I think everyone agrees that SpaceX launched too early and messed up in terms of unsafe destruction to their pad, rocket, and surroundings (above pics included).
However I think we should keep some context & perspective on exactly where we're more and less OK with certain kinds of environmental destruction.
I think when you look closely at any part of this planet, every action you take causes disruption. This is part of the miracle of life on earth, it's everywhere. Paving a square yard of road causes destruction to the soil habitat, surface and deeper insects and bacteria, the birds and other animals eating those insects, plant and fungal life in the are, etc. Does that mean we shouldn't make roads at all? Probably not. Does that mean we should make fewer roads? Probably! Does that mean we should rely on trains instead of highways where possible? Absolutely!
But we can do this same exercise for a rail! The same soil is under the bits of rail and railroad ties too. Railways also divide up landscapes, causing the deaths of various grazing animals. Should we not make railways...?
I think the extreme is the Jainist perspective of sweeping the ground ahead of your feet before taking a single step. I don't think that view is a reasonable idea for all of us.
There are a few local activists who have been staunchly opposed to spacex expanding into the Boca Chica area. I find it perfectly reasonable that someone would not want a rocket company in their backyard, however if you are going to be launching things into space you are somewhat geographically limited. You want to be as close to the equator as possible to take advantage of the faster rotational speed of the Earth and you want to have an ocean to the east in case there is an accident so that debris doesn't hit anything on land. The area should ideally be relatively remote so that testing doesn't cause too much of a disturbance, but populated enough so that you can get supplies and workers. This leaves you with two options if you want to launch spacecraft in the united states, south Florida and south Texas. There really aren't any other options if you want to be as efficient as possible.
If you think is is bad, you ought to see what cars, airplanes, and wind power does to wildlife. Or construction of that high speed California Railway. Or just _mowing the fricken lawn beside the highway_.
/s off. This is pretty nit picky. Come on folks.
Also, that's not a Bobcat. Probably best if you're going to write a sensationalized article, at least spend 5 mins to try to get your facts straight.
There was no existential reason for SpaceX to launch before they had the infrastructure to support it. They knew they would blow stuff up, had already started engineering a solution to the problem, and still went ahead with the launch anyway. The environmental consequences are enormous. I am a fan of space, but I also want it to be done responsibly.
For comparison, look at the overhead photos of the N1 launch mount and its three MASSIVE angled concrete blast trench/blast deflectors. The N1 is the closest thing that's ever been built in engine count and size to the booster, not counting the saturn V of course.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-soviet-s-moon-rock...
The N1 itself was obviously a disaster for other engineering reasons not related to its launch mount.
The launch mount, on the other hand, looks great, and did its job admirably. THe soviet union was not bad at building massive ugly reinforced concrete structures.
The bobcat photo seems to be a bit misleading here, as there don't seem to be any power lines like that anywhere near the launch site.
I find it very hard to understand why they didn't build the most heavy duty launchpad of all time when it was the largest / most powerful launch of all time.
Debate about "value" aside, does this not indicate some bad engineering choices? The entire failure sequence seems to have been caused by this choice, if I understand correctly.
What exactly is supposed to have happened to that cat? Leading with that photo with no explanation is completely ridiculous.
I loved watching the iterative development of the Starship upper stage, and it felt like they were doing it the right way.
The full-stack superheavy feels like a different situation. Seeing how little control they have over the enormous blast from that rocket is shocking. It feels irresponsible.
One youtube channel [1] showed that a piece of concrete the size of a bus was thrown 50 meters in the air straight upwards during ignition. It almost hit the side of the rocket. This stuff is insane.
Consider the difference between "leaving earth" vs. "leaving earth in dust"
A small price to pay for progress at the scale of SpaceX
The photo of the ruined shorebird's nest is a literal manifestation of the "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" quote
I appreciate seeing visualizations of the "cost of progress" to ground me for a moment
But images like this are also challenging to put into context given the sheer entropy cost of being a modern human being
Take any moment or activity from the day of a First World citizen - driving ours cars, consuming overpackaged foods, turning on the HVAC system
All casual activities with direct, immediate costs to the natural world
At least SpaceX can frame their activities towards an interplanetary mission and the survival of the human race
Where my consumption of a good steak for a fleeting moment of personal pleasure doesn't even have a reconcilable PR angle beyond individualized greed
Maybe I'm missing something but I was expecting far worse from an unexpected launch pad liftoff.
Small beach fire (3.5 acre is truly tiny... for context Louisiana permanently loses an acre of marshlands every two hours). Few chunks of concrete.
Obviously there's room for improvement here, but is this really a catastrophe compared to the normal sub/urban sprawl happening everywhere else?
I saw blast barriers but only on one side. Why not all the way around?
Updated: This used to be a long thread about two people arguing about nothing over the internet and wasting an hour and nothing gained. Very productive.
What's the story at Cape Canaveral?
SpaceX isn't cool anymore around here because HN leans left and Elon backed the right-wing horse.
If Elon had gone "woke" then all the right-leaning sites would be overflowing with SpaceX and Tesla haters.
It's just political tribalism. If you take a side then the other side must vilify you and anything you touch becomes contaminated to them. If a left-winger says the Earth is round right-wingers must insist it's flat, and vice versa.
I personally believe SpaceX to be the most important venture on Earth of any kind, and it's vastly more important than Elon Musk himself or his politics. Thousands and thousands of people work for SpaceX. It's not like it's a one man show.
In a hundred thousand years whatever sentient life descended from Earth life that has populated our region of the galaxy will have no memory of Elon, Twitter, Donald Trump, or the culture war fight of the week in 2023.
The article didn’t answer the question we all now need an answer to:
How did the fire-cooked eggs taste??
No matter how incredible and forward your endeavors are, it's fascinating how many haters there will be. Unfortunately most of this hate is precipitated by for profit news.
that bobcat is unrelated & discredits the article https://spacenews.com/fish-and-wildlife-service-documents-da...
I don't think you can launch rockets without impact on the environment. But you probably can put a bit more effort into mitigating the impact than SpaceX did here. And I think it is fair to ask for the kind of measures that are used on essentially every other launch facility like flame trenches/diverters and deluge systems.