14 thoughts on “A Wrench In The Spokes?”

  1. Can’t have anyone doing better than government agencies.

    Wanna bet that Musk would move the launch facilities to, say, Faro Bagdad, Mexico? The pols there stay bought..

      1. Not if he launches from outside the US he doesn’t

        And Faro Bagdad is about 2.5 miles from Boca Chica

          1. Elon would have to become a Mexican citizen, and have SpaceX be incorporated in Mexico – with no US ties whatsoever.

            I was the first US government official to meet with Peter Beck of Rocket Labs. We shared a few beers in the bar at the Holiday Inn at L’Enfant Plaza, and I laid out, at his request, the options for getting launch “approvals,” well in advance of Rocket Lab’s first Electron launch. He opted to set up Rocket Labs USA, a one-man US company that would make it possible for Rocket Labs to obtain a FAA launch license. At the time, I thought it unnecessary, since the regulatory burden was pretty heavy – but it could have been worse, I suppose. The government of New Zealand had no idea how to license a launch, particularly with respect to the international implications. I think Peter saw the advantages of using FAA/AST for that aspect as being of overriding importance – and today, I see the wisdom of his selection.

            All it takes is for the head guy to be a US citizen, or the company to be incorporated in the US, and the FAA has licensing authority. I don’t know how SpaceX could ever extricate itself from that requirement.

  2. This is all sheer speculation at the moment – a bit of regulation porn as it were. S&M or B&D for the kinky libertarian-ish.

    It wasn’t so very long ago I recall similar dark forebodings being noised about to the effect the FAA might take forever to license short hops by Starship prototypes. Then SpaceX received what amounted to an open-ended license to do suborbital hops.

    Even in the event there proves to be a bit of fire somewhere behind this thus far very thin pall of smoke – and that seems possible only in the event the usurper Biden actually takes office – government entities of various sorts have gone up against SpaceX and Elon Musk before. Their track record of success isn’t very good.

    And this was well before Musk became the second richest man on the planet. He can hire entire white shoe law firms to defend himself if need be.

    Plus, Musk has very considerable political backing in Texas these days. Especially if this whole thus far hypothetical swipe at him begins to look like part of the resumption of a broader assault on Texas as a whole of the kind we saw during the administration in which the current pretender sat second chair.

    For now, I regard this whole kerfuffle as an episode of funk and pearl clutchery by the too-easily excitable.

    1. The FAA got told, by someone with a big enough hammer to force them, to lighten up on Space-X.

      That can change.

        1. Indeed, it was George Nield, the FAA/AST Associate Administrator who “encouraged, facilitated and promoted” SpaceX’s endeavors, per FAA/AST’s charter. Kelvin Coleman was his Deputy Associate Administrator at the end, and is still in that position. He is a like-minded supporter of commercial space transportation, and a real friend of commercial space. In my 10 years as Chief Engineer at FAA/AST, I never once sensed outside political influence for or against any commercial space transportation company – and I went there specifically to prevent such a thing.

          1. Good to know there’s at least one government agency not yet staffed mostly by ravening statists eager to burn and destroy.

  3. Musk just needs to buy CNN. He needs his own media outlet to use as a potential club over the heads of recalcitrant politicians.

    I have to give Bezos credit for playing that game with the WAPO even though he has done zero to improve the shit quality of that fucked-up organization.

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