Local aboriginal council in Australia rejects Southern Launch’s spaceport
Australia’s spaceports. Red dot: active. Red X: proposed or defunct
The local aboriginal council that has jurisdiction over the land that the spaceport startup Southern Launch wishes to build its launch facility has rejected a request for an environmental waiver.
The proposed Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex is located 30 kilometres from Port Lincoln on land it leases privately. Southern Launch had sought to have the heritage agreement officially amended so it could build a complex that would offer space mission services.
However, because the proposed site is a recognised conservation area for native vegetation and fauna, the Native Vegetation Council rejected the motion. Rebecca Boulton from Birdlife Australia welcomed the upholding of the heritage agreement in place at the site since 1987, a habitat she said was home to two endangered bird species.
Southern Launch has been very successful with its Koonibba Test Range, where it signed multiple contracts with several recoverable capsule companies, allowing them to land their capsules there, with Varda already doing so about a half dozen times.
Koonibba however is not on the coast. The spaceport has been attempting to build a second facility on land it has leased at Whaler’s Way, as shown on the map. It however has been faced with both local and national opposition from the same kinds of leftist groups that have harassed SpaceX in the U.S., using trumped up environmental issues and lawfare to block development. In Australia those groups have allied themselves with various aboriginal land councils. In the case of the proposed Atakani spaceport in northeast Australia, this activist alliance killed the project..
It now appears to be doing the same to Southern Launch.
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Also noted (on this blog), the Hawaiians who keep stymying the telescope upgrades.
Shakedowns. Shakedowns, everywhere…
For the latest in how Identity Politics and the Victim Culture perpetuates itself, read — if you can stomach it —
https://theconversation.com/when-your-child-asks-if-theyll-be-harmed-like-the-people-on-the-news-what-do-you-say-psychologists-provide-tips-on-how-to-talk-about-identity-290768
This narrative is so sick, twisted, and toxic that it is indeed difficult to read through, but it represents the Official Woke Vision of how awful and oppressive life in the United States is for anyone but white males*. From microaggression to more overt slights, life is an unending horror, and if you don’t believe me, just tune into your local NPR station. This remains the “theme” of almost every program that they produce / broadcast.
*Maybe some of these kids — as opposed to absorbing this kind of slow acting poison — might grow up wanting to work for SpaceX or Firefly and be the first persons from their families to live and work in space. Or to colonize the moon or Mars.
Here, at least, is some articulate commentary on this kind of culture destroying insanity from Jim Kunstler, https://www.kunstler.com/p/the-deluge which at least demonstrates that not everyone has gulped down the Kool-Aid and taken the knee.
I am reminded of the way these things work in the Alaska oil patch. Write a large enough check and magic happens. Cheers –
This is exactly how it works. If you have the time look up the infamous “Secret Women’s Business” and the aboriginal opposition to the Hindmarsh Bridge development. This aslo was in South Australia.
We lived in South Australia for 15 years and watched economic development stagnate. If it wasn’t the abos it was the greens so nothing was happening. Also look up the State Bank of South Australia collapse.
We moved to Queensland 33 years ago.
Yeah, if you choose to accept that “I/we can’t produce”, then any old unremarkable “victim(s)” can extort!