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> At times, these roadblocks have been driven by false and misleading reporting, built on bad-faith hysterics from online detractors or special interest groups

by amluto 2y ago

> At times, these roadblocks have been driven by false and misleading reporting, built on bad-faith hysterics from online detractors or special interest groups who have presented poorly constructed science as fact. People reading this should remember that Flight 1 was preceded by hysterics from online detractors who predicted, correctly, that the launch would make a giant mess. The FAA ignored them and allowed the launch anyway. The Wikipedia article would like to remind us that it wasn’t a toxic mess, but it was still a mess. Given the lack of any acknowledgement of that incident in this PR piece, I’m a bit disinclined to fully trust it. And I can certainly see why regulators would like to give stakeholders 60 days to comment on what might go wrong, since SpaceX’s history of predicting what will go wrong with Starship launches is a bit tarnished.

sirspacey 2y ago
A bit tarnished with verified remediation is the regulatory framework we need to be aiming at precisely because a 60 day delay for a regulatory review process is an enormous cost on an operation of this scale.
- 7e 2y ago
  Not at all. Elon wastes much more money on his "fuck around and find out" method of engineering^H^H^H accretion. A million monkeys could do it better and more cheaply.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    R&D looks like wasted money, doesn’t it?
    - 7e 2y ago
      Real R&D is a treasure. That’s not what Elon does. That’s slinging slop.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        SpaceX doesn't do R&D? You're unhinged.
valianteffort 2y ago
Flight 1 made a mess of their own launch pad. Why is that the concern of anyone besides SpaceX? They refurbished and reinforced it for flight 2.
- amluto 2y ago
  It's not clear to me exactly how far the mess extended, but this seems well past "their own launch pad": https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/12v7qsp/view_of_the_starship_rocket_throwing_concrete/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/12v7qsp/view_of_the...
  - vatueil 2y ago
    The video is of cars parked next to the launch pad area, taken by remotely operated cameras. No one was endangered. Also, as dramatic as it looks, it is hardly an environmental disaster. I daresay paving over the land with asphalt and concrete had a larger impact. And there have already been several launches since then. Those went more smoothly and were not delayed. The reasons for the delay this time have nothing to do with this.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      How quick your argument went from "what are you talking about, the only damage was to the launch pad" to "yeah, so it flung chunks of concrete into the ocean miles away, hit cars parked at the facility and stuff, but so what?"
      - vatueil 2y ago
        I am not the previous commenter, and your description of the video is inaccurate. The point that the launch did not cause major environmental issues remains true. The fact that subsequent launches were approved demonstrates as such. I would also point out that other rocket launches routinely dump their boosters containing solid or liquid fuel in the ocean.
vatueil 2y ago
> give stakeholders 60 days to comment I want to point out that while giving people time to comment sounds harmless, it's actually a systemic problem that's at the root of many issues. Allowing special interest groups to delay development is a major reason why it's nearly impossible to build anything on time and on budget in the US. If they don't cancel the project outright, or prevent it from starting in the first place via chilling effects, then the delays increase the price tag enormously. Jerusalem Demsas at The Atlantic often writes about this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/local-government-community-input-housing-public-transportation/629625/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/local-gove... > Development projects in the United States are subject to a process I like to call “whoever yells the loudest and longest wins.” Some refer to this as participatory democracy. > Across the country, angry residents and neighborhood associations have the power to delay, reshape, and even halt entirely the construction of vital infrastructure. To put a fine point on it: Deference to community input is a big part of why the U.S. is suffering from a nearly 3.8-million-home shortage and has failed to build sufficient mass transit, and why renewable energy is lacking in even the most progressive states. > . . . > Every new development has so-called negative externalities: Construction is always annoying, trains can be loud and unsightly, wind farms may obstruct ocean views, and for some the simple knowledge that a nearby home is actually a duplex is enough to ruin the neighborhood character. Regardless of how valid you find any of these complaints, they should not by themselves be sufficient to block new projects, or else no mass transit, no new housing, no wind or solar farms could ever be installed. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/national-environmental-policy-act-1970-nepa-regulation/673385/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/national-e... > Signed into law in 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act and its state and local equivalents require federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major projects before they sign off on them. Supporters argue that NEPA “empowers local communities to protect themselves and their environment.” > But NEPA is more burdensome than it may sound. As the economist Eli Dourado has documented, environmental-impact statements were initially very short—just 10 pages, in some instances. But now they average more than 600 pages, include more than 1,000 pages of appendices, and take four and a half years on average to complete. > How did this happen? Lawyers—the answer is always lawyers. Over time, the courts have embraced more and more expansive definitions of what these statements should cover. And lawyers—terrified of getting their clients caught up in lengthy court proceedings where a judge tells them they should have thought through the fourth- or fifth-order impacts of an apartment building—spend eons fleshing them out. The goal is not to mitigate environmental ill effects but to get an A+ for thoroughness. > . . . > Caution and deliberation are good in moderation, but waiting cannot relieve this uncertainty; it merely changes its form. Doing can cause harm, but not doing won’t preserve the world in amber. Neighborhoods in desirable communities that don’t build more housing see skyrocketing prices and demographic shifts toward high-income, white, and older residents. And nations that don’t build the necessary renewable-energy infrastructure will be subject to the very environmental degradation that 20th-century activists tried so hard to prevent. > The unforeseen consequences of blocking change should weigh as heavily as the ones that come from allowing it. Those lost students, missing refugees, absent neighbors, and failed government projects may never intrude on our sight line or cause us frustration during our commutes, but they cost us all the same. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmentalists-nimby-permitting-reform-nepa/671775/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmen... > Delays run up the cost of vital infrastructure and exert something like a chilling effect on new projects, as developers may not want to contend with the expensive legal battles that lie ahead. These laws have been used to stymie wind farms in Nantucket (residents dubiously claim that offshore wind kills whales), Martha’s Vineyard (the owner of the solar company that opposes the project lives near the proposed site part-time), and dozens of other purportedly progressive communities across the country. > . . . > Consider the way NEPA preemptively chills development or the fact that the delays themselves are costly. The economist Eli Dourado has studied NEPA’s failures for years, and he is skeptical that thoroughness and time spent should be read as a policy success: “If every review were done so thoroughly that it took 100 years to complete and the resulting lawsuit rate were zero, that would be a failure, not a success.” The problem is “the threat of litigation continuously increases the burden of NEPA review, rendering our agencies unable to make speedy decisions even in cases where it is obvious there is no significant environmental impact,” Dourado told me.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Detractors have been at every step of the way, how do we know when to trust the detractors?
mlindner 2y ago
> People reading this should remember that Flight 1 was preceded by hysterics from online detractors who predicted, correctly, that the launch would make a giant mess. People need to stop repeating this bad faith argument without providing facts. No educated people were predicting disaster as a result of the launch. In fact NASA scientists said the damage was way worse than expected because of an unexpected ground water steam explosion.
concordDance 2y ago
> People reading this should remember that Flight 1 was preceded by hysterics from online detractors who predicted, correctly, that the launch would make a giant mess. Does this "giant mess" matter in any practical way?

by amluto 2y ago

sirspacey 2y ago

A bit tarnished with verified remediation is the regulatory framework we need to be aiming at precisely because a 60 day delay for a regulatory review process is an enormous cost on an operation of this scale.

7e 2y ago
Not at all. Elon wastes much more money on his "fuck around and find out" method of engineering^H^H^H accretion. A million monkeys could do it better and more cheaply.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  R&D looks like wasted money, doesn’t it?
  - 7e 2y ago
    Real R&D is a treasure. That’s not what Elon does. That’s slinging slop.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      SpaceX doesn't do R&D? You're unhinged.

valianteffort 2y ago

Flight 1 made a mess of their own launch pad. Why is that the concern of anyone besides SpaceX? They refurbished and reinforced it for flight 2.

amluto 2y ago
It's not clear to me exactly how far the mess extended, but this seems well past "their own launch pad": https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/12v7qsp/view_of_the_starship_rocket_throwing_concrete/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/12v7qsp/view_of_the...
- vatueil 2y ago
  The video is of cars parked next to the launch pad area, taken by remotely operated cameras. No one was endangered. Also, as dramatic as it looks, it is hardly an environmental disaster. I daresay paving over the land with asphalt and concrete had a larger impact. And there have already been several launches since then. Those went more smoothly and were not delayed. The reasons for the delay this time have nothing to do with this.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    How quick your argument went from "what are you talking about, the only damage was to the launch pad" to "yeah, so it flung chunks of concrete into the ocean miles away, hit cars parked at the facility and stuff, but so what?"
    - vatueil 2y ago
      I am not the previous commenter, and your description of the video is inaccurate. The point that the launch did not cause major environmental issues remains true. The fact that subsequent launches were approved demonstrates as such. I would also point out that other rocket launches routinely dump their boosters containing solid or liquid fuel in the ocean.

vatueil 2y ago

> give stakeholders 60 days to comment I want to point out that while giving people time to comment sounds harmless, it's actually a systemic problem that's at the root of many issues. Allowing special interest groups to delay development is a major reason why it's nearly impossible to build anything on time and on budget in the US. If they don't cancel the project outright, or prevent it from starting in the first place via chilling effects, then the delays increase the price tag enormously. Jerusalem Demsas at The Atlantic often writes about this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/local-government-community-input-housing-public-transportation/629625/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/local-gove... > Development projects in the United States are subject to a process I like to call “whoever yells the loudest and longest wins.” Some refer to this as participatory democracy. > Across the country, angry residents and neighborhood associations have the power to delay, reshape, and even halt entirely the construction of vital infrastructure. To put a fine point on it: Deference to community input is a big part of why the U.S. is suffering from a nearly 3.8-million-home shortage and has failed to build sufficient mass transit, and why renewable energy is lacking in even the most progressive states. > . . . > Every new development has so-called negative externalities: Construction is always annoying, trains can be loud and unsightly, wind farms may obstruct ocean views, and for some the simple knowledge that a nearby home is actually a duplex is enough to ruin the neighborhood character. Regardless of how valid you find any of these complaints, they should not by themselves be sufficient to block new projects, or else no mass transit, no new housing, no wind or solar farms could ever be installed. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/national-environmental-policy-act-1970-nepa-regulation/673385/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/national-e... > Signed into law in 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act and its state and local equivalents require federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major projects before they sign off on them. Supporters argue that NEPA “empowers local communities to protect themselves and their environment.” > But NEPA is more burdensome than it may sound. As the economist Eli Dourado has documented, environmental-impact statements were initially very short—just 10 pages, in some instances. But now they average more than 600 pages, include more than 1,000 pages of appendices, and take four and a half years on average to complete. > How did this happen? Lawyers—the answer is always lawyers. Over time, the courts have embraced more and more expansive definitions of what these statements should cover. And lawyers—terrified of getting their clients caught up in lengthy court proceedings where a judge tells them they should have thought through the fourth- or fifth-order impacts of an apartment building—spend eons fleshing them out. The goal is not to mitigate environmental ill effects but to get an A+ for thoroughness. > . . . > Caution and deliberation are good in moderation, but waiting cannot relieve this uncertainty; it merely changes its form. Doing can cause harm, but not doing won’t preserve the world in amber. Neighborhoods in desirable communities that don’t build more housing see skyrocketing prices and demographic shifts toward high-income, white, and older residents. And nations that don’t build the necessary renewable-energy infrastructure will be subject to the very environmental degradation that 20th-century activists tried so hard to prevent. > The unforeseen consequences of blocking change should weigh as heavily as the ones that come from allowing it. Those lost students, missing refugees, absent neighbors, and failed government projects may never intrude on our sight line or cause us frustration during our commutes, but they cost us all the same. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmentalists-nimby-permitting-reform-nepa/671775/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmen... > Delays run up the cost of vital infrastructure and exert something like a chilling effect on new projects, as developers may not want to contend with the expensive legal battles that lie ahead. These laws have been used to stymie wind farms in Nantucket (residents dubiously claim that offshore wind kills whales), Martha’s Vineyard (the owner of the solar company that opposes the project lives near the proposed site part-time), and dozens of other purportedly progressive communities across the country. > . . . > Consider the way NEPA preemptively chills development or the fact that the delays themselves are costly. The economist Eli Dourado has studied NEPA’s failures for years, and he is skeptical that thoroughness and time spent should be read as a policy success: “If every review were done so thoroughly that it took 100 years to complete and the resulting lawsuit rate were zero, that would be a failure, not a success.” The problem is “the threat of litigation continuously increases the burden of NEPA review, rendering our agencies unable to make speedy decisions even in cases where it is obvious there is no significant environmental impact,” Dourado told me.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Detractors have been at every step of the way, how do we know when to trust the detractors?

mlindner 2y ago

> People reading this should remember that Flight 1 was preceded by hysterics from online detractors who predicted, correctly, that the launch would make a giant mess. People need to stop repeating this bad faith argument without providing facts. No educated people were predicting disaster as a result of the launch. In fact NASA scientists said the damage was way worse than expected because of an unexpected ground water steam explosion.

concordDance 2y ago

> People reading this should remember that Flight 1 was preceded by hysterics from online detractors who predicted, correctly, that the launch would make a giant mess. Does this "giant mess" matter in any practical way?