Piggybacking here as a broad response to some of the other comments. This parent article makes some un-sourced claims about what has happened in with the Space

Piggybacking here as a broad response to some of the other comments. This parent article makes some un-sourced claims about what has happened in with the SpaceX facility permitting process, and makes un-sourced claims about the motivations of why those things happened. I've dug into the claims about "what" happened, and have found that they check out. I have not been able to find sources about the "why" claims though. Here's a key paragraph with many "what" and "why" claims, by the parent article: > SpaceX convinced FAA to approve a site that would host launching the Largest Rocket in History under NEPA’s Environmental Assessment (EA) process, which is saved for projects that do not have a “significant impact” to the environment. This action was and is eyebrow-raising, as no major spaceport has ever been authorized under this process, always requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An EIS is the default multi-year approval process specified under NEPA. The FAA piggybacked on an existing 2015 authorization for SpaceX’s operation of 2-3 annual launches of the much smaller Falcon 9 rockets to forward this streamlined Starship “low impact” approval process through the system. I have found that: - There was one Environmental Impact Study (the longer, multi-year process) of the Texas SpaceX facility done in 2014 based on assumptions of use for only up to the Falcon Heavy rocket (17.532 MN of force). See here : https://www.faa.gov/space/environmental/nepa_docs/spacex_texas_eis https://www.faa.gov/space/environmental/nepa_docs/spacex_tex... - In 2021, the FAA carried out an "Environmental Assessment", a.k.a. a "Programmatic Environmental Assessment". An "Environmental Assessment" is meant to be a "brief but thorough" examination, with the outcome being a decision to either 1. Conduct a full "Environmental Impact Study" (EIS) or 2. a "Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI)" which means no EIS will be carried out. Source for the Environmental Assessment which came to a "Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI)": https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_star... Note also that the 2021 EA definitely does gesture broadly towards the 2014 EIS many times, without directly connecting the dots in a way that seems rigorous. I am sympathetic towards categorizing the EA as "piggybacking" on the 2014 EIS given what I've read in the 2021 EA. Something not mentioned in the parent, which seems like a GROSS oversight in the 2021 EA is that it justifies the FONSI by stating > "[SpaceX has redesigned the Raptor engines.] This change would not constitute any discernable changes in environmental impacts. An increase from 61.7 meganewtons (MN) to 74 MN would result in a less than 1 decibel change and would constitute a negligible change to the noise contours." But there's no source on where the 61.7 MN of force claim originally comes from, and how either of those new numbers (61.7 MN and 74 MN) relate at all to the original 2014 EIS maximum thrust of 17.532 Meganewtons. That seems like a LARGE jump, a tripling of the take off thrust, without any words spoken to how existing facilities or how environmental damages might change with the change in energy.