“In his written statement, Gerstenmaier said that Starship has been ready to fly since mid-September and SpaceX is prepared to conduct the second integrated test flight “as soon as the end of this month,” but they have to wait until the regulatory process is concluded. … “These delays may seem small in the big scheme of things, but a continuous delay of each and every test flight just adds up and eventually, we’ll lose our lead and we’ll see China land on the Moon before we do,” Gerstenmaier said.”
The China thing is stupid but the review after the failure of the pad and the FTS isn’t really what this is about. I’m sure SpaceX would be happy if they could talk congress into relaxing that type of thing too, the reality is that by all accounts both parties are happy with the way the safety review has gone, and with this type of thing the FAA works very closely with SpaceX (though I suspect Elon will be upset if the Fish and Wildlife Service consult takes long given his impressive record of stupidity). In fact, given the wording the SpaceX rep used, I’d bet his mentioning Starship and the Moon is because Artemis is very important to a lot of people in Congress for several reasons - if this were about Elon’s ego and disregard for safety, I expect they’d instead mention Mars and China’s growing economic, not scientific, rivalry with the US. But that’s besides the point.
The real issue at hand for the FAA, and the reason for this hearing, lies in the fact that starting with the Falcon 9, commercial space launches are becoming more and more routine, and they’re only going to keep picking up the pace as Starship, Vulcan, Proton and others enter service. And while at the moment the FAA is managing to keep most things running, they’re critically understaffed for the workload to begin with before you even take into account the pace at which the space scene is changing. And most of what was said in the article lines up with what the FAA says, which is basically “sorry guys, we’re doing the best we can, but we don’t have enough people”. I think this quote from SpaceX does a much better job than the crap they have to tell senators:
“Our concern is even today Falcon and Dragon are sometimes competing for FAA resources with Starship, and the FAA can’t handle those three activities together. So let alone what’s coming next year, or maybe even later this year, we just don’t think the FAA is staffed ready to support that.”
They also recommend that the FAA be allowed to use NASA’s and the Space Force’s resources, which sounds like a great idea worth exploring to me. It should also be mentioned that these complaints are almost exclusively targeted at unmanned space flight, and that manned space flight is a different story entirely and not really relevant to this hearing.
So really a better non-sensational title would be “FAA understaffed for space boom even with doubling of staff, says space companies” or something along those lines.
as Starship, Vulcan, Proton and others enter service
Did you perchance mean Neutron? The first Proton rocket launched in 1965 :)
I certainly do, thanks for the correction!
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They’re taking their time because last test you dumb fucks showered the area in concrete shrapnel.
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No one cares about spaceX’s imaginary race with China to the moon.
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… an area that had been cleared.
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Congress does. That’s why they’re speaking about the things they do.
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters FAA Federal Aviation Administration FTS Flight Termination System Jargon Definition Starlink SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation
[Thread #12 for this sub, first seen 20th Oct 2023, 04:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I’m okay with China reaching the moom before America. Maybe don’t cut corners so that you meet regulations quickly.
Last I checked China is late by about 55 years, even if they land next year.
Oceangate…
Soon the only lights in the night sky will be our collective space debris.
And Starlink satellites.
