships with civil or military space suddenly completely untenable. Even then, are Democrats going to lose votes successfully going to the moon? Successfully thwarting musks attempt at going to the moon? If you believe the latter, you need help. There are almost 0 non-pragmatic successful federal politicians. Time to grow up
It's just observation about biden's admin lack of work with musk - for example, refusal to invite tesla to the big electro car meeting in White House. CEOs of Ford, GM, all of the big ones were invited. Not musk, CEO of biggest EV manufacturer by far.
Or the SpaceX lawsuits by DOJ. Or the other stuff. Ever since twitter takeover (admittedly stupid idea by elon, yes) - there was nonstop press offensive against musk. Mostly from democrat-affiliated media.
Which, fair, they can dislike whoever they want, but I think US government is shooting itself in the foot hard by sabotaging SpaceX specifically. This company is so much bigger than musk
If that is true they are abusing their position to do these decition and they can go and fuck themselfes. But No one that do not work there can know if they are avtualy doing that
A Falcon launch on average every 4 days!?! IDK why that statistic vs 90 launches in a year sounds so much more impressive.
It is frightening what kind of ugly comments you can read here about a company that you cheered and idolized just a short time ago. SpaceX has brought back real innovative space travel to the United States. Without SpaceX, American astronauts would still be freeloading with the Russians. Now SpaceX is aiming for new big goals. But what will become of it if the government does not provide adequate support ? Quite simply, the Chinese will overtake America in all and simply leave it standing. One always swings big words but at the same time does everything to let America fail in the end. I think such a company as SpaceX has America not fourdient. If it were possible, they should pack their bags and move to another country. And what I do not understand is that many users here always talk only about Elon Musk. SpaceX consists of thousands of hard-working and above all innovative employees. Should it all be in vain in the future just because it's very cool to rant about Elon on the Internet. I can only shake my head.
It is absurd how much this process has been delayed by bureaucracy
If the FAA really wants to get it done, it will find away. I think someone is slowing it down for political points.
Serious question: What could be more important for the FAA licensing staff than a new rocket?
Big government hampering the progress of mankind again, but sadly even most space fans are bigger big government fans, as will be proven in the replies below:
Maybe Republicans should stop slashing government funding, if they expect these departments to operate smoothly.
Or maybe we should just slash the regulations along with the departments.
Spoken like someone who clearly doesn’t understand why regulations exist.
Do you like having a house? This is a giant bomb that could come down in a long arc of locations and annihilate entire neighborhoods.
Do you like being able to fly without daily accidents? The insane number of planes in the air every day all get to where they’re going because of strict regulations.
Any time anybody says maybe we should have a less regulation. Somebody comes along with the 'ah you want there to be no regulation and the private SpaceX police force is allowed to do public executions'.
Regulation just because its exists doesn't mean its optimal. And bureaucratic processes tend to increase and become ossified. Regulation made at one time might have made sense but might not make sense anymore. And sometimes regulations never made sense to begin with.
I can't say if this is the case here as I don't know enough about the FAA internal processes. But given that the amount of private spaceflight has been increasing and will increase again, makes it reasonable to not relay on regulations made much earlier. That could very well mean removing some processes and maybe adding others.
In flight, many cycle of regulatory changes happened and not all were successful. Given the US is the first country to have a real private space flight industry, many of those things need to be figured out.
In road transport, absolutely horrifyingly bad regulations have exited for 60 years and have literally killed 100000s of people without them being meaningfully adjusted. And less regulation would actually be good, because then at least responsible road engineers could their jobs.
So just slash all regulation and all department is not the answer, but neither is the 'all regulation exist for a reason'.
Nobody said all regulation was good or should be kept. You suggested “slashing regulation.” Not re-evaluating. Not “considering,” but “slashing.”
Do you believe there aren’t smart people at the FAA? Do you believe there aren’t lots of parties lobbying all the time to have regulations removed, and challenging them in court? Do you suppose that all the people at the FAA are dumb, and just enjoy fighting in court to keep regulations that have no purpose?
I strongly suspect you’ll find things are hotly debated, the people there are long-term professionals, and most all of the rules on the books that are enforced are there for good reason.
Ah yes, because the only reason people don’t do unsafe things is because of regulations. Like I’d love to drive the wrong way on the road but damn - there’s a law against it.
And I’m sure airline crashes (or a reputation for having them) don’t harm business at all.
I’ll take one more stab at talking some sense, and then let you go on your merry way.
It came to light recently that Musk has been trying to foist full self driving on the public that everyone inside Tesla knew wasn’t ready. It tried to kill musk himself. And yet, they kept promising the public it would be ready any day now.
Boeing pushed a plane on the public that had flaws and people died. They are in hot water over it. Companies doing short sighted things for short-term profits that executives can cash in on and move to their next jobs before the lawsuits land is a phenomenon as old as time. That’s a major reason why regulation exists.
Further, airspace is a public asset, and safety in that airspace during launches needs to be heavily coordinated. SpaceX doesn’t own the airlines, airlines don’t know what SpaceX is doing……..and that’s why independent authorities need to exist for the public good.
None of this is new, novel, or hard to understand, so I have to assume you’re intentionally pretending you don’t understand how the world works.
Good day to you.
Hate to be that guy (not really), but maybe listen to your own engineers and scientists and DONT blow up your launch pad… then act like the FAA is the reason a project has taken several months to get back to launch form. Not only did they need to fix the damages, then rebuild the entire platform, but now it needs to be recertified.
I know the FAA has its issues, but we all saw this coming. His own team saw this coming. It was pure ego that led to this.
The fact they could rebuild the entire launch facility in less time than the faa can push paper around is not the indictment you believe it to be.
Why is it a competition? These aren’t done in parallel. Nor are they meant to be comparable timetables. Rebuild had to finish in order for the re-certification process to begin. Period.
How long did it take them to rebuild the pad? 4 months? 5?
You know the saying “your lack of planning is not my emergency”. This is exactly that. Elon is throwing a toddler fit for something known (how long it takes to re-certify) and completely dodging his role in causing this.
PS: this would be like being late to a major airport then complaining about long lines because you missed the flight.
Because they FAA has made it that way.
The regulatory process certified the previous, obviously sub-optimal launch facility. After everything went tits up, as anticipated by literally everyone, spacex have rebuilt, upgraded, and re-engineered so many aspects of the ships and infrastructure it can't be listed here. If the previous experimental launch was unsafe, why did they certify it? And now that hundreds of upgrades have been made, what is the point of them pushing the same paper around, coming to the same conclusion as last time, and allowing the next experimental launch only 6 months later than it should have happened? All this does is make it such that the next rounds of upgrades take longer to produce. Because they will certify eventually. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.
I am so fucking sick of the FAA pretending falling rocket debris is a matter national danger. China has been dropping rockets full of god damn hydrazine on their own country for decades. Now, granted, it's China. You can't really take their word for much, but I know there hasn't been any fatalities associated with their boosters falling onto populated places. The greatest risk with any of these launches from Boca is it detonating on the pad. And if spacex wants to nuke their pad, they can be my guest. It's the risk you run when you make experimental rockets.
I care significantly more about the environmental review than I do the safety. SpaceX has a track record at this point.
Yeah dude.. I stand by what I say. I read all of that and it sounds like deflecting blame.
If Elon knew exactly what you wrote, why not listen to his engineers and 60 years of evidence and not blow the launch pad to smithereens? A rocket failing is expected, these are test vehicles.
I’m not saying the FAA isn’t a candidate for examination here. Why does it take so long? Can SpaceX is some way fund to speed up the process.
If this is reliant on tax dollars, then fuck no I don’t want to pay just so that Elon can launch (blow) things up faster. What benefit is it to society that it takes him longer to build a higher revenue product?
If you (Elon Musk) know the rules of the game, you’re the dumb dumb to not make decisions that would prioritize your interests and priorities. He chose to go with a design that would likely fail over the decision of building a platform that would survive the launch and be ready to go immediately. In other words, he decided that time to rebuild and recertify was acceptable at the expense of potentially discovering a less costly and complex launch pad.
yep. that guy.
If no one says it then we’re all playing the fool. This thing should have launched months ago.
I mean, SpaceX demonstrated they were playing way too loose with safety on the last one - self-destruct systems failing feels like a good enough reason to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb.
No, bad idea. Doubling the licensing staff will only double the number of people who have to sign off on the license.
I think there is no need for the FAA at all for non-human flights that pose literally no risk for any human lives. Just let them launch as many Starships as needed. This will make it way safer in the end.
They need to protect humans and property on the ground against the risk of the vehicle going off course or blowing up on the launch pad as the nearest habitation is 5 miles (8 km) away and some of the viewing areas are closer.
However in this case the delays are due to the environmental approvals being done by the FWS.
They are working against SpaceX FUCK THE FAA!!!!!!!!
Personally I can’t imagine that the number of FAA employees has anything to do with the response times. There simply is zero motivation or urgency for the FAA to approve licenses in a timely manner or to ever improve their processes. In other industries, whatever corp will employee a large Compliance Department, and offer personnel at FAA cushy positions in that department after they retire from the Federal Government. I’m not suggesting that SpaceX go down that shitty path of bribery, I’m just saying that is how it’s done in numerous other Federal Agencies.
People that are down voting you never had to deal with a federal agency approval. No amount of money makes it faster when no one is getting fired for poor performance. Dumping more money with no accountavility only incentivises poorer performance.
The delay is intentional. It’s unfortunate that more people don’t realize it so there would be pushback.
FAA chief annoyed SpaceX would ask it to add another staff to licensing Starship launch.
The Chief of the FAA is probably saying, “exactly! That’s what we were saying!” Any manager would love to have more staff, believe me.
As I understand it, the current problem concerns primarily standardization procedures according to a well-known list of criteria?
Then why not just make a public or semi-public database with very strict rules and very large fines for breaking them? With quality control not by quantity but by random checks and statistical indicators.
In other words, straightaway make a system with unlimited scalability and minimal bureaucratization.
No the issue is that the Starship system is very new and the launch site has only been in use for a few years rather than 70 years for Cape Canaveral so there are some very non-standard, non-routine evaluations that have to be done.
SpaceX is facing challenges that extend beyond aerospace engineering and delve into land development issues. The FAA should focus on its core competencies and leave land development oversight to agencies with specialized expertise and qualified inspectors. The FAA's practice of opening reviews for public comments is a ridiculous practice that complicates the process unnecessarily.
This situation is akin to state environmental agencies attempting to set their own standards for object heights near airports, or regulating lighting on towers and airport layouts, while also subjecting every project to public scrutiny.
Moreover, the FAA maintains an on-site presence, but the individual assigned lacks the specialized training that a Professional Engineer (PE) with over a decade of experience in site development would bring.
Some responsibility also lies with SpaceX's civil engineering team or the consulting firm they've engaged. For instance, they could have advocated for more ecologically sound solutions, such as rejecting an unnecessary detention pond for deluge water and incorporating native plant landscaping, especially in wetland areas.
The FAA's oversight appears to be severely lacking. It's evident that their representative is not a civil engineer, as evidenced by their undue concern over water deluge into an existing wetland, which essentially serves as a natural detention pond and sand filter.
SpaceX's deluge water is being discharged into a natural detention pond that also acts as a sand filter. The facility could be further improved by planting local plant life in areas that won't be affected by rocket launches. The volume of water discharged by the deluge system is minimal compared to what the area receives during normal run of the mill rainfall events.
Different proposal:
response deadline set in law. The agency gets 30 days to respond. If they take more than 30 days, then whatever is being requested is auto-approved. If they respond rejecting incompletely then a court can decide if they didn't do their jobs properly and approve it as well.
Then give the agency whatever funding the government decides is fit, and they can decide which applications to review, which to reject, and which are sufficiently low risk to simply let get auto-approved after 30 days.
There must be an application fee to prevent flooding the application process with applications hoping that some get through.
Some tech companies do management this way (except usually 3 days rather than 30), and it generally works well.
Letting Boeing self-certify their planes worked out great. Surely it'll be fine for SpaceX /S
were you dropped on your head as a child? literally nobody is asking for spacex to self certify... they're asking for more staffing at FAA to do the certification.
Why the insults?
that level of stupidity kinda justifies it.
This whole thing is utter BS. The FAA granted a launch license for the April attempt. The OLM and Starship are in far better condition, far more advanced with a much higher likelihood of a successful mission than in April. There’s a mountain of data to prove exactly this, so what’s the problem? The idea that Fish and Wildlife can hold up this project is nothing short of insane, no individual on the planet had done more to combat global warming than Elon Musk.
Biden has publicly made it clear he wants Musk “investigated” (political speak for cancelled), since Elon wandered off the plantation with his purchase of Twitter and commitment to free speech (which is apparently now a bad thing). The deep state is now hard at work trying to shut Musk down at every turn.
If SpaceX wants to move Star Base to another country to avoid this persecution he has my full support.
This is what happens when rich people don't pay taxes.
This is what happens when Redditors dont have a clue and then post
Elon paid 12 billion in taxes lmao
Lol, that's nonsense. Compared to medical, social and military this is an almost infinity small amount. This is an allocation problem not a money problem.
Maybe Elon can provide the funding.
I think there is evidence that you have not read the article - that was indeed the suggestion from SpaceX.
Citing many Starship explosions, FAA urges SpaceX to double engineering staff
Guess the FAA have gotta be super careful now, they let the Boeing 737 MAX fly after one crash,then we had another one,Ooops !
That's exactly what I was saying for some time now.
If I were Musk, I'd move the commercial side of spaceX to a friendlier allied country, with a swifter regulatory process (mexico, UK islands in caribbean, maybe french guayana)
I'm surprised he hasn't already, TBH.
Not possible due to US Export Rules
Ok, but rules can be changed.
Is musk going to pay more in taxes to pay those people?
As an individual making less than 250k a year I don't think my tax bracket should be paying for rocket launch approval.
This feels like a 0.01% issue to me.
Pay for it.
What a stupid position to take. An increase in government spending is not viewed favorable in this economy and if SpaceX pays for them it opens up a whole different topic of private companies controlling supposedly independent institutions. So either way, not gonna happen.
Increasing FAA spending for this department would be a percent of a percent of a percent of the federal budget
Like, Starship the video game that just came out?
Maybe if Elon paid his taxes the FAA could afford to hire more staff.
Raise taxes on Elon specifically to pay for ot
Raise taxes on the guy who paid the highest tax bill in history ?
When you fight tooth and nail to not pay taxes then complain about govt not providing services
They going to pay more in taxes to support such a staff increase? That money has to come from somewhere, and I doubt there are enough Reps or Senators willing to push legislation that increases funding for at best, a minor department.
The SpaceX suggestion was that there should be an "expedited license fee" which could be used to pay external consultants and hire additional staff.
So pay for service rather than more government funding.