4 ms·
It's absurd how these licenses are not fast-tracked by the government. This is one of the greatest technological assets the US have over other nations. It boggl
by jupp0r 2y ago
It's absurd how these licenses are not fast-tracked by the government. This is one of the greatest technological assets the US have over other nations. It boggles my mind how the US government is shooting itself in the foot here if you compare it against other national security projects run by the government itself.
- foobarqux 2y agoThey have had years to apply for the permits, no fast tracking was necessary, they just didn't feel like doing it.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe first Environmental Impact Statement was completed in 2014.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> have had years to apply for the permits In the way they have time to apply for licenses for an eventual Mars landing, yes. The practical timer started with IFT-4.
- foobarqux 2y agoWhat are you talking about? They knew or should have known they would need these permits for years. ESGHound pointed it out years ago. This isn't a surprise that was dropped on them. Every other launch facility somehow managed to do it without any significant problems.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> knew or should have known they would need these permits for years Link to the ESGHound source?
- foobarqux 2y agohttps://blog.esghound.com/p/elon-musk-really-hates-getting-permits https://blog.esghound.com/p/elon-musk-really-hates-getting-p...
- ripjaygn 2y ago> the world’s most visibly divorced man What does this even mean? Sounds like a really unbiased source.
- foobarqux 2y agoI think you are right to ignore the ad-hominems and stick to the facts he presented.
- ripjaygn 2y agoThe pure vitriol and ad hominems ensure that facts against their narrative will not be presented.
- foobarqux 2y agoI'm sure you are intelligent enough to read his arguments and then go search out contradicting arguments and figure out for yourself which make more sense.
- ripjaygn 2y agoHis arguments like this? https://x.com/esghound/status/1511730625333665799 https://x.com/esghound/status/1511730625333665799 He's worthless as a source and not worth paying attention to.
- foobarqux 2y agoThat's funny because he predicted that they were in violation of the Clean Water Act a year ago, while people like you kept saying it was bullshit. It seems like there is definitely someone not worth listening to but it isn't him.
- jupp0r 2y agoThey need to apply for a license for each launch.
- mlindner 2y agoThey did not have years to apply for anything. You can't apply for something you don't know you were planning to do. Also the FAA is overloaded and can't handle applications for all possible plans. So they need to pick and choose and if plans change because of new developments then they need to apply again.
- caseyy 2y agoPeople really love SpaceX and Tesla on HN. It is generally difficult to present a counter-opinion. Even with good evidence. I’m not sure why that is. Techno-optimism perhaps.
- jiggawatts 2y agoThe arguments seem to be that SpaceX ought to have used their time machines to go back several years to request a permit for something they've only just now started doing, something new and unique never before done by the entire human race. "Why did you not know the results of your tests and the outcome of your multi-year R&D project a decade ago!? Are you incompetent?" -- said by someone unable read a few dozen pages of text faster than 60 days.
- jupp0r 2y agoThere are environmental concerns, I get it, but this feels a little bit like delaying the Manhattan project for a year because the test detonation would endanger some birds in the desert.
- georgeg23 2y agoMaybe it's not about birds if it's about nukes.
- dylan604 2y agoNor was it about the people down wind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downwinders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downwinders
- jfengel 2y agoThe Manhattan project was about winning a war. Is there any comparable pressing issue here?
- JonChesterfield 2y agoThe most obvious pressure would be China's space exploration program. If it turns out that there's useful stuff outside our atmosphere, America doesn't want their economic rival in control of it. Also - if our species doesn't make it off-planet before the current one is rendered uninhabitable, it's curtains for us all. So that's a pressure of a sort.
- jltsiren 2y agoThat's what you get when the Congress is too divided to pass laws, while the Supreme Court keeps telling the executive branch to stop inventing new interpretations of existing laws. If nobody is capable of setting national priorities, regulators just keep doing whatever they are doing.
- jupp0r 2y agoI'm not convinced new legislation is even needed to fix this. All of these agencies are controlled by the executive branch of the government.
- 7e 2y agoI'm not convinced it is a problem, more like regulators doing their job.
- jupp0r 2y agoYou could argue that their job is to get this approved ASAP if it's in the interest of the nation.
- concordDance 2y agoYou don't see it as a problem that it takes five months to reaffirm that the equivalent of rain is in fact okay to leak into the ocean?
- sterlind 2y agoRegulators can't even keep doing what they're doing, because what they were doing was publishing rules to resolve ambiguities in legislation, and now the Court system has preempted that privilege. Loper-Bright has turned the existing body of regulations into a target-rich environment. Every agency rule can be challenged, possibly overturned, applying retroactively. Libertarians may cheer at this, but not so fast. The edge cases and particulars of laws aren't abolished, they're just fuzzy. You can't be sure you're complying with the law, even if the regulatory body says you're in the clear. You're at the mercy of judges who know nothing about the field they're ruling over. The chaos of legal uncertainty will grind the permitting of new technologies to a halt, as the regulators wait for Congress or the Courts to clarify how old laws apply to new circumstances before issuing any licenses. Remember Oracle v. Google? How octogenarian Justices struggled to understand what an API was, when they could barely open their email? Imagine that, applied to the entire US code.
- mempko 2y agoYou do realize this is a government funded project right? If the government wants to delay it by 2 months for environmental reasons, they can. It's not like Musk is paying for this himself and they are getting in the way.