Grumble…

Gotta wonder who’s side the administration is…never mind…

It isn’t a joke whenever I say that the new space race is Elon Musk versus the rest of the world, and I’m not joking now when I tell you that his company’s biggest competitor isn’t China — and it certainly isn’t Russia — but the Biden-Harris FAA.

SpaceX’s Starship promises to revolutionize spaceflight by reducing launch costs by two orders of magnitude — that’s a 99% savings — and vastly expanding current limits on the size and mass of what can be lifted into orbit and deep space.

If SpaceX can get permission to perform the necessary flight tests, that is — and the FAA is dragging its feet.

Full article, HERE and Musk statement HERE.

It’s becoming pretty obvious that the administration is trying to shut Musk/SpaceX down after Musk came out supporting Trump.

The really sad part is that right now SpaceX is the ONLY reliable US option for getting astronauts to/from the ISS. Granted UAL can push log flights, but most of them are also being done by SpaceX.

What happens if Musk says F it, and moves somewhere else, shutting off any support to the US and NASA programs?

Is ANYBODY in DC thinking about that? Musk does what he says he is going to do, unlike most celebrities that just mouth plaudits….

Sigh…

Comments

Grumble… — 21 Comments

  1. I’ve often wondered why he doesn’t charge the same amount per flight that Boing does to the .gov. “Fine. You want to be over-charged? Here you go.”

  2. Just give Musk a few nukes for his rockets and he can solve the FAA and Biden Regime problems.

    • He’s smart enough and rich enough to hire people in the relevant fields… he could probably engineer his own nukes.

      • True, but lead time and hiring/purchasing pattern might be a bit suspicious, unless he covers it with something like a nuclear power front company.

        • Sadly, he could probably build better, smaller nuclear plants than the current companies, and faster too.

  3. Europeans hate him as much as Biden/Harris because of his stand on free speech.

    Russian and Chinese won’t trust him. Israel, India and Iran are a no go.

    So he should buy a small island or archipelago, like the Cook Islands and found Muskavania. I’m sure it would flourish.

    BTW it’s tacky to talk about nuking your own country. See Joe Biden.

    • As a proud support of the Society for the Thermonuclear Eradication of Marxism, I readily accept that parts of America will need to be nuked, along with a lot of other countries.

    • I used to worry that Iran would get the bomb and nuke NYC, DC, and LA. Now I worry they won’t.

  4. Efficiency in government? Logical thought in government? Thank you for the laughs this morning. I’m not sure it is even the Biden Administration getting payback for Muck’s support of Trump (though that is a bonus). I believe this is Boeing and Blue Origin greasing palms to slow SpaceX down so they can hopefully catch up a little. I know NASA has never liked relying on one contractor, and I get it. But the lack of progress by Blue Origin, and Boeing’s lack of success/quality control issues may force NASA to use SpaceX for everything.

    • It’s Biden. A friend of mine worked at the main FAA office in DC for a couple of years. It’s highly political, very corrupt, and they even look the other way for convicted child molesters.
      The people working there are all pretty much evil.

  5. Given all the federal laws that he has to comply with, and the way they are written,leaving US jurisdiction is pretty much impossible.
    Unfortunately, bureaucrats are quite willing to kill the golden goose for not respecting them sufficiently and it would be all too easy for that to happen here.

    He’s an outsider and a disruption to the system – that is what a system hates the most.

    • It’s why the system must be swept away. At this point I no longer care if it is through the electoral process, a bloody revolution, or cleansing thermonuclear fire.

  6. I’m starting to think that malicious compliance is in order with any launches scheduled for the USG.

    I’m sorry, we were unable to launch your payload today due to a problem with U.S. Code (chapter/subsection) and regulation {number}.

    We’re forming a committee to study this issue, and we should know something within a couple of years. If this puts your launch too far behind, we apologize, but we must obey all government laws and regulations in our launches, as I’m sure you understand.

    Please contact NASA, Blue Origin, ULA, the Russian Federation, or the Chinese if you need a launch of your payload in a window closer than that estimated timeframe.

  7. The criminal left is currently preoccupied with insuring Trump loses and they maintain their grip on power. Once the Selection in November is done and Komula Harris is installed as Pedo Joe’s replacement they will their attention to Musk. They will strip him of his assets and destroy him. NOBODY does to them what he has and is allowed to go unpunished.

  8. elections have consequences. Hopefully the next will go better.

  9. I’m not convinced that a Trump defeat is guaranteed, but time will tell. And Musk is pretty good at workarounds.

  10. Musk should find some impoverished Carrabean island and make a deal. SpaceX launches and a home to all his corporations in exchange for constitutional changes preserving his liberty and free speech.

    Whole lotta tax base there for somebody to bid on.

  11. The FAA doesn’t produce anything so they don’t compete with SpaceX.

    The FAA OPPOSES SpaceX to protect NASA’s pet contractors (and the 10% for the Big Guy they all kick back up the line).