FAA grounds SpaceX again
According to a report in Reuters, the FAA yesterday announced that it has grounded SpaceX from any further launches, two days after SpaceX had already paused launches, the action triggered when the second stage of Saturday’s Falcon 9 launch to ISS failed to fire its de-orbit burn properly, thus causing the stage to splashdown outside its target zone in the Pacific.
This action is a perfect example of the FAA’s extraneous interference. SpaceX was already on the case. It doesn’t need the FAA to kibbitz it, since no one at the FAA has any qualifications for providing any useful advice. All the FAA accomplishes here is get in the way.
The FAA’s action also likely falls outside its statutory authority. The stage landed in the ocean, causing no damage or threat to public safety, the only areas the FAA’s authority resides. And if the agency now deems returning equipment part of its licensing requirements, why did it didn’t say anything about the uncertain nature of the return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which targeted a landing on land and could have easily ended up crashing in the wrong spot because its own thrusters were untrustworthy?
The FAA is playing favorites here, and needs to be reined in, badly.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
According to a report in Reuters, the FAA yesterday announced that it has grounded SpaceX from any further launches, two days after SpaceX had already paused launches, the action triggered when the second stage of Saturday’s Falcon 9 launch to ISS failed to fire its de-orbit burn properly, thus causing the stage to splashdown outside its target zone in the Pacific.
This action is a perfect example of the FAA’s extraneous interference. SpaceX was already on the case. It doesn’t need the FAA to kibbitz it, since no one at the FAA has any qualifications for providing any useful advice. All the FAA accomplishes here is get in the way.
The FAA’s action also likely falls outside its statutory authority. The stage landed in the ocean, causing no damage or threat to public safety, the only areas the FAA’s authority resides. And if the agency now deems returning equipment part of its licensing requirements, why did it didn’t say anything about the uncertain nature of the return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which targeted a landing on land and could have easily ended up crashing in the wrong spot because its own thrusters were untrustworthy?
The FAA is playing favorites here, and needs to be reined in, badly.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Political interference in the space program needs to be raised to the status of a major campaign issue. The Democrat party is putting America’s national security and long-range success at risk simply because they hate Elon Musk, and want anything related to him to fail!
Being Democrats, they have no problem putting their parochial needs ahead of the nation’s, and in fact they have trouble understanding why there should be any distinction between those things!
Robert Asked: “And if the agency now deems returning equipment part of its licensing requirements, why did it didn’t say anything about the uncertain nature of the return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which targeted a landing on land and could have easily ended up crashing in the wrong spot because its own thrusters were untrustworthy?”
NASASpaceFlight did a video on this topic a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TobeGL4Ma8 (19 minutes)
From the video, Starliner will operate under NASA authority until it becomes operational, and the FAA does not have jurisdiction over the investigations. Once Starliner becomes operational, and now that Dragon is operational, the FAA, not NASA, has authority.
Thus, the mystery is not why the FAA is grounding everything SpaceX. The mystery is why an agency that knows virtually nothing about rockets (they may know that the flamey end points down and the pointy end points up) has the authority rather than the agency that has extreme expertise. All the FAA can say is, “if you say so.” NASA can say, “we think you should look deeper into this.”
Elon needs to fund political ads with no Trump…talking about how he could not launch due to FAA and how Democrats want to go take gas stoves…an issue ad for straight ticket voting that doesn’t mention Trump.
“The mystery is why an agency that knows virtually nothing about rockets … has the authority rather than the agency that has extreme expertise.”
Abso-[forbidden embellishment]-lutely NOT!
“NASA can say, ‘we think you should look deeper into this.’ ”
Which would inevitably, and rapidly, become “you need to look deeper into this until you conclude that we should be in absolute control.”
Edward: Why the hell is the default position always that some government agency of some kind should have any say at all? Does no one any longer have any faith in the concept of freedom, whereby human beings are free to rise and fall on their own merits, with no one ruling over them every step of the way?
No, Americans now insist that some busybody be in charge.
On its own, I can understand this one. Sure, it came down in an ocean, but it might not have. At least to amateur eyes. Perhaps the entire orbit/path was planned such that no matter if the thrusters fired or not it would fall into an ocean. That seems possible, but is not stated, either way.
In context of everything else, I must agree: This is political.
Americans now insist that some busybody be in charge.
That’s not entirely without merit. I’m the first to argue that FDA approval should be optional (and clearly labeled) much like Underwriters Laboratory. However, things falling out of the sky onto my head is not under my control, unlike putting a pill in my mouth. On the gripping hand, America has a lot of lawyers. If something does fall on my head, I expect that my heirs’ lawyers will become quite rich.
Robert,
You asked: “Edward: Why the hell is the default position always that some government agency of some kind should have any say at all?”
First, in this case NASA is the customer. The customer should have some say in the safety of the equipment he buys, rents, or uses, especially when its astronauts depend upon it to keep them alive. The FAA, on the other hand, is not the customer and has no idea and little care for the customer’s needs.
Second, some amount of regulation is still necessary. Preferably it is light regulation — just enough to make sure that a company’s products and operations do not unduly violate other people’s rights and freedoms. We as a people have chosen government as an impartial third party to fairly regulate rights and freedoms, because there are always conflicts. We have the right to travel down the road, but we also have to obey the rules of the road and the laws in order to avoid chaos and collisions. Driving laws and rules are fairly reasonable, and they apply equally to everyone. Even emergency vehicles must obey them when there is no emergency, and when there is, special rules apply to everyone to give priority to the emergency vehicles. The Motor Vehicle Department may be difficult to navigate, but driving is fairly reasonable (except every town seems to have one stoplight that is especially long and annoying).
The risk is similar to a regulation-free society, except that it is the government bureaucrat, rather than the company or powerful individual, who may start thinking that he should have more power than is healthy for a free society. We already see this with the FCC (thinking it regulates space junk and other factors in space travel and use), the NOAA (thinking it regulates all photography of the Earth from space), and the FAA (thinking it should hamper the companies that disagree with the FAA’s favorite politicians).
We are not looking for a government-free society, we are looking for a low level of governance, just enough to protect our rights without taking them away. The United States had been fairly successful at this, even to the point of being the source of the abolitionist movement that eventually outlawed slavery in many parts of the world. The right of freedom from slavery outweighed the freedom to own slaves, as it said so right there in the Declaration of Independence.
The right to launch rockets temporarily interferes with the right to freely navigate the air and the open seas. The FAA issues Notices to Airmen to prevent them from flying in areas that could be unsafe during a rocket launch; I think the Coast Guard does the same for ocean-going vessels. But then, airports permanently interfere with the right to freely navigate the air, with zones around each airport designated as keep out zones except for launching or landing airplanes.
We allow the government to be arbiter of which right takes precedence at what moments, but we have to trust that this power does not go to the heads of the bureaucrats in the government. As a free society, we expect and demand that the government be fair in its role of protector of rights and in its role of disinterested third party in resolving those times when rights come into conflict.
When the bureaucrats violate that trust, then we have to do something about it, and that is what is going on right now with the FAA and the FCC. NOAA was reminded of its proper place a few years ago, and that is what we need with these other two agencies, whose bureaucrats have swelled heads and unhealthy senses of self importance.
“Does no one any longer have any faith in the concept of freedom, whereby human beings are free to rise and fall on their own merits, with no one ruling over them every step of the way? No, Americans now insist that some busybody be in charge.”
You may not have noticed that my example of what NASA could say is not to determine the answer to a problem but to suggest that the company’s solution is not sufficient, that it may not be as safe as it thinks. I think we have discovered that even SpaceX engineers, good as they are, are not perfect. Many SpaceX fans like to think so, but the company had the famous exploding manned Dragon, the famous flying-concrete launch pad (Musk’s claim of the world’s largest blow torch was not exaggerated), the famous surviving pieces of Dragon trunk, and more than one occasion when upper stage pieces have fallen in places that were not the designated drop zones. Not only last week’s problem, but a tank and other pieces of upper stage landed in Oregon or Washington a few years back, when an upper stage failed to properly burn its engine for a controlled reentry to the designated drop zone.
In my comment on Tuesday, above, I had almost used an example from my career. Let me share it now:
I have been involved with two waiver requests to NASA. One of them was approved by NASA, allowing us to do something that violated NASA’s best practices, because we could not make it work their way. The other was not approved.
In the second waiver, we could not find connectors that could do what we needed and requested that we twist and solder two wires together. NASA rightly abhors that method of connection, because it is clumsy and has reduced reliability. In this case, NASA rejected the waiver request, saying that they thought we should keep looking for another solution. They did not suggest a solution or direct us to a specific solution, they wanted us to work harder and not give up. We found a connector that did what we needed, but NASA didn’t direct us to it.
It is possible that NASA knew about this connector, or others similar to it, and wanted us to find one of them. It is also possible that we found a new connector that they didn’t know about, giving them another arrow to put in their quiver.
The rejection of this waiver did not violate our freedom, and it helped us to find a better solution and to satisfy NASA’s desire for reliability. NASA has the expertise to reasonably double check SpaceX’s engineering on this safety issue. The FAA does not. SpaceX still would have the freedom to find its own solutions, but it is good to know that the solution has a good chance of success. With the FAA double checking, we have no such assurance.
_________________
Robert, I understand your viewpoint. The nation is no longer a lightly regulated one but is full of overregulation and corruption.
Not only do we trust the government to be the watchmen who protect our rights and to arbitrate or prioritize conflicting rights, but we also watch over government (trust but verify). When government is the customer we are able to give them what they want. Watching these watchmen is how we reined in NOAA’s overreach, and it is how we will stop the FCC’s overreach and may rectify the FAA’s political bias and its apparent desire to choose winning companies and cause other companies to go out of business, like the BCC did to Britain’s own Virgin Orbit company.
The FCC, FAA, NOAA, and NASA all have their proper jurisdictions, duties, and responsibilities. Problems arise when any of them exceed the minimum needed amount of these three factors.
The FCC went from assigning radio frequencies (to prevent interference between broadcasters) to selling frequencies, turning a needed service into a governmental profit center. The FAA went from a barely helpful safety service (the FAA incrementally improved safety, but the airlines revolutionized air safety into a reality) to a political war machine, turning a needed (but ineffective) service into a punisher of political enemies. NOAA went from a lifesaving weather prediction service to a global warming scare monger, turning a useful science service into a fudger of the very scientific data it should have protected. NASA went from assisting American aircraft companies in maintaining world superiority in flight technology to a political jobs program, turning a useful service into an expensive boondoggle that let U.S. companies fall behind the rest of the world. The missions of all four have fundamentally transformed from usefulness for the American public to political entities that have chosen one side to help and the other side to hinder. The reason we trust government is that it is supposed to be impartial, that it does not chose sides to support. A corrupt government chooses sides, rewards friendly citizens and punishes enemies, tilts the scales, or chooses winners and losers among its citizens and their companies. This is what has been happening for the past sixteen years, when much of the rest of the U.S. government and state governments also became just as political for one side against the other.
Other government agencies that have taken sides:
IRS: Lois Lerner, et al, refusing certain groups from tax-free status based upon suspected political leanings; the IRS has yet to officially halt such actions.
FBI: Using a political opposition dossier as excuse to spy on a political opponent. Entrapping innocent people into pondering kidnapping the Michigan Governor. Investigating parents as terrorists at school board meetings. “Michael Flynning” Gen. Michael Flynn. Warning news media and social media that any suspicion of Hunter Biden is untrue despite the FBI knowing that it was true.
DOJ (Department of (In)Justice): Selectively prosecuting Republicans and not Democrats (e.g. prosecuting Trump for non-crimes yet not prosecuting Hillary Clinton despite listing multiple federal felonies, including serious national security violations).
Homeland Security: Telling social media and press what is “true” to report and what is false to stifle, including taking sides in politics. Publicly abortive attempt to create a Disinformation Governance Board (if there is Official Disinformation, there must necessarily exist Official Truths). Allowing more than ten million illegal aliens into the country for political purposes.
National security agencies (all): spying on President Trump.
Marines (Department of Defense): literally backing up Biden during an official presidential Independence Hall speech (with NAZI-like red & black backdrop) in which he accuses Republicans of being fascists, meaning the very top level of government violated the Hatch Act.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior): Hampering SpaceX from testing Starship to punish one of the Democrats’ politics foes, Elon Musk.
Congressional Police: Inviting people into the Capitol Building for tours just so that the same police can then use the people for target practice, then arresting and viscously punishing the survivors for trespassing, parading, or other minor offenses that they didn’t do.
New York State: Punishing Trump for crimes not committed, abusing and corrupting our courts.
Georgia State: Punishing Trump for crimes not committed, abusing and corrupting our courts.
No wonder you, Robert, see any government involvement as too much involvement. Government is far, far too involved in our lives, livelihoods, and businesses, right down to fining us if we don’t use the correct pronouns.