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SpaceX and Elon Musk blast the FAA’s red tape again

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

Fight! Fight! Fight! Yesterday both SpaceX and Elon Musk renewed their attack on the FAA’s apparent arbitrary harassment of the company, both by slowing down development of Starship/Superheavy as well as imposing fines and delays on the company for petty issues relating to Falcon 9 launches.

First, Elon Musk sent out a tweet on X, highlighting a successful static fire launchpad engine test of the Starship prototype the company plans to fly on the sixth Starship/Superheavy orbital flight. As he noted with apparent disgust, “Flight 5 is built and ready to fly. Flight 6 will be ready to fly before Flight 5 even gets approved by FAA!”

Second, and with more force, the company released a public letter that it has sent to the leading Republican and Democratic representatives of the House and Senate committees that have direct authority over space activities, outlining its issues with the FAA’s behavior. The letter details at length the irrational and inexplicable slowdown in FAA approvals that caused two launches last summer to occur in a confused manner, with SpaceX clearly given the impression by the FAA that it could go ahead which the FAA now denies. In one case the FAA claims SpaceX removed without its permission a poll of mission control during its countdown procedure. SpaceX in its letter noted bluntly that the regulations do not require that poll, and that the company already requires two other polls during the count.

In another case involving SpaceX’s plan to change to a new mission control center, the company submitted its request in June, and after two months the FAA finally approved the control center’s use for one launch, but had still not approved it for a second. The first launch went off, so SpaceX thus rightly assumed it could use the control center for the second. Yet the FAA is now trying to fine SpaceX for that second launch.

The third case of FAA misconduct appears to be the most egregious. SpaceX had built a new propellant facility that was safer because it was farther from publicly accessible areas. The FAA approved use of that facility for a crew launch to ISS, but delayed its official refusal for a different launch. SpaceX however had that other approval in which the FAA clearly stated the facility posed no safety issues, so it decided to go ahead with the second launch, with an FAA official during the countdown present and making no objections.

Here’s where things got really stupid. During the countdown the FAA suddenly delivered a letter to SpaceX denying it permission to launch, because it was using a propellant facility the FAA had already approved. Mission control called the FAA, telling the official who picked up the phone that “it was unsafe for the FAA to be sending these types of communications during operations … on the fly.” That official agreed, and “did not direct SpaceX to stand down or pull its license.” The launch proceeded safely. And now the FAA wants to fine SpaceX for doing so.

Expect the FAA to attempt to defend these strange actions. A former FAA administrator is already doing so, quite ineffectively if you ask me.

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

Whether SpaceX’s pushback now can force a change at the FAA however is very very unlikely, as long as the present White House is controlled by the Democratic Party. That party now sees Musk as a political opponent, and has clearly demonstrated in the past three years its eager willingness to censor, blacklist, arrest, and even prosecute such opponents. It is now giving Musk and his space company that treatment, and if it maintains control of the presidency after the November election it is going to certainly escalate that persecution, aggressively.

And even if the Democrats lose in November, they are deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy of the executive branch. It will not be easy to force that bureaucracy, including the FAA, to change that its behavior. Doing so will require courage and forceful unwaivering action. Donald Trump appears to now have that courage (see the picture to the right), but it remains entirely unknown whether the people he appoints will have that courage also.

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8 comments

  • Steve Richter

    This is so troubling. Yes, the FAA is wrong and slow and does not appreciate the up side for the US and space exploration. But they are approving launches. Flight 5 is approved. Another exciting success, like we saw with Flight 4, results in a big boost in public awareness, excitement and confidence in what SpaceX is accomplishing.

    The best, most direct way for SpaceX to push the FAA into approving future launches is to do flight 5 now. Show that the booster can land on a specific location in the Gulf, show that the Starship can also come down, the flaps flapping as designed, to a controlled and filmed Indian ocean touchdown.

  • David Eastman

    Thanks for this update. I had seen lots of people looking at the original complaint, and even is sympathetic to SpaceX, saying “but how would they dare to launch without these approvals?” This additional information that they had launched with approval, and then had that approval yanked for the next launch certainly explains things.

  • David Eastman

    Steve, why would that push the FAA to change? They’d just use it as an excuse, “see, we didn’t really delay things that much, they were able to launch only two months later than they wanted.”

    Around the time of IFT3, SpaceX was planning between 4 and 7 flight tests of Starship/Superheavy in 2024. Currently they’re looking at the very real possibility of only managing to get a single one through the permitting process. And this is despite repeated claims that the FAA and SpaceX were working to streamline the process and get batch approvals for multiple test flights. They clearly have to get something done about the rate of approvals. And in the meantime, they also have to get everything they possibly can out of each launch they do manage. They simply cannot afford to waste one of their few permitted launches to “show” something that doesn’t get them necessary data to move forward with.

    The FAA and it’s supporters claim that their hands are tied, and all these delays, hearings, and cross-agency reviews are required by law. Ignoring that much of that “law” didn’t originate from Congress, and is now ripe for challenge post-Chevron. And even where those regulations do comply with congressional intent, well then, complaining to congress is the appropriate action.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Donald Trump now certainly understands that the utter destruction of the Deep State is all that stands between him and the grave. Elon also appreciates the stakes and, should Trump beat the cheat and re-take power, then hand Elon the chainsaw, the latter will make Javier Millei look like a piker. As the Left likes to say, Democracy is on the ballot, just not in the way they mean. We have, in my view, been operating with an entirely illegitimate post-Constitutional regime squatting in the White House for nearly four years now. This November is the last real chance we are likely to get to evict this junta non-violently. We need to do everything possible to see that the good guys win.

  • Steve Richter

    “… Steve, why would that push the FAA to change? They’d just use it as an excuse, “see, we didn’t really delay things that much, they were able to launch only two months later than they wanted.” …”

    The FAA would approve more launches after a successful flight 5 because of the growing positive public response to what SpaceX is accomplishing. By SpaceX showing it can fully control the booster there is lessened safety concerns.

    Yes, the democrat machine is terrible. But the fact that the FAA approved flight 5 shows it is not totally on board with doing the white house’s bidding. Keep in mind the Senate will likely be won by the republicans. And the military wants to use Starship. And of course, all the money the agency administrators can earn when they retire and go to work for private space.

  • John

    In unrelated news, the SEC is going after Musk too. Or is that related…getting hard to tell.

  • Dick Eagleson

    The SEC has been going after Musk since well before he became a public enemy of the Deep State. So that it continues to do so is hardly surprising.

  • Milt

    Then there is this — https://www.npr.org/2024/09/11/nx-s1-5088134/elon-musk-ai-xai-supercomputer-memphis-pollution

    It is now officially open season on disparaging anything that Mr. Musk is trying to accomplish, and NPR (the official “voice” of the Biden Administration) is leading the charge. In the case of the Memphis AI installation, it is possible that Musk’s organization was less proactive than it might have been in engaging with sundry local NGOs and neighborhood groups (certainly they could have afforded to), but it is hard to see how hosting this facility will not be a huge “win” for this community.

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