SpaceX closing in on approval for 25 Starship launches in 2025 The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a draft of the environmental assessment for SpaceX's proposal to increase the frequency of launches and landings at the company's Boca Chica facility. The revised draft environmental assessment (EA) [PDF] considers allowing the Starlink parent to perform 25 orbital …
The progress of Musk and SpaceX is starting to look remarkably like some of Robert Heinlein's earlier stories, particularly the Harriman stories in "The Man who Sold The Moon" (1953) and related books. Harriman got so ritch that his shareholders prevented him from going to the moon, his main reason for building spaceships, for fear that if he died in space they'd all loose money: It will be be interesting to see if anything like that happens to Musk. There are already some interesting resemblances: don't forget that one of Musk's aims has alwayds bee the get himself to Mars.
Lets try the yearly numbers of sea turtle nests on Boca Chica beach and Texas in general:
2025 ? ? IFT4* IFT5* IFT6*
2024 8 340 IFT2* IFT3
2023 9 256 IFT1
2022 18 284
2021 5 194 SN6* SN7* SN8* SN9 SN10 SN11 SN15
2020 6 262 Starhopper1* Starhopper2*
2019 6 190 2x Starhopper Tethered hops
2018 2 62
2017 23 353
2016 9 185 Start of major construction
2015 0 159
2014 2 118
* Flights after the end of the nesting season have been moved to the following year.
I do not see any obvious correlations. If the numbers were easily accessible for earlier years then there might be some evidence that building launch sites increases turtle nest numbers. SpaceX have put in considerable work clearing rubbish from the site. The result of the environmental assessment was mitigated FONSI. Some of the mitigations carried out by SpaceX relate to sea turtles.
It is almost as if years of work from skilled professionals at the US FWS lead to better predictions (Finding Of No Significant Impact) than random commenters on the internet.
"Lets try the yearly numbers of sea turtle nests on Boca Chica beach and Texas in general:"
Nests are one thing, but it's been demonstrated in several studies that when the baby turtles hatch they are attracted to bright lights. Normally, that should be moonlight bouncing off the water which guides them into the sea. With a 24/7 operation light up like Diwali, .....
SpaceX was supposed to have modified their lighting, but they haven't and it doesn't appear they are going to. The FONSI is a joke and a launch every 2 weeks will make it even more so. A launch every 3 days, as Gwynne has talked about, would make the whole area untenable. There's no chance of using facilities at Cape Canaveral until SpaceX can demonstrate a much higher level of safety. Even then, there may be a issue with the proposed cadence.
According to these guys, who ought to know, 2022 was the biggest hating they have recorded and they were founded in 1977. They don't even mention Space but do mention "Most babies hatch during the last week of June and the first week of July.", so a fairly short window when the lights might be an issue. Also in the story is "thousands of small sea turtles returning to the ocean at sunrise.", so moonlight is probably not a guiding light issue for thes species of turtle.
I very much hope SpaceX is taking this into account, but I don't think it's as onerous an obligation as you think it is. And moving to Kennedy isn't without it's issues as that too is a nature reserve.
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I like Gwynne Shotwell. She does an amazing job of keeping Elon in check and does the day to day running of SpaceX. She has also said that she deals with most of the regulatory issues. However she believes in handing too much power to companies and self regulation, that worked out well for Boeing. Her view is that there should be a general overview that says nobody should get hurt and not worry about details such as design or flight paths. She doesn't seem to care much about the environment or non-harmful disruption such as road closures.
"I like Gwynne Shotwell. She does an amazing job of keeping Elon in check and does the day to day running of SpaceX."
I'd think the extent of herding Elon is keeping him away from the Falcon program as it has the potential to make money. Whether they do with all of the Starlink launches going on is anybody's guess.
"SpaceX anticipates no more than 20 explosive events at the surface of the water for each vehicle for the life of the program."
Erm.. how can each vehicle explode 20 times?
Perhaps the quote is really referring to "vehicle class"? But, that begs the question "What program?" as, would assume a separate program for each class?
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