Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

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It may seem difficult to avoid creating subjectively negative impacts such as this when launching the largest rocket in history

This outcome was entirely avoidable, right from the beginning of development at Starbase -- and entirely predictable.

It's not even as if SpaceX doesn't already have a second Starship launch pad at Launch Complex 39A, at Kennedy Space Center. (Where they routinely launch rockets without environmental damage lawsuits, up to and including (historically) Saturn V and the Space Shuttle, which are the only vehicles of remotely comparable size to Starship.)

If they don't want lawsuits, they shouldn't have built a potentially explosive chemical plant on a space-constrained sites next to nature reserves full of protected species. Or should ship the Starship elements to KSC by barge for launch. Blaming the nature reserve and conservationists -- they were there first, before SpaceX moved in -- is a dick move.

NASA has refused permission to launch Starship from the only American launch pad that provides access to the International Space Station.

Also, they are running into capacity limits at Canaveral.

KSC and Wallops are both also surrounded by nature reserves, so if that's the argument then KSC is out too.

The size of the launch site at KSC is soooo much larger than the one at Boca Chica[1]. Basically almost none of the large debris that was ejected by starship into the surrounding wilderness would have left the bounds of the launch pad area at KSC. The Boca Chica launch site just seems under-provisioned for this size of rocket.

[1] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_...

This comment is all over the place. “If they don’t want lawsuits, they shouldn’t have built a potentially explosive chemical plant on a space-constrained sites next to nature reserves”.

The FAA is the one being sued. Did the FAA choose where SpaceX built their site? SpaceX got all required approval. There was no known damage to wildlife. These people sue every time. It gets tossed every time. This lawsuit is purely symbolic and frankly irrelevant. If Elon Musk wasn’t tangentially related, there’d be no market for this article, nobody would write about it and nobody would care about this lawsuit like they don’t care about all the other baseless suits these groups file.

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