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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

James Stephens: You are most welcome. You remind me also that it might be time to repost the links to your Linux series.