SpaceX receives FAA blessing for another Starship test SpaceX is set to have another go at launching its monster Starship rocket today after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave the venture the green light. The FAA has issued a license modification authorizing the test flight, which is scheduled to launch on March 3 from 2330 UTC. One of the license modifications …
The upper atmosphere? Don't you understand the danger that represents? Oh, sure, dense parts will burn up as they descend towards the ground, but anything that can, well, flutter as it drops is likely to land safely.
If you haven't realised what this means, how The True Controller of The Satsuma will be left alive to terrorise the land, as we were warned:
"and then it began to creep like a slimy red animal across the land, covering field and ditch and tree and hedgerow with living scarlet[1] feelers, crawling, crawling!"
[1] as it unlatches from its host, all the colour it injected into the bulk will be drawn back inside itself, darkening its hue.
Musk can never be VP as the Constitution lists the rules as the same as the President - notably for Musk he's not a natural-born US Citizen so fails rule #1
This is so obviously unconstitutional that even the current Supreme Court would be forced to rule with any challenge to Musk being appointed, so I will assume they won't bother trying.
That's for as long as the Constitution lasts, of course.
"I thought the FAA was being a little nit-picky on the last couple of launches however the end of the last launch attempt did give me pause."
The FAA is mainly concerned with risk to uninvolved entities. If Elon wants to crash stuff into the sea, that's fine if it isn't likely to kill or cause property damage. Impacting aircraft routes is an issue since that impacts many other people.
The delay in destroying the FAA does not depend on whether or not they issue SpaceX a license. SpaceX have already launched three times without a valid license. They got one slapped wrist for SN8 and a fine that will never be collected for the two Falcon launches. Next time I doubt there will be anyone to left issue a fine.
Musk has adopted Curtis Yarvin's plan for the future. There will be no more government, only corporations with unlimited power. Any functions of government that matter to corporations will be handled by corporations directly. Corporations currently benefit from government air traffic control. The last of the FAA will be de-funded when corporations say they can do business perfectly well without them.
The IFT8 license might possibly be legit because it makes no difference to Musk one way or the other. Having it ready at this time may well have caused delays to licenses for ULA, RocketLab, Stoke, Firefly, etc because of where limited resources are deployed.
"SpaceX have already launched three times without a valid license."
That could implicate the government if an accident causes injury, death or property damage. Since Starship is part of a development contract to land astronauts on the moon, there's more of a reason for the government to enforce laws and regulations regarding Elon's reckless behavior.
"Flying to the Turks and Caicos tonight? Good luck"
It's not just the Turks and Caicos. Basically any flight to or from any island in the Caribbean, Caymans, Antilles and Windward Isles will have problems if the flight goes Kaboom again. All great circle routes crossing the Atlantic lead north through the potential debris zone, as do basically all flights to the US unless they take a very south westerly detour over the Gulf of Mexico towards Texas before heading north.
Last June I was in Florida and watched a Crew Dragon take off for the ISS. It was night and from where I was standing on the banks of the Banana River I could see the ship take off, the stages separate, and then the booster land.
It was incredible.
I look forward to seeing a Starship doing the same thing one of these years. Both ships are magnificent accomplishments, unlike anything any government has accomplished.
We live in amazing times.
"on the first go", if you don't count the countless engines and test articles that went kaboom before they even assembled the first full Saturn V stack, or the several times that the vehicle came within a blonde whisker from disaster (pogo oscillations, a lightning strike, an oxygen tank exploding, to name but a few)
Saturn V was staggering, stupendous, mind-blowing.
2900 tonnes standing on a plume of hot gas, being balanced and steered by that gas, the mass diminishing as the thing accelerates 120 tonne payload to orbital velocity.
Those thousands of tonnes of fuel being delivered to the motors at 15 tonnes per second by 55,000 BHP fuel pumps. There are lots of amazing facts like these about Saturn V which was developed in just four years during the 1960s by engineers using slide rules and delivered all its crewed missions to orbit without failure. Despite even being struck by lightning.
Both ships are magnificent accomplishments, unlike anything any government has accomplished.
NASA doesn't build ships. They merely put out contracts for private companies to build them:
https://apollo11space.com/meet-the-makers-the-private-contractors-that-powered-apollo/
https://www.spaceline.org/united-states-manned-space-flight/space-shuttle-program-history/
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