Rocket startup Stoke Space is saddled with the same red tape as SpaceX
Stoke’s Nova rocket
We’re from the government and we’re here to help you! The rocket startup Stoke Space appears to be struggling with the same kind of environmental red tape that is hindering SpaceX, though in Stoke’s case the red tape appears absurdly unnecessary.
Stoke is the only company besides SpaceX developing a rocket with both its first and second stages returning to Earth to land vertically and then be reused. Unlike SpaceX Starship/Superheavy, which is gigantic and revolutionary in all ways, Stoke’s Nova rocket is comparable in size to the hundreds of rockets that have launched from Florida since the 1960s. Based on that six-decade track record, it would seem that getting rights to launch Nova (but not for its return) would be considered basic and routine, requiring little complex bureaucracy.
Hah! Fooled you!
Before any of this can take place, the Space Force must complete its “environmental assessment” of the company’s plans at LC-14 [the launchpad used for John Glenn’s first orbital mission and many others subsequently], in order to evaluate how repeat launches will affect local flora and fauna. These assessments are mandatory under federal law, and they can often take months — but the upside is that they provide a closer look at a company’s operational plans.
You can read that draft environmental assessment here [pdf]. Those plans call for Stoke to develop Nova in stages, as did SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rocket. The first launches will not be reusuable, and only after the rocket has launched a number of times will the company attempt a vertical landing back in Florida of either stage. To get to that point the company hopes to do 10 launches per year during this first test phase, during which Nova will be nothing different than the hundreds of rockets launched from Florida since Sputnik.
This very unexperimental plan however is not yet approved. The Space Force must get the draft environmental assessment written and approved by muliple agencies, including Fish & Wildlife, whose bureaucrats don’t like rockets and would love to do whatever they can to block future launches at the wildlife refuge that surrounds this Florida spaceport. And if these bureaucrats can’t block those launches, they certainly act to delay them by carefully requiring far more environmental studies than necessary. For example, the draft environmental assessment is almost 700 pages long, and it isn’t yet approved!
Nor is this all. Even after this first assessment is finally approved (which it will because we know rockets like Nova don’t harm wildlife), once the company decides it is ready to do vertical landings, it will have to then get an entirely new second environmental assessment approved, taking many more months.
This is all ridiculous. Rocket launches — especially those comparable to Nova — are well proven to do no harm to the environment. To force this company to go through this labyrinth of unnecessary paperwork for something that is clearly harmless is stupidity of the most basic sort.
But here we are. American rocket companies of all types now have to jump through hoops with every new innovation or design change. If something doesn’t change soon, we should expect the American rennaissance in rocketry that began about five years ago to fade away as other companies in Europe and India step forward, free from this bureaucracy and able to grab market share as American rocket companies sit idle, filling out paperwork and waiting for Washington bureaucrats to give them permission to breath.
Readers!
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Stoke’s Nova rocket
We’re from the government and we’re here to help you! The rocket startup Stoke Space appears to be struggling with the same kind of environmental red tape that is hindering SpaceX, though in Stoke’s case the red tape appears absurdly unnecessary.
Stoke is the only company besides SpaceX developing a rocket with both its first and second stages returning to Earth to land vertically and then be reused. Unlike SpaceX Starship/Superheavy, which is gigantic and revolutionary in all ways, Stoke’s Nova rocket is comparable in size to the hundreds of rockets that have launched from Florida since the 1960s. Based on that six-decade track record, it would seem that getting rights to launch Nova (but not for its return) would be considered basic and routine, requiring little complex bureaucracy.
Hah! Fooled you!
Before any of this can take place, the Space Force must complete its “environmental assessment” of the company’s plans at LC-14 [the launchpad used for John Glenn’s first orbital mission and many others subsequently], in order to evaluate how repeat launches will affect local flora and fauna. These assessments are mandatory under federal law, and they can often take months — but the upside is that they provide a closer look at a company’s operational plans.
You can read that draft environmental assessment here [pdf]. Those plans call for Stoke to develop Nova in stages, as did SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rocket. The first launches will not be reusuable, and only after the rocket has launched a number of times will the company attempt a vertical landing back in Florida of either stage. To get to that point the company hopes to do 10 launches per year during this first test phase, during which Nova will be nothing different than the hundreds of rockets launched from Florida since Sputnik.
This very unexperimental plan however is not yet approved. The Space Force must get the draft environmental assessment written and approved by muliple agencies, including Fish & Wildlife, whose bureaucrats don’t like rockets and would love to do whatever they can to block future launches at the wildlife refuge that surrounds this Florida spaceport. And if these bureaucrats can’t block those launches, they certainly act to delay them by carefully requiring far more environmental studies than necessary. For example, the draft environmental assessment is almost 700 pages long, and it isn’t yet approved!
Nor is this all. Even after this first assessment is finally approved (which it will because we know rockets like Nova don’t harm wildlife), once the company decides it is ready to do vertical landings, it will have to then get an entirely new second environmental assessment approved, taking many more months.
This is all ridiculous. Rocket launches — especially those comparable to Nova — are well proven to do no harm to the environment. To force this company to go through this labyrinth of unnecessary paperwork for something that is clearly harmless is stupidity of the most basic sort.
But here we are. American rocket companies of all types now have to jump through hoops with every new innovation or design change. If something doesn’t change soon, we should expect the American rennaissance in rocketry that began about five years ago to fade away as other companies in Europe and India step forward, free from this bureaucracy and able to grab market share as American rocket companies sit idle, filling out paperwork and waiting for Washington bureaucrats to give them permission to breath.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The DRAFT environmental asessment is nearly 700 bloody pages?!? Does the thing require an assesment on the impact of launches on every animal that lives in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge from ants and snails on up?
This might not be all about hating Elon Musk. It might just be that every federal department and agency that has a hand in the pie just wants to feel their power and lord it over everyone they can. Have they given Blue Origin any crap, or are they waiting for the real thing (New Glenn) to get near the pad first?
I despise the Green movement
One can only hope that a second Trump presidency will put paid to the worst of this nonsense.
You know that atomic powered flying cars and orbital factories were never gonna actually happen, right? (called Brookings 1960)
Sigh. We don’t really want to do great things in this country anymore.
How depressing.
companies in Europe and India step forward, free from this bureaucracy
As much as I dislike our bureaucracy, I believe the US is still better than both the EU and India – although I have very little evidence (just anecdotes) of the latter.
No hostility or malice needed to explain this behavior.
There are three possible outcomes to any decision by a bureaucrat:
1) No (safest for the department since nothing happens)
2) Yes and it works (“you’ve done your job – what, you want a cookie?”)
3) Yes and something horrible happens (oh no! we’re in trouble!)
All the incentives point toward “no” or, if a decision *has* to be made, push it back as far as possible to ensure result 2).
Note that there is no result where a quick or courageous decision is rewarded. Humans respond to incentives.