FAA inchioda ancora a terra lo Starship per mesi

[Roberto Deboni DMIsr]

Ero curioso di vedere come il conglomerato
militare-spaziale USA avrebbe ritardato il sig.Musk
dal lanciare il suo terribilmente (costa 1000 volte meno)
concorrenziale Starship, un razzo che va metano
invece che con il costoso idrogeno.

Ed ecco: l'autorizzazione per il primo lancio in orbita
del SN20 era stato promessa per i primi giorni di
gennaio, ma ora non piu'. Di che si tratta:

<https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship/>

L'intenzione di SpaceX di lanciare da Boca Chica
(quindi fuori dal controllo della NASA) richiede
di:

"... obtain an experimental permit(s) and/or a vehicle
operator license from the FAA Office of Commercial
Space Transportation to operate the Starship/Super
Heavy launch vehicle."

Notare il punto 2) degli argomenti valutati dalla FAA:

2) national security or foreign policy concerns;

Forse per ragioni di sicurezza nazionale (imperialismo
planetario ?) SpaceX non ricevera' mai il permesso ?

"The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, as amended
and codified at 51 U.S.C. §§ 50901-50923, authorizes
the Secretary of Transportation to oversee, license,
and regulate commercial launch and reentry activities,
and the operation of launch and reentry sites within
the United States or as carried out by U.S. citizens."

Notare la frase finale:

"sites within the United States or as carried out
by U.S. citizens."

Cioe', un cittadino USA dovrebbe sottoporsi alla FAA
"or" (cioe' oppure) anche se non parti e arriva su
un sito sul territorio degli Stati Uniti ?

Vuoi vedere che il sig.Musk, per partire per Marte
dovra' forse rinunciare alla cittadinanza USA ?
Scherzi a parte, ecco la notizia:

<https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orbital-starship-launch-more-faa-delays/>

28/12/2021

"The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says it’s
at least two months behind schedule on an environmental
review that must be completed before SpaceX will be
allowed to attempt the first orbital Starship launch
attempts."

"The new target date for issuing the Final PEA is February 28."

Inizialmente, tutto doveva essere sistemato entro il 31/12:

"In mid-November, the FAA revealed plans to complete
SpaceX’s “SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program”
programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) – a review that
can be built upon down the road – by December 31st, 2021,
officially delaying Starship’s first orbital launch attempt
into 2022."

In modo in qualche modo "insultante", la FAA riferisce di
18'000 commenti da valutare:

"Somewhat insultingly, in its official statement on the delay,
the FAA appears to attempt to implicate the review of
“over 18,000 public comments” received during a comment
period as a source of those delays."

Quindi basta bombardare un ente con decine di migliaia
di commenti per fermare qualiasi autorizzazione ?

La questione e' che il periodo di ricezione dei commenti
terminava il 1mo novembre 2021 e quindi la FAA sapeva gia'
quanti erano quando subito dopo informava che la data
di fine valutazione sarebbe stata il 31 Dicembre.
Insomma, sono incapaci di calcolare le tempestiche a loro
occorrenti ?

"That six-week comment period ended on November 1st,
weeks before the FAA published its first December 31st
target date. In other words, for comment reviews to be
responsible for any of the new delays, the FAA’s
environmental compliance group would have had to
underestimate the amount of work required to complete
that process by at least 100% – not all that
encouraging for an agency in which precision and
accuracy are of the utmost importance."

Notare che questo "procedimento" avrebbe dovuto iniziare
nel 2020, un anno prima, ma e' stata la FAA a decidere
di aspettare solo nel giugno 2021. E la ragione vera
sembra ostruzionismo da altre agenzie, enti, uffici:

"The real delays, which the FAA acknowledges in much
less detail, are likely the result of “continuing
consultation and coordination with other agencies at
the local, State, and Federal level [sic].” In the
FAA’s defense, some of those delays may technically
be out of its control if slow responses from other
agencies are partly to blame. Nonetheless, it was the
FAA’s decision to wait from November 2020 to June 2021
to actually proceed with SpaceX’s Starship environmental
assessment, which the company officially began drafting
in March 2021."

"Had the FAA started work on the PEA in earnest several
months prior, which appears to have been well within
its power, SpaceX’s extremely limited orbital Starship
PEA might already be complete, allowing the agency to
begin ensuring that SpaceX “meet[s] FAA safety, risk
and financial responsibility requirements.” If the
process of securing a limited license for far less
risky suborbital Starship launches is anything to go
off of, securing a similar license for orbital Starship
launches with 10-20 times the explosive potential could
be an agonizing months-long ordeal. It’s ambiguous if
the FAA is already deep into that process or if it’s
waiting for a complete, approved PEA to begin work on
Starship’s first orbital launch license."