Bahamas allows SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings inside Bahamian waters
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Bahamas (CAAB) this week announced that it is allowing SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings inside Bahamian waters.
In a statement, CAAB said that one landing is scheduled for Wednesday night between 5:00 pm and 9:30 pm (local time). “All requisite regulatory and environmental reviews and clearances have been completed in accordance with established aerospace safety and operations protocols,” CAAB said, reminding the population that, depending on weather and atmospheric conditions, “one or more sound booms may be heard during the landing sequence”.
SpaceX had completed one landing in February 2025, but the CAAB then paused further landings two months later, claiming it wanted to do a full environmental review.
There was also the issue of a SpaceX $1 million donation to the University of the Bahamas. Maybe the CAAB wanted to wait until the check cleared.
As should be expected, a fringe of anti-Musk activists began screaming “environmental disaster” and getting the full support of the propaganda press. The claim is utterly stupid, considering SpaceX has landed hundreds of Falcon 9s in the past decade harmlessly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Bahamas (CAAB) this week announced that it is allowing SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings inside Bahamian waters.
In a statement, CAAB said that one landing is scheduled for Wednesday night between 5:00 pm and 9:30 pm (local time). “All requisite regulatory and environmental reviews and clearances have been completed in accordance with established aerospace safety and operations protocols,” CAAB said, reminding the population that, depending on weather and atmospheric conditions, “one or more sound booms may be heard during the landing sequence”.
SpaceX had completed one landing in February 2025, but the CAAB then paused further landings two months later, claiming it wanted to do a full environmental review.
There was also the issue of a SpaceX $1 million donation to the University of the Bahamas. Maybe the CAAB wanted to wait until the check cleared.
As should be expected, a fringe of anti-Musk activists began screaming “environmental disaster” and getting the full support of the propaganda press. The claim is utterly stupid, considering SpaceX has landed hundreds of Falcon 9s in the past decade harmlessly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I can just see the Sea Shepard’s attack Musk’s barges post Trump.
Jeff Wright’s thought about Sea Shepard (and similar notorious, goofy, foolish, progressive slactivist groups) must be considered seriously. There is elsewhere in the news today a court ruling stopping, for now, the effort of one such group of slactivists trying to use federal habeas corpus to have elephants freed from a zoo (we do not know if the elephants agree). There are goofy slactivists who try all sorts of things that even more specious than this, so we must consider that certain foolish people will try to shut down SpaceX by claiming that the ocean landings violate the rights of the local squid, or some such thing.
As we see certain federal district court judges make rulings that are at variance with established law but totally in line with efforts to bring down the current president, we must ask what will happen when the judges are no longer constrained.
And Sea Shepard generally doesn’t obey the law in the first place.
As our host has documented, space exploration can be halted in lots of ways, from the thousand paper cuts of denying a UK space port to FAA meddling in ways that make clear their lack of technical expertise to judges who would curry favor with the slactivists.
SpaceX had better get to the moon — I don’t know how much more time they’ll have.
They should thank their lucky stars that it’s NOT the chicoms they’re dealing with.
They would have sunk every vessel
Surprised the Bahamians aren’t selling F9 landings as attractions; they are expecting 19 more. People used to pay good money to watch above-ground nuke tests from Las Vegas. According to an official press release from 19 February, the Bahamians seem quite pleased with the activity. And, as Robert noted, ignorant middle-class White people have no problem appropriating another culture to advance their agenda, and satisfy their White-Saviour complex.
https://www.bahamas.com/pressroom/the-bahamas-makes-giant-leap-into-space-welcoming-first-international-spacex-landing
The eco-pirates all seem to be based on the US west coast and target pretty much exclusively whalers and illegal trawlers so I don’t think any messing with SpaceX’s drone ships off the Bahamas is in the cards.
It does appear that even the eco-pirates have some sense of self-preservation as I am aware of no instances in which any of their vessels have interfered with any of the prolific illegal fishing done by the world’s #1 violator, the PRC.
When the French Secret Service bombed the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand. Popcorn time.