You managed to do both. You complained about my point, and you achieved an improvement, by pointing out that they don’t like successes made by other people.

Yet it is SpaceX …. they complain about.

Because it is easier to complain, than achieve.

The current 1,600 close passes include those between two Starlink satellites. Excluding these encounters, Starlink satellites approach other operators’ spacecraft 500 times every week.

Well, that is telling. SpaceX has total control over 70% of the close encounters involving their own satellites.

[Kayhan Space] estimates that on average, an operator managing about 50 satellites will receive up to 300 official conjunction alerts a week. These alerts include encounters with other satellites as well as pieces of debris. Out of these 300 alerts, up to ten would require operators to perform avoidance maneuvers

Wait. On average, an operator gets 6 alerts per satellite per week, but SpaceX is only getting 1 per satellite per week? SpaceX is doing better than the average operator? SpaceX is doing something better than other operators to avoid collisions, yet they are the ones that the press is attacking?

“Starlink doesn’t publicize all the maneuvers that they’re making, but it is believed that they are making a lot of small corrections and adjustments all the time,” Lewis said. “But that causes problems for everybody else because no one knows where the satellite is going to be and what it is going to do in the next few days.”

If I read this right, they are now complaining that SpaceX has active collision avoidance. Isn’t this just what the doctor ordered? It does not cause a problem for everybody else, only to those whose satellites pass through the orbital altitudes of SpaceX satellites.

Aren’t the satellites that have elliptical orbits more dangerous than the SpaceX satellites that are in circular orbits? Yet it is SpaceX’s circular-orbit satellites that are the ones they complain about.

As far as space junk, there is so much legacy junk that only the cheapest possible launch capability, that is SpaceX, makes it possible to even think about making a practical cleanup effort.

Behindtheblack is doing a great job of tracking all of these things.

Complete deployment of StarLink plans for 40,000+ satellites. Expected lifetime of the satellites is 5 years. Dead satellites will keep orbiting for years, while replacement satellites will be put in orbit.

A collision of 2 objects will result in dozens if not hundreds of pieces of debris, each moving at thousands of mph (you can search for images of damage on the space station caused by space debris). Here is one: https://1721181113.rsc.cdn77.org/data/images/full/14401/space-debris.jpg

As for Musk launching outside the US in international waters. I believe that ITAR and other rules also cover that. He would need special permission and more than likely a US navy or Coast Guard escort.
Remember the first launch troubles he had with civilians wanting to watch?

Musk could also apply influence to the right people in order to have the BE4 contract canceled unless Bezos can quickly provide fully working examples for their first launch.

After the first Falcon Heavy launch, in which SpaceX launched an unusual but popular mass simulation payload, there was a government announcement limiting photographs from space. The public response caused that to be reversed.

It may seem hopeless, but we still have a say in our own lives.

So, an irony that Bezos may be using environmental organizations to slow SpaceX is that Bezos has advocated for manufacturing in space in order to reduce pollution of the Earth. Surely, Bezos must have been willing for other companies to do the transportation, not just Blue Origin.

Ron Desmarais asked: “Can’t they build the starships and super heavy boosters in Boca and then launch from the floating platforms to get around any environmental restrictions? Yes the logistics are a pain but they can be solved. If needed they could go 12 miles off shore I international waters, that might eliminate the ITAR issue.”

The environmental damage is not the real problem. SpaceX would still have to get FAA and FCC permission to launch, even offshore, and these are the organizations being targeted by the anti-space community, in order to stop SpaceX from moving pollution off the Earth.

Another irony is that off-planet industrial operations would necessarily have to find ways to be more efficient and less polluting, as a space station or its orbit would become polluted very fast if waste products were not disposed of properly. These techniques would quickly find their way onto the Earth, too. In the mean time, we dump a lot of waste products into the air, into the water, and onto the land, despite the EPA (which — yet another irony — has become the world’s worst polluter, when it dumped toxic wastewater from two mines into western U.S. rivers, a few years back, contaminating a huge portion of western America).

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gives millions to the Sierra Club.

All of the wealth of that foundation was generated from HP.

HP was an important contractor for NASA space-flight programs..

So it’s possible some of the funding that Sierra Club is using to hamper the progress of SpaceX was originally derived from American taxpayers from the 1960s and 1970s.

Side note for Apollo history buffs – here is a quote describing HP’s impact on
Apollo 11:: “As you follow the progress of Apollo 11 on its historic flight to the moon, you can be proud of the fact that HPA has helped make it possible. Our Hot Carriers, PIN, Step Recovery Diodes and a PIN switch are there as they were in the other Apollo flights. Our diodes are also in the Eagle. After it landed on the moon, some of them were with Armstrong and Aldrin in their communication system during their walk on the moon.”

This won’t slow SpaceX down much, since their focus is almost all on just getting to orbit (and back) right now. But it’s not a helpful development. Another small victory for Old Space lawfare.

Sayomara: I think yes, approval of the FAA environmental assessment is now the biggest obstacle for SpaceX to move forward. The company had a number of engineering tasks they needed to do to prep for that orbital test flight, many of which are still on-going, but in the end it is the government that I think is slowing things down the most right now.

Which makes the timing of these “news” stories most suspicious.

Jim Davis: My book is based on careful research. The analysis I do here at BtB is often off the cuff, and I admit it openly. I also admit quite repeatedly that I can be wrong.

However, I also find that my off the cuff analysis is far more often right and catches things most others miss. Consider as just one example my guess three-plus years ago that something was wrong with the BE-4 engine at Blue Origin, and that the seeming halt in its testing as well as the slowdown in New Shepard flights, suggested something amiss. That was a pure guess, but it was based on a reasoned look at the available facts. And it turned out to be entirely correct.

Take what I write, or leave it. I never said these are facts. I made it very clear this was my interpretation.

That’s interesting, Bob. Is your latest book, Conscious Choice, based on careful research or your uncanny ability to detect dishonesty and lying?

Mark,
I remember your response to the article a couple months ago on which environmental groups benefited from Bezos’ $12 billion sale of Amazon stock and one of them was the Sierra Nevada Club. I thought that “SaveRGV” membership was just a single protestor who taught at the local community college.

Last year Jeff Bezos gave $791 million to 16 environmental organizations, and he plans to give billions more. Do any of those 16 organizations have ties with the Save RGV organization that is targeting SpaceX?

CBS News reported on Aug 17 that “A local advocacy group, Save Rio Grande Valley (Save RGV), alerted the district attorney about the alleged breach of SpaceX’s permit. The district attorney then wrote to SpaceX, saying, “If SpaceX has indeed exceeded the allotted hours, then there is no longer a legal authorization to obstruct State Highway 4.””.

I looked at the website of Save RGV. It states that it has ‘partnerships (and of course friendships) with the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Not Here Not Anywhere…”.

So what was going on behind the scenes in these partnerships between environmental groups? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Daniel Billings: People keep suggesting that SpaceX should simply leave the U.S., when that option is simply not possible, for two very simple reasons:

1. Musk would have to move all operations out of the U.S., including all his employees. That can’t happen, nor can he replace either entirely outside of the U.S.

2. An attempt by Musk to import this missile-related technology to foreign soil would very quickly get Musk in trouble with the law. He would be violating it.

There is a third reason he shouldn’t consider running. There is no place to run to. If a free American is no longer free to follow his or her dreams in America, he or she won’t have that freedom anywhere else.

The time has come to stand and fight, not run. I beg my readers to stop advocating running.

Jim Davis: This is my assessment in reading Lewis’ own comments in the article. Others can conclude otherwise.

My ability to detect dishonesty and lying is very good. Though I certainly can and have been wrong, I am quite willing to rank the long term accuracy of my conclusions against anyone else.

Bob, comments like these undermine your credibility. You’re just making this up. I’m sure you probably believe the statements above but your personal convictions are not facts.

I’m not seeing the state respond to anything the general public wants, up to and including national elections.

If SpaceX wants to succeed, it needs a few party members on its board.