Is the FAA Tethering SpaceX With Needless Rules and Ridiculous Fines?
Meanwhile, Chinese firms race to catch-up to SpaceX competitors.
The last time we reported on the SpaceX Starship, the massive spacecraft had achieved Earth orbit after the third test launch in March.
The fourth test flight occurred in June, and the Starship successfully returned to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas.
SpaceX is clearly on a solid trajectory to help the US return to the moon as part of the Artemis program. However, after promising the firm that it could do a fifth test in September, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decided to delay the launch until November.
SpaceX, unsurprisingly, was dismayed by the move and publicly rebuked the decision.
The Starship vehicle that will conduct Flight 5 has been ready to fly from a technical standpoint since early August, SpaceX added, claiming that the licensing “delay was not based on a new safety concern, but instead driven by superfluous environmental analysis.”
“We find ourselves delayed for unreasonable and exasperating reasons,” SpaceX added in Tuesday’s post. The lengthy document, titled “Starships Are Meant to Fly,” also expressed a broader frustration with the regulatory environment that SpaceX and other launch providers must navigate.
“Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” SpaceX wrote. “This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space.”
This week, the FAA has decided to fine SpaceX $633,009 for allegedly failing to follow launch rules.
The FAA alleges SpaceX bypassed several safety measures that the company had agreed to when it previously applied for launch licenses, according to enforcement letters the agency posted on its website.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon. [CEO Elon] Musk, in responding to a post about the fines on X, appeared to suggest his company is being unfairly targeted by regulators, replying “more lawfare.”
People are beginning to question the FAA’s priorities when it comes to space exploration.
What’s the fine to Boeing for leaving people stranded in outer space ??@FAANews @elonmusk
FAA Seeks to Fine SpaceX $633K for Breaking Rules With Falcon 9 Launches https://t.co/NTVie4uyiu #PCMag— Matt Fanning (@fanvestments) September 17, 2024
As the FAA tethers what is arguably the nation’s most successful space business, China is attempting to rapidly catch up in the new space race.
China is aiming to loosen Elon Musk’s lock on reusable launch vehicles — and close a yawning technology gap with the U.S.
Beijing is turning to aerospace startups and state-owned enterprises alike to develop an edge in rockets that can be used dozens of times to lift satellites into low Earth orbit.
One company trying to meet that challenge is LandSpace Technology, whose Zhuque-3 reusable rocket successfully completed a 6.2-mile vertical takeoff and landing return test flight at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday. According to Chinese state media, it marked a “significant breakthrough in China’s commercial space industry” and was a “crucial step toward achieving high capacity, low cost, high frequency and reusability in future space launches.”
Another startup in the wings is Deep Blue, a closely held firm that was planning to test a reusable rocket as soon as last week. A successful demonstration would bring it too one step closer to providing the type of regular orbital deployment service offered by SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets.
Of course, making choices that hurt this nation and help China is completely on-brand for the Harris-Biden administration.
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Comments
This has nothing to do with Musk supporting Trump and free speech against the current regime. Nothing at all.
Of course not. The Federal Government is never weaponized against individual citizens.
Indeed, the govt is great and good. Gov’t bureaucrats never make colossal errors or seek to thwart the political will of the taxpaying voters who pay their salaries by slow walking the policies on the Chief Executive by engaging in ‘resistance’. Anyone who says otherwise or seeks to limit the size, scope, power and funding of Gov’t is obviously not pro USA. /S
Lois Lerner enthusiastically agrees with this statement.
Look into the history of Evergreen Aviation ( who became the CIA airline after Air America failed). The conservative owner was bankrupted when the Obama administration pushed Boeing to drop them as their heavy lift flight contractor in favor of Atlas so that Boeing could get the Air Force tanker deal. It was pure politics and it hurt the country. Deep State crap is real!
Indeed it does have nothing to do with that. The FAA would behave in exactly the same execrable manner had Musk duly kissed the president’s and VP’s rings, because that is the nature of the public service. Behaving like this is pretty much what the FAA is for, at least in its own view.
It would take direct orders from the president for it not to behave like this, and even then it would do all it could to ignore such an order for as long as it could. As Trump will find out if he wins and tries to change this. Schedule F is the only solution.
The FAA needs to be stripped of authority to regulate commercial space launches. In both cases the FAA cites in extorting money from SpaceX, they submitted the regulatory paperwork required and apparatchiks at the FAA sat on it. There is apparently no mechanism to force taxpayer funded bureaucrats to do their job.
FAA, another agency which deserves a through house cleaning.
You spelled Purge wrong!
Maybe the FAA should focus on Boeing and their problems. Problems that have led to hundreds of deaths. And stranding astronauts at the ISS. SpaceX has been successful in all their endeavors. They have had launch vehicles destruct, but so has NASA. Was NASA fined? NASA has been at fault in the deaths of almost 20 astronauts over the past 57 years. Were they ever fined? FKH
They ARE. Several threads over at airliners dot net cover the topic, and if anything, the FAA is now slow-walking a lot with Boeing, and making needless delays on things long settled as accepted practice.
Government agencies, by and large, exist not to make us safe. It may happen incidentally, but the agencies are there to enforce regulations that are often completely ridiculous and serve no purpose.
A case in point is one I just mentioned to the plumbers I have here today. It used to take me maybe 30 seconds to put 8 quarts of water in a big pot to make spaghetti. Now it takes three times longer to get that same 8 quarts; the low flow faucet being there to “conserve water”.
Exactly. Contra diver64 above, this has nothing to do with Musk’s politics, and would happen exactly the same way if he had the opposite politics. It’s simply in the nature of the beast.
They are. That’s why they’re doing everything possible to hamper SpaceX so that SpaceX doesn’t get further out ahead of Boeing.
Doesn’t this delay in its activities for paperwork keep Space X from doing extra stuff like rescuing astronauts stranded by Boeing? Of course, if Trump is able to eke out a win, the Dems loss of control of Twitter may be a factor. Elon needs to be punished.
When evaluating this story, one should absolutely keep the potential personal retaliation against Musk, for all the obvious reasons, in the front of their mind. But, a contributing reason could also exist: Greed.
There are a lot of very powerful defense contractors and other corporations who are obviously significantly behind SpaceX. These companies have had years, even decades to buy all the people that need to be bought in government to destroy their competition. Remember, the Deep State is a Public/Private Cooperative. Boeing, Blue Origin (Bezos) even NASA’s own JPL all have significant interests in SpaceX being slowed down, at least, completely shuttered ideally.
This is true, but it’s not the main explanation. There is no need to suppose that Boeing has bought the FAA’s bureaucrats merely to explain why they are behaving as is their nature to behave anyway, and as they would behave without any payment.
SpaceX is our de facto space program. The Chinese certainly think so.
These petty moves by the FAA will, as all Democrat plots, weaken our country for the purposes of rank politics.
I don’t think we would be winners if SpaceX moved to, say, Argentina.
No, I don’t think it’s politics, it’s just the government being the government. And I think we would be winners if it moved to Argentina, or some other friendly place.
The idea of moving SpaceX to Argentina is brilliant!
Unfortunately, ITAR means that would result in a lot of SpaceX people in prison.
Not scientifically. In Florida, Texas, or SoCal, you reap the free near-tropical escape velocity boost. In Argentina, you got bupkus,
Elon responded:
I thought they said
Lunch Rules
the gov sets up the rules o favor themselves over the people
thats why a government over the people is tyranny
thank a lefty and a riino for that
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/musk-we-will-sue-the-faa-for-regulatory-overreach-and-improper-politically-motivated-behavior/
The answer to your headline is yes.
Though before the Commercial Space Act, those industries were not so much tethered as they were staked through the heart.