Musk: We will sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” and “improper, politically-motivated behavior”
In a series of tweets yesterday Elon Musk announced that SpaceX is going to sue the FAA for its recent actions that have delayed development of Starship/Superheavy and have also fined the company for what appear to be petty reasons.
In the second case, the FAA threatened to fine SpaceX $633K because it had not gotten some minor approvals prior to successfully completing two launches safely. The agency gave SpaceX 30 days to respond.
Musk responded bluntly in a tweet, stating that “SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.” In a second tweet immediately thereafter Musk added that that the fines were “More lawfare.”
In a third tweet he stated unequivocally, “I am highly confident that discovery will show improper, politically-motivated behavior by the FAA.”
As noted in the first link above, the agency took no action against SpaceX for more than a year after those two launches, only issuing the threat to fine the company now, just before the election, and just after the company had publicly criticized the agency for its delays in issuing a launch license for the fifth Starship/Superheavy test flight. I suspect Musk has some good information of solid evidence that some officials either in the FAA or at the White House instigated this action for political reasons. An honest appraisal of the FAA’s actions sure suggests it.
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In a series of tweets yesterday Elon Musk announced that SpaceX is going to sue the FAA for its recent actions that have delayed development of Starship/Superheavy and have also fined the company for what appear to be petty reasons.
In the second case, the FAA threatened to fine SpaceX $633K because it had not gotten some minor approvals prior to successfully completing two launches safely. The agency gave SpaceX 30 days to respond.
Musk responded bluntly in a tweet, stating that “SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.” In a second tweet immediately thereafter Musk added that that the fines were “More lawfare.”
In a third tweet he stated unequivocally, “I am highly confident that discovery will show improper, politically-motivated behavior by the FAA.”
As noted in the first link above, the agency took no action against SpaceX for more than a year after those two launches, only issuing the threat to fine the company now, just before the election, and just after the company had publicly criticized the agency for its delays in issuing a launch license for the fifth Starship/Superheavy test flight. I suspect Musk has some good information of solid evidence that some officials either in the FAA or at the White House instigated this action for political reasons. An honest appraisal of the FAA’s actions sure suggests it.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
They’ve apparently pushed the last button.
It’s ON!
Big mistake in my opinion. SpaceX has approval to fly another flight 4 test. That is exactly what Starship needs as there are numerous improvements needed before it can be landed intact. Fly now. Leave the political fights to others.
Nope, SpaceX absolutely needs to be pushing back on FAA and other regulatory agencies, and others should too. It’s even possible to win occasionally now, after the Chevron decision.
Sonny Bono was a good conservative and told the story of how he was building a restaurant in Palm Springs and wanted a specific stone used in the construction. The city engineer refused to let him use it. After going around and around with the engineer Bono told him he figured out how he was going to get his stone. The engineer said there was no way he was ever going to use it. Bono told the engineer he was going to become mayor of Palm Springs and fire him.
He did and he did.
“… Nope, SpaceX absolutely needs to be pushing back on FAA and other regulatory agencies, …”
But the price is no Starship test flights. No flights until the lawsuit is settled? Say it isn’t so.
SpaceX has approval to fly now. But conducting a test kind of undermines the SpaceX case that the regulators are politically motivated to only allow SpaceX to do 80%? of what it is asking for.
The worst case scenario is that Elon will not schedule flight 5 because he wants to influence the election by giving the public the impression that the Biden/Harris admin is misusing the FAA to harass SpaceX. Elon is a much better engineer than he is a political strategist.
Yet another example of why Hussein/Biden Crime Syndicate despises President Trump and Elon Musk. They both have enough $$$ to not just hire many, many lawyers, they also fight back with lawsuits of their own. The Syndicate also hates them because they gained their fortunes the old fashioned way, they EARNED IT!
Steve Richter: In this case you are wrong on a number of counts.
1. You keep saying SpaceX should repeat flight 4 and do it now, but you really have no information about whether such a repeat test makes sense for SpaceX in terms of engineering. In fact, you know less about it than the FAA, which is better informed but also unqualified to determine what should and should not happen.
2. The red tape now is not a new thing. The FAA as well as the whole federal bureaucracy has been increasingly a problem for SpaceX. It has delayed all the Starship/Superheavy launches since 2021, sometimes for petty reasons. It would be a mistake to make believe the FAA is approving launches because it is willing to let SpaceX repeat a test flight it doesn’t appear to need to do.
4. By bowing now and not fighting, SpaceX would leave itself at the mercy of further stonewalling down the road. This is the same advice I give repeatedly when people suggest SpaceX simple leave the U.S. It can’t, and at some point running away doesn’t work. You need to stand and fight.
5. Finally, it does appear that the FAA has laid itself open to this suit by its arbitrary actions. SpaceX stands a good chance of winning, and winning big.
Steve Richter: No SpaceX Starship tests, no Artemis Moon landings.
That’s politics.
Steve Richter,
You wrote: “But the price is no Starship test flights. No flights until the lawsuit is settled? Say it isn’t so.”
It isn’t so. They get the same slow-walked licenses even during the lawsuit.
The reward is freedom to launch test flights without governmental lawfare, without the government choosing winners and losers. Right now the government punishes the Democrats’ enemies and rewards their friends. This is not what government is for, and it needs to be rectified.
“SpaceX has approval to fly now.”
This is true, although a license to launch has not been granted, but if the company wants to move forward with its test regimen, then it should be allowed to do so. Clearly, SpaceX is not interested in repeating its latest test and is eager to move on to more advanced testing. It should not be inhibited. You may want to consider accepting the company’s wishes and also allow it to move on rather than suggest it run in place.
Also, you may want to consider the problem that Part 450 has hindered every launch company and who-knows how many companies that want to operate in space. Part 450 was supposed to streamline the process, not hinder it. It is yet another government failure. One would think that the FAA has taken lessons from Britain’s BCC.
They are from the government, but they are not here to help. Nice company you have here; too bad something happened to it.
“… You keep saying SpaceX should repeat flight 4 and do it now, but you really have no information about whether such a repeat test makes sense for SpaceX in terms of engineering. In fact, you know less about it than the FAA, which is better informed but also unqualified to determine what should and should not happen. …”
Is it settled that Starship can fly sub orbital, return to Earth with its flaps intact, retaining its heat tiles and land at an exact location? It did not hit those marks on flight 4. Engineering wise, SpaceX has to fly multiple Starship flights to get to an operational point, correct? The sooner Starship flies, the sooner the engineers can identify and correct problems.
I guess if SpaceX thinks it can soon get to the point where the booster is reusable that relieves a lot of work and expense of building a new booster for every flight.
Just wondering, but not accusing. Is this Steve Richter the same fellow as the Maricopa County Recorder?
Shallow Minder Reader: No. Names are spelled different, and our Steve lives I think in New York. The Arizona guy also lost his election and will soon be out of power.
This may be a “don’t throw me in the briar patch” moment.
I half think the individual issuing this fine right on the heels of Chevron’ is secretly a Musk fan.
We saw only a one day suspension…lifted immediately….and this looks even more petty with Boeing getting off Scott free.
FAA notified SpaceX a day before launch.
Were I the FAA I’d let that slide….if I wanted to keep my outfit’s authority intact.
I still say there are two factions in the FAA.
I can’t prove that statement–but it is in keeping in how they blow hot and cold in the handling of all things SpaceX.
Mixed messages.
Elon said;
“You should not be able to build a rocket in less time than it takes to move paper from one desk to another”
At the 27 minute mark on his one hour interview discussing and making fun of government overreach.
https://youtu.be/HsWD6guhM1o?si=RMWjgn1oF6CWsjJB
He also talks about “feeling like Gulliver” being tied down by a million Government strings. And the process should have a way to remove bad rules instead of continuously making more. He talks about being fined for the spilled drinking water on the ground in a tropical zone where the road often floods, from the sky, inches of rain… With no permit? He’s actually funny!
In a different interview that popped up next, he talks about the hundreds of ideas in his head that he wishes he could pursue. like a jet that takes off vertically that he wants to build.
Someone asked in another thread that he should buy Boeing… He just doesn’t have enough time to do everything he wants to do. But Jets crosses his mind.
“… Clearly, SpaceX is not interested in repeating its latest test and is eager to move on to more advanced testing. …”
Maybe the mistake I am making is that I am thinking that bringing a speeding Starship down to earth with it still intact is an exceedingly difficult and never done before engineering feat. Being so difficult, there are going to be numerous test flight needed to perfect the system. So yeah, SpaceX would jump at the approval granted to fly another flight 4 since there is so much the engineers need to learn. So darn disappointing there is no flight 5 this month.
Steve Richter: If you remember, on the previous test flight Starship came very close to a successful vertical soft splashdown. It had damage, but it seemed of a limited nature that was now understandable and could be addressed by specific upgrades.
In addition, Superheavy functioned almost exactly as it was designed to do, vertically landing exactly where it was supposed to in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX likes to make each test flight provide as much info as possible. It has probably decided that the next flight has room to push for a Superheavy chopstick landing, and that the Starship design is getting close to where it needs to be. They want to push the envelope, which is what they should desire. The FAA is now in the way.
“The worst case scenario is that Elon will not schedule flight 5 because he wants to influence the election by giving the public the impression that the Biden/Harris admin is misusing the FAA to harass SpaceX.”
What impression? That’s exactly what’s happening.
The Men Who Built America
Rockefeller Court Speech
https://youtu.be/DBrz57sNAc4?t=82
“I took a second-rate inefficient market and built an Industry. It was done the way it was because that’s the way it had to be done. No one complained when I brought light into every home, no one complained when I provided thousands of jobs or millions of dollars from exports. Oil is what this Country runs on. You call it Monopoly; I call it Enterprise. Now, you tell me, why am I here?”
Be successful in America, just not too successful to the point where you become a threat to the politics and the power of the day.
Hell On Wheels
Se5 Ep14
Thomas Durant’s Final Speech
https://youtu.be/o30_t_p7bTY
4:53
“1,776 miles of iron-track. That is what I delivered. Track upon which thousands of wheels will now revolve, carrying on their axles the wealth of half the World. Drawn by the iron horse, darkening the landscape with its smokey breath, announcing to the World with its piercing scream that we are a great people, who can accomplish great things. Yet the American people driven by their cowardly representatives in Washington are in need of a Villan.
So, here I sit, elected by you, to play my part. The part of the scapegoat, the patsy, sent into the Wilderness so that men sitting in this room can lay their Sins upon my back, and claim they themselves are clean. Men enjoying immunity while enriching themselves on the backs of those who sacrificed everything to make manifest America’s destiny.
Blood has been spilled, lives have been lost, men have been ruined. I saw it and I survived. I will not return from the Wild having made Americas dream a reality, only to have 6 bureaucrats in starched collars judge the manner in which I realized that dream.
Put me on trial, lock me in prison, erase me from the record. For History is written in pencil, and the truth is carved in steel across this Nation.
And one Truth above all others is this; without me and men like me, your glorious railroad could never have been built.”
Elon, remember what was done to Nikola Tesla, the name’s sake of your company?
Also, a genius that threatened the status quo.
Died alone and broke in a hotel room.
There are times in life and there are lines in life.