Here, I’ll make it simple for you. On July 30, ULA launched USSF-51, an Atlas V mission in which the first stage did not successfully land on a drone ship, but rather was unceremoniously dumped in the Atlantic Ocean. Can you find me the investigation for that launch?
It would be one thing if every launch provider faced scrutiny for not recovering their rockets, but they don't. As a matter of public policy, it's obviously acceptable to dump rockets into the ocean. Every other launch provider gets away with it. The US government gets away with it. SpaceX is the only launch provider that doesn't get away with it; they are, in effect, being penalized for having a capability that other launch providers don't have and plainly serves the public interest. This may indeed be an unintended consequence of FAA regulations being inflexible about "plans", but it is a consequence nonetheless.
SpaceX would face an FAA investigation if a mishap occurs during a landing attempt (whether on land or at sea) because the FAA is responsible for ensuring the safety and compliance of all commercial space launches and reentries in the United States.
Even though landing at sea is a unique SpaceX capability, the location or method of landing doesn’t change the FAA's oversight role.
If SpaceX landings start to fail, what is to say that the next one goes more awry and lands on a home in Cape Canaveral? They do land landings sometimes and we don’t want that to happen.
Like you sort of imply, it seems they are being held accountable for being better but still if they provide any capability it has to be done safely.
> unceremoniously dumped in the Atlantic Ocean.
It wasnt ' unceremoniously dumped in the Atlantic Ocean' it was crashed into a designated area. Ensuring no, dmg to any property boat or people. They dont crash anything randomly somewhere in the ocean.
And I’m sure you would agree that however precise or painstaking those dumpings/crashings may be, they are certainly no more precise or painstaking than SpaceX’s recovery attempts, which are likewise designed to endanger only the SpaceX unmanned drone ship itself. So this is hardly sufficient to explain why a failed landing attempt is somehow more worthy of governmental scrutiny than not even making the attempt in the first place.
Only to prove you my point.
Its really simple, spaceX wanted to land but crashed, hmm this could have been dangerous.
Any other rocket, we will crash land in this part of ocean at this time. And crash at the designated area at the designated time - all according to plan no people should be there.
