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Comment by hnburnsy | Hacker News Reader

Did anyone hear that SpaceX had to strap a seal to a board and play launch sounds over headphones to get permission to launch at Vadenberg? The kicker, they had to do it twice. Source, Lex Fridman interview with Elon Musk.

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https://www.tweaktown.com/news/94325/elon-musk-reveals-space...

The seal thing is very old news [1] that is pretty irrelevant other than to show Musk will present any regulation in the most unfavourable light if it affects his schedule. I see the exact same thing with contractors around me complaining about the "red tape" of dealing with in-water permits for construction, needing to install erosion and sediment control to protect waterways from runoff, etc.

[1] here's a 5 year old news article with a screenshot from 2013. https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-paints-x-on-western-falcon-...

He also added a story about getting permission to launch from Texas and some governmental agency was worried the spacecraft might hit a shark. SpaceX wanted the data to calculate the probaibility but the agency would not share the shark data either with SpaceX or with another department in that agency as they did not trust that department. Take from these ancedotes what you will, I know how I feel about them.

The point of my comparison with a local developer is that you're hearing one person's viewpoint, who has a very specific interest in the case - so you hear the one specific worst piece of the review process. That criticism is valid. But if you heard only the other side, you'll hear about unsafe development process launching a rocket with inadequate protection of the flight termination system, resulting in extremely dangerous delay between destruct command and ignition of the device. Both viewpoints have validity. The truth is somewhere in between.

Cool

Why word it like that? The concern appears to have been that the launch would be detrimental to the seals and they wanted a study to quantify the impact. Companies that ignore or are hostile to understanding there externalities are terrible and should face regulation. It sounds like a half-assed test was carried out.

The issue is with the level of concern and priorities.

For many people, the assessment is utterly unnecessary, and should have immediately concluded that any possible impact to seals is acceptable.

If it is OK if the seals die, then it should be OK if noise upsets them.

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