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It is a state commission composed of political appointees. It's unlikely it has the jurisdiction over Vandenberg to ban any activities, except when such activit
by blisterpeanuts 2y ago
It is a state commission composed of political appointees. It's unlikely it has the jurisdiction over Vandenberg to ban any activities, except when such activities violate state environmental laws. Even then, the federal government might be able to override them. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Ideally, the commission will withdraw its objections and allow the launches; SpaceX obviously chose this site both for its proximity to the Pacific Ocean and for redundancy in case of poor weather in Florida (like this past week for example).
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIt has jurisdiction over Vandenberg for private launches, and there is debate over what counts as private versus federal. However, regardless of possible environmental concerns, they’ve already explicitly said they’re targeting SpaceX because of Musk’s political speech, which is morally reprehensible and also illegal per the constitution.
- neodymiumphish 2y agoCan the federal government override them if the launches are purely commercial. Presumably that would be the case eventually, so I think it’s something that needs to addressed sooner.
- kortilla 2y agoVandenberg does not provide redundancy. It accesses completely different orbital inclinations. You cannot launch east from there but you can launch south. The opposite is true in Florida.
- blisterpeanuts 2y agoSeems like it nonetheless provides redundancy. Also, one site can only handle so many launches per day. If SpaceX gets really busy, it will need multiple launch pads to handle the traffic, both launches and landings. But then, there may be military missions that require launching from an air force base.
- kortilla 2y agoVandenberg DOES NOT provide redundancy. An orbit from there is useless for a mission profile that was slated for Florida. It costs more fuel and has completely different ground tracks. The sats that spacex launches for Starlink, which are about as interchangeable as you can get, are less valuable in polar orbits because they spend significantly less time over population.