Less inflammatory piece.
"Nor has the FAA provided specifics on what transpired other than offering a generic statement: “We will continue working with SpaceX to resolve outstanding safety issues before we approve the next test flight.”"
So unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't seem that the FAA has released any details on what was violated.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/whats-really-going-o...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/29/22256657/spacex-launch-vi...
Was it just an experiment with unpredictable result so they did not want to reveal that to FAA?
Do they think that they are at par with NASA and that any poor outcome can be waved as national experiment!
If I had to guess, I would say that it was an open ended experiment where they could not get approval for a launch so they avoided seeking approvals by playing it dumb and now they have the data that they wanted.
I would be wary of this company because they will experiment with human life believing that they are just another NASA but with even less regulatory boundaries.
If you want to get really good at something, you have to practice a lot. We need the FAA to get out of the way, or we will be stuck on this planet, with no backup for humanity in the event of an extinction event that affects the whole of Earth.
... especially when the rocket EXPLODED. This "the government needs to get out of the way of our billionaire spaceship overlords" mentality would be insane even if the launch was an unqualified success.
That being said I have a problem with your comment. You are talking about that the rocket exploded as if it was of consequence. You even capitalise it. Why do you think it matters?
Safety of a test is about the process, not the outcome. You might have a bonkers unsafe test and come out lucky. That doesn't mean that the test was a good idea or safe.
Or you might have the worst of luck, a complete explosive failure, and still everyone remains safe because the processes were right.
I don't know if the FAA is right or wrong. I don't know if the processes of SpaceX were safe or unsafe, but I know one thing. From the fact that it "EXPLODED" but hasn't hurt anyone or caused any 3rd party property damage you can't draw any conclusions about the safety.
It remained under control for the entire flight, landed hard, buckled, and broke open. There was a big fireball from spilled propellant, and a few large pieces of debris (likely COPV's - composite-overwrapped pressure vessels containing compressed gasses) were thrown a few hundred meters or so.
A failure of this magnitude was anticipated by the preparations they had made (clearing a large area around the pad, plus safety notifications to keep aircraft and ships out of the area); nobody was endangered.
The vehicle had a flight termination system (self-destruct) which would have fired if it had gone significantly off course before it left the safety zone.
The site is on the Texas coast just north of the Mexican border; if it had EXPLODED in midair, perhaps some debris could have ended up in Mexico, but there is literally no way this could have endangered anything in any other US state.
I don't think the FAA cares about the explosion itself. They care about the safety of flights and the safety of people on the ground as far as flying things falling on them.
We really don't know what the issue was yet.
Now not dropping a huge exploding rocket on a major city is also a good argument.
I'm sure the average person on earth doesn't care about the future of humanity after an extinction event.
So nobody was at risk at any point during the test.
Not to mention the whole test flight being setup so that even if everything went wrong no one could have possibly been hurt (eq. just enough fuel to reach inside the exclusion zone, self destruct system, etc.).
Getting wiped out by people jet-setting around the planet on holiday is more likely. Planet-level extinction movies are a popular genre, so yes, we do care.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
I mean, for all you know it's because they launched when there wasn't clear airspace, right?
I think it's safe to assume that the regulatory body that's openly struggling to keep up is the party at fault until shown otherwise.
