March 11, 2022 Zimmerman/Pratt on Texas podcast
I did a short nine minute segment with Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas today, discussing the Biden administration’s apparent effort to block SpaceX’s Starship operations in Texas. If you want to listen the podcast can be found here. My segment begins at 22:50 minutes, though the rest of Robert’s show is definitely worth listening to as well.
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 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 did a short nine minute segment with Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas today, discussing the Biden administration’s apparent effort to block SpaceX’s Starship operations in Texas. If you want to listen the podcast can be found here. My segment begins at 22:50 minutes, though the rest of Robert’s show is definitely worth listening to as well.
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 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
Mr. Zimmerman: As a Texan I would like to thank you for introducing me to the Pratt on Texas podcast. I listen to it regularly now for news and views about things Texas. I don’t always agree with him or you for that matter, but why should I. The point is both of you bring me news and opinion which I find worth while and I thank you for it.
James Stephens: You are most welcome. You remind me also that it might be time to repost the links to your Linux series.
With W-10 on it’s way out and new hardware requirements for W-11 it might be an appropriate time to re-post the Linux series. For the most part it remains relevant and you can re-post as is. However over the years there have been some changes to Linux and computer hardware which might warrant some minor changes to the series as written to avoid confusion. I can edit the series or write an addendum.
James Stephens: I have emailed you directly, asking you to imail me directly the text for an addendum. I will create it as an add-on to the series, likely however not as an addendum but as a forward.
I don’t see much evidence to back up this belief. Boca Chica is a complex application. FAA delayed decision on Spaceport Camden but approved it in the end despite some serious concerns about safety. A delay might indicate FAA is trying to find ways around objections that have been raised. Let’s wait and see what the FAA does.
D. Messier,
Although I agree that the FAA, NOAA, and the Interior Department (DoI) bureaucracies may be trying to resolve objections that are unique to Boca Chica and not to Kennedy Space Center (KSC), this is starting to take ridiculously long, currently four months longer than the two-month estimate that was given in October. Why the continual delays? Why do they think that the solution is only a few weeks away, then they have to push the schedule farther to the right, and push farther again and again?
If SpaceX thought that the solution was at hand and that approval was imminent, then Musk would not have mentioned the Florida option, and Brownsville would not be running panicked to their federal representatives so that their recent prosperity is not lost. The FAA, NOAA, and the DoI would be reassuring all parties that a solution was close at hand. Instead, suspicions abound, alternatives are on the table, and panic is in the air. The lack of reassurance indicates to me that the problem is not a simple objection but something that has no visible resolution, and maybe the FAA is shining us on for political reasons.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/local-texas-state-city-politicians-pressure-congressmen-to-get-starship-approved-by-faa/
The Boca Chica launch site was important to Texas nine years ago, when they offered SpaceX an incentive to get it up and running. It was important to SpaceX three or four years ago, when it chose to build and test Starships there rather than at KSC, and starting a second orbital launch pad tells us that Boca Chica is intended to remain an important site for SpaceX for years to come. It is important to Brownsville today as a source of future prosperity.
Whether the delays are political or bureaucratic, the net result is the same. If Starship cannot be launched in a timely manner from Boca Chica, then testing will have to move to KSC, at the very least so that SpaceX can satisfy its Human Landing System contract with NASA. How long can SpaceX wait for the bureaucracy to work this out? Where should SpaceX be focusing its efforts and money right now?
It isn’t just SpaceX and Brownsville. The whole world has been hoping for frequent, inexpensive access to space ever since the Space Shuttle failed to be that solution. From its conception, SLS failed to be that solution. Falcon was a good start, Starship seems to be an excellent advancement, and I am eager to see how other companies improve further on these solutions.
Robert:
I heard you say most of those things on the webcast. It’s a lot of supposition and suspicions. Not much actual evidence. Not much discussion of the process that’s involved. Or the questions and objections that have been raised about the plan.
The reality it is a complicated application that takes time to process. There were a ton of comments. Questions have been raised about the quality of the assessment that was done. Whether it was complete and accurate. The site might be a lousy place to launch these rockets given what surrounds it. There are serious legal issues involved in approving the site and the process that was followed.
The most recent Falcon launch had condensation rings and an elevated contrail start…so many looks.
From America Space-
The government follows or waives process when it it is convenient to them. On the other hand, they will use it as a bludgeon on those they disfavor.
This article discusses a government program. It mentions how producers and refiners routinely miss annual benchmarks. What does the EPA do? Waives the standard. Why? Convenience and money.
https://www.city-journal.org/suspend-the-renewable-fuel-standard
So it is an environmental example where process does not matter. It raises Questions. But I do not foresee the process being enforced anytime soon. To do so would cost important people money and influence, as well as expose the flaws of the program itself.
The SpaceX story is about process you say. A process that only seemed to matter when the new administration took over. An admin that dislikes Masks non-union car company and sees his working with the previous admin as a problem. His ideology clearly does not align with the new admin. Suddenly, Questions are raised, and process matters. This is the bludgeoning version.
And no, I do not think any of the timing was coincidental.
D. Messier, You wrote: “There are serious legal issues involved in approving the site and the process that was followed.”
That seems more process related than safety related, but my point stands. If the FAA didn’t follow the legal process and approval is delayed because of it, then SpaceX may have to perform testing in Florida rather than Texas. If approval is not forthcoming, then Boca Chica may be abandoned for Starship. If Falcon is the only thing launched from there, then the Brownsville economy will not be as prosperous.
Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing that an entire community misses out on prosperity because of incompetence on the part of the federal government? Then there is the lost business opportunity for SpaceX. How about the rest of us, with a delay, due to federal incompetence, in the space-generated goods and services that would benefit us?
“The site might be a lousy place to launch these rockets given what surrounds it.”
What surrounds it is remarkably similar to what surrounds the Florida launch sites.
“There were a ton of comments.”
Which the FAA didn’t think were so daunting when they could finish the process by the end of November, and not so daunting that they couldn’t finish by the end of December, or the end of February, but somehow they get more and more difficult to deal with as time progresses.
“The reality it is a complicated application that takes time to process.”
Four months ago the FAA didn’t think it was so complicated or time consuming, but apparently it gets more and more complicated each time they put off approval. A process with increasing complexity as time progresses is an interesting process. In the curse sense of the word.
The Boca Chica approval schedule keeps slipping just like the SLS launch schedule keeps slipping (which always comes with a reasonable explanation): month for month. At that rate, neither will ever happen. Bureaucracy: the bane of freedom and the American way of life.
Month for month schedule slipage, without reasonable explanation, is quite a bit of evidence that something is not on the up and up, and you haven’t presented actual evidence, either. “A delay might indicate …” sounds like you, too, are supposing and suspecting what it might indicate. Meanwhile the FAA has given multiple estimates for completion, now taking four times longer to process the public comments than the FAA originally thought it would take, back in late October. That seems like evidence that something is not honest. Just as SpaceX seems to be getting worried, Brownsville is showing its concern that the FAA may not approve the site, or at least not in a timely manner. That is additional evidence that the FAA may not be sincere. Something keeps changing, and it isn’t supposed to be the process, and it isn’t supposed to be an increasing number of comments, and it certainly isn’t the site’s surroundings. What is changing that requires so many schedule slips? Why isn’t the FAA as open about it as the SLS team is? Why do we all have to suppose and suspect?
Being kept in the dark gives Brownsville reason to worry about its future prosperity, SpaceX reason to worry about its Starship schedule, and us reason to worry about the delay in goods and services that space can provide to us. Delays lost us the Bigelow space stations, and we can expect that to result in a loss of a decade in commercial space stations from the time that we could have had, with Bigelow supplied by Dragon, if Congress had not underfunded the Commercial Crew Program. Now we have to wait for the advantages that Starship can bring us, so what other companies and benefits will we lose while waiting?
Let’s go Brandon!