Oh no! The sonic booms of SpaceX are coming!
Superheavy after its flight, safely captured at Boca Chica
on October 13, 2024.
When the current (but soon to step down) administrator of the FAA Mike Whitaker testified before Congress in September 2024 and attempted to explain his agency’s red tape that have significantly slowed development of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, he claimed that the sonic booms produced when Superheavy returned to land at the launchpad posed a “safety issue” that needed a detailed review.
“I think the sonic boom analysis [related to returning Superheavy back to Boca Chica] is a safety related incident.”
The sudden introduction of this issue was somewhat out of the blue. While loud, the sonic boom of a rocket launch is hardly a concern. The space shuttle produced the same for decades when it landed, and that was always considered a fun plus to watching the landing. And even if SpaceX begins launching its rockets once a day from any spaceport, that added noise does nothing to hurt anyone. In fact, it is a local signal of a thriving economy.
Since then it appears the leftist “intellectual elitists” that don’t like it when they don’t run everything — which is one reason they now hate Elon Musk — have run a full court press trying to make these rocket sonic booms a cause celebre that can be used to block SpaceX launches.
Whitaker’s comments about the sonic boom were first picked up by members of the California Coastal Commission on October 10, 2024, when they rejected the Space Force plan to allow more launches at Vandenberg, mostly because they hated Elon Musk’s politics. During that hearing the issue of sonic booms was raised as an additional reason to block more Falcon 9 launches, even though the commission’s own staff had said there was no evidence the booms caused any harm, and that the Space Force had taken the proper actions to mitigate any possible problems.
Then in November a research paper was suddenly published specifically targeting the sonic booms caused by Superheavy, noting ominously that its sonic booms were “substantially louder” than the booms caused by the Falcon 9 or even NASA’s big SLS rocket.
The paper tried to make this sound terrible, but the only negative consequence it could document for these Superheavy sonic booms at landing was that it set off car alarms. Nonetheless, this report was immediately picked up by the leftist New York Times, which claimed the booms could cause “property damage in the densely populated residential community near its South Texas launch site.”
Only a few days later a local Texas newspaper did an article interviewing locals in an attempt to gauge the communities thoughts on Trump and on SpaceX and its operation at Boca Chica. One local was slightly concerned about the sonic booms, but thought the benefits outweighed the costs. The paper however felt obliged however to include these remarks, even though this issue remains an incredibly minor one.
A small sampling of the leftist propaganda
press’s many recent lies
Today we can finally see the result of this anti-SpaceX anti-sonic boom campaign. In describing a planned early morning launch tomorrow of a Falcon 9 at Vandenberg, two different supposedly independent local television news websites (here and here) made the sonic boom that the first stage will make when it returns to Vandenberg for landing the centerpiece of their stories. Be warned! The SpaceX sonic booms are coming!
It didn’t matter SpaceX was bringing work to the region. Nor did it matter that the launches have generated income from tourism. It also didn’t matter that the sonic booms do no harm and until this elitist campaign had been so inconsequential nobody in the Vandenberg area had even complained.
Nope, the propaganda press has gotten its instructions from the administrative state, academia, and the New York Times. From now on, sonic booms — and the noise they will produce — are the central issue whenever SpaceX launches, and must highlighted above everything else with each launch.
This essay is simply my effort to alert my readers to this propaganda campaign. Don’t be fooled when in the future you hear about the evils of SpaceX’s sonic booms. This is simply another media lie that is being pushed for political reasons.
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“Thunder and lightning…very, very frightening!!!!”
Back in the day, I was stationed on a coastal base with F-15s. I think I heard two sonic booms the entire time I was there (three years). No doubt the pilots are discouraged from supersonic speeds near the base (not to mention that it’s difficult to land when one approaches the runway above mach 1). I was very disappointed. I expected a window-shattering KABOOM. It wasn’t even as loud as thunder.
Is it even as loud as the wall-of-sound from the liftoff?
As a youngster, the metro area where I lived was used as a target locale for simulated high altitude bombing runs. The aircraft used were B-58 “Hustler” supersonic delta-winged bombers, a type that was only in-service for a decade or so, 1960-70-ish. I think these runs occurred in the early 60’s.
The runs occurred in the early evening, which allowed the planes to be seen easily in binoculars, including the long afterburner flames from the four jet engines. And yes, there was a sonic boom, which had a distinctive double-crack that we all found highly entertaining. Those babies were sure moving fast (but ultimately not fast enough)!
Back then, almost everyone regarded the booms as “the sound of freedom”. Some of us still do.
These Leftists clearly have to appreciation of culture, “black culture” especially: John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” appears on his 1962 album, Burnin’. Though written as a blues song, and was the most successful popular song he wrote!
Lefties, just think of it as a great minority icon speaking to you from the clouds and you’ll be able to come out of your safe rooms.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
I agree with Mark about the wall of sound from liftoff. You can see the sound during launches.
Bet there’s data on the sonic booms. Bet the same decibels from space X are somehow worse than others.
I lived through the sonic boom tests in Oklahoma City in 1964. The FAA with flights provided by the Air Force flew various supersonic aircraft including F-104s and B-58s across the city 8 times a day for a few months at high altitude. I could set my watch by them. These were done as a precursor to supersonic airliners. There was some damage to windows. A friend of the family who was an aviation buff had some damage caused to windows in an already old house; the window panes in the old wooden window frames were shaken loose but didn’t fall out.
The sonic booms from Superheavy and Starship may be stronger but they won’t be as often and therefore not as problematic. Anyway, the sonic booms are another “Sound of Freedom”.
People are worried about noise from heavy industry?
They needed to live in my town 50 years ago. Explosions from Coke plants every day it rained. Rail cars slamming together all day every day.
It was just back ground noise and normally not noticed. But on some days we would get an acoustic echo over the mills and be able to hear rail yard workers yelling at each other from miles away and Coke explosions would shake the walls on those days.
The constant smell of burning coal and a slight smoke haze over the city all the time.
I would have loved an ocean view and a few sonic booms a week.
The sounds of rocket engines and sonic booms on return to launch site are the sounds of the sky being opened to give humanity access to the Universe.
Explosions from Coke plants
You did that on purpose! I could not figure out what would be going on at a soda bottling plant that would explode – particularly in the rain. Why isn’t it coak to match coal or charcoke to match charcoal? English is insane.
On March 6, 1990, I was working in my backyard garden in Olathe Kansas when I heard what I immediately recognized as a sonic boom. At the time I had no idea what might have caused it, but I found out later that day that an SR 71 had flown from the west coast to the east coast in an attempt to set a speed record.
I like sonic booms, loud smokey jets roaring into the sky, and a round Pratt and Whitney coughing to life. Can’t get enough of it actually.
Bless those who make these things happen.
Pawn grabbed my thoughts precisely with: “Thunder and lightning…very, very frightening!!!!”
Given that thunder is actually a sonic boom and happens all the time in that part of the world, one wonders what the problem is other than Musk actually launching something.
1984 Ghostbusters captured the mindset nicely via the EPA’s own Walter Peck, brilliantly played by William Atherton, who specialized in characters who were great a being a Richard in the 1980s, something he reprised last year as the NYC Mayor in a Ghostbusters remake. Cheers –
Jake brakes are more annoying
My childhood home town was located about 50 miles south of a major SAC base. Along with the subsonic B-52s, supersonic F-101 and F-102 interceptors were based there as well. Those puppies used to fly over town on training missions and patrols all the time trailing sonic booms as they went – sometimes at medium or even low altitude. Every head of household in my neighborhood was a WW2 or Korea veteran. There were no complaints.
As Mose McCormack said,
“When that cold wind moans and that yellow dog runs
You can figure on thunder and lightening to come”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCzbNZoVuo&list=OLAK5uy_lvxKrYY8d40HfKVQTsYnB-1W8p0lhsSqs&index=12
God knows, we could use a bit more of the kind of Promethean thunder and lightening that used to animate our culture, couldn’t we?
An analysis:
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jel/article/4/11/113601/3320807/Starship-super-heavy-acoustics-Far-field-noise
The best information I could find is that Starship flyback generates a boom ‘about 1.5 times that of Concorde’. Concorde generated a sound pressure of ~110 dB on-ground when at altitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MCETiKCLhc
Best information I could find gives the boom from Starship ~145 dB, so that’s consistent. I could not find any representations of the noise footprint. Given the flight profile, there probably isn’t a lot of allowable variation in approach tracks for noise mitigation. This does need to be addressed and managed, because everyone is going to be doing it.
John and Blair: Sigh. I linked to the first paper Blair notes in my post. I sometimes wonder if anyone actually reads them.
“Not my Left”….. I thought I would get that out the way at the start ;-)
This piece resonates with me, albeit at a much smaller scale. I work in a busy warehouse, in goods inwards. We have certain delivery drivers that like to drop off to us early, and I open up not long after 6am. There is a family that bought a house directly opposite the warehouse, and in less than 6 months had complained to the local authority about noise. We are now prohibited from accepting delivery’s before 7am.
Their poor young children apparently get disturbed by the very infrequent sounds of me driving an electric forklift so early.
My kids were raised with zero cotton wool and bubble wrap… Noise is a part of life and they can both now sleep thru thunderstorms. The snowflakes over the road are doing their children no favours by “protecting” them from the noise across the street.
Admittedly, any folks upset by SpaceX sonic booms haven’t been given much of a choice… But as all you guys have mentioned, if you have any interest in the local economy, they are a signal of good times.
And as to my snowflake neighbors…. I so want to scream “Why did you buy a house 20 meters from a busy business if you don’t like noise?!?” , but that would probably get me a warning from the snowflake management!
Mr. Z.,
yeah… 50-50 on following up with your links, I generally depend on you to read & analyze them, so I don’t have to….
Referencing our Govenor in Michigan:
It’s “Whitmer,” with the infamous “h,” as in the non-dairy desert treat, cool whip.
John Lee Hooker
The Blues Brothers (1980)
The Relevant Scene
https://youtu.be/nUUyFrHERpU
2:59
I lived in the Imperial Valley as a young boy in the 50s and 60s. Jets breaking the sound barrier was common back then. It pretty much can to a stand still after on sonic boom knocked out most of the glass in the little town of Calapatria or was it Niland? It was long ago. We could hear those jets for miles out over the bombing range in the chocolate mountains.
New up date. I now live in a small central coast town of Los Osos. The military fly’s of the coast and breaks the sound barrier on on occasion. Brings back memories. But it terrifies the local population. I have no idea how far f the coast they are. But it a ways I believe. They’re pretty muffled. Now we have spacex at Vandenburg and the launch schedule is increased this year. It is something to behold when they fire on off just after sundown over the pacific. And now the warn if a boom is going to occur.
Any way. Life goes on.
I miss the howl of the F-4 Phantoms we used to have in Birmingham