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That's really not true, there's not a lot of open east-facing coastland anywhere in the US. Basically all coastlands are protected! The only "safe" place to l
by justrealist 3y ago
That's really not true, there's not a lot of open east-facing coastland anywhere in the US. Basically all coastlands are protected!
The only "safe" place to launch is in Florida on land that was grandfathered into being an EPA-free zone back in the 1960s by NASA.
- sidewndr46 3y agoAlmost like regulatory capture is a real thing. East facing also isn't even remotely a requirement for a launch, Israel launches westward on a regular basis
- bell-cot 3y agoLaunching westward - on the Earth, from a non-polar site, to non-polar orbits - carries a large delta-v penalty, which translates into a huge payload penalty.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoAnd they lose about 20% of their cargo capacity because they're fighting the Earth's spin rather than taking advantage of it. It's not like the west coast has large stretches of undeveloped unprotected land either. The only real alternative is Alaska, and that's suboptimal for other reasons.
- elteto 3y agoThey aren't launching West because they want to, but because they _have_ to. A quick peek at the map will tell you why.
- nine_k 3y agoLaunching westwards is working against the rotation of Earth, not the cheapest approach. Israel just does not have a large body of water, or a,large desert, to let the spent booster descend (or crash) into. I bet their launches all turn eastwards after reaching sufficient altitude.
- RecycledEle 3y agoBeing able to launch from somewhere does not make that place an optimal location.
- sidewndr46 3y agoCorporations aren't entitled to optimality at the expense of the environment
- pixl97 3y agoYou're telling me your giving up your car, and your computers, and everything else you use that comes with an environmental cost. What's worse is non-optimal launches will have far more environmental impact because you have to do more of them or use more fuel. Talk about cutting off your own nose.
- justrealist 3y agoWhat SpaceX is doing in Boca Chica is completely irrelevant compared to other environmental damage being done completely legally ex, in Louisiana by shipping and the oil industry, simply because it is grandfathered in. Like, literally dredging thousands of acres of wetlands into the gulf as regular business. Everything that happens affects the environment somehow, but the scrutiny here is wildly disproportionate to the actual impact, of disrupting a couple acres of beach. The "corporation" of SpaceX is a unique national asset that no other nation currently has, and it provides incredible value to US citizens to maintain that edge (Starlink alone, and Starship would give us a launch capacity that dwarfs Russia or China). That matters! That's important! This isn't a "corporations vs the people" issue. Industrial policy requires thoughtful tradeoffs, and this FAA/EPA action isn't one.
- snovv_crash 3y agoThis. SpaceX gives the US unique advantages that the wildlife on this beach doesn't. I'm surprised the DoD hasn't already overridden the EPA on this for matters of national security.
- manquer 3y agoThere is 1000s of miles of coast on the Atlantic, hard to believe there no other easier location on the entire Eastern seaboard. I understand that there will be a performance penalty at higher latitudes, however that really shouldn’t matter to what bocca chica is used for by spaceX - FAA would never give licenses 100s of launches from Texas ever, volume is always planned from be Florida , just for experimental flights the penalty shouldn’t be a factor, - given the order of magnitude change in payload capacity with Starship and reusability the performance factor shouldn’t really be critical even for production ? The current , past and inevitable future delays at Bocca Chica is costing spaceX a lot , they are cash flow positive and far ahead of competition so they can afford it, but this is certainly does not look like the most optimal plan .
- RecycledEle 3y ago> certainly does not look like the most optimal plan Name a better place.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey did, right in their comment; "volume is always planned from be Florida".
- RecycledEle 3y agoOne explosion of the wrong kind in the wrong place, and most of the US' space launch capacity is shut down. That's why R&D is in Texas.
- manquer 3y ago> volume is always planned to be from Florida I feel doubly embarrassed making a grammar mistake, now that you quoted including that mistake and all :)
- justrealist 3y ago> hard to believe Yes, it is hard to believe, if you've done no research and choose to believe whatever you want.
- rtkwe 3y ago[flagged]
- chasd00 3y agoSpacex is building a starship launch facility there too. They’re expecting that to be the main launch location with boca Chica being used for r/d.
- RecycledEle 3y agoOne really bad accident could shut down Kennedy and Cape Canaveral for a year. Experimental work must be done in Boca Chica.
- rtkwe 3y agoThere's a lot of empty land at Kennedy to provide separation between the experimental testing and the normal launches.
- pixl97 3y agoSo what you're saying is that SpaceX should shut everything down each time they launch a falcon 9... of with they do an insane number of times per year. When launches happen there they interrupt everything.
- rtkwe 3y agoIf that's going to be a problem with testing it's going to be a problem if/when they actually start using Super Heavy as something other than a debris machine...
- pixl97 3y ago>as something other than a debris machine Comments like this is why governments don't make their own rockets these days. "OMG the test article blew up, how could that possible happen!"
- pavon 3y agoI don't think NASA's Kennedy Space Center, nor Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are exempt from EPA regulations. SpaceX has had to perform Environmental Impact Studies for all of their launch sites there as well.
- xxpor 3y agoNEPA and the EPA are separate things.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoWhy not launch from Puerto Rico or USVI? Island logistics too challenging?