There are thousands of people responsible for planning, certifying and monitoring the operations of these launches. Within SpaceX, but also the launch site owners, the FCA, journalists covering it all. There are comprehensive environmental impact assessments, with opportunities for comments from the public. One of the thousands of people involved in all of that is a billionaire.
Furthermore it’s an issue that affects all launches, by ULA, NASA, ESA, whoever, not just SpaceX.
But sure, go ahead and ignore all of that and make a thoughtless dig against one person, in one country, running one rocket company for the crime of being successful at it.
The reviewers at th ed FCA were unlikely to be in the thousands, the rest mentioned I would completely discount.
The "crime" is that one person is not stopping to ask whether we should. There is a lot of hubris is there. Regardless, nobody should get a free pass to wreck the earth (but this is kittens, putting tons of C02 in the air is generally free, so... yeah...)
Looks like the biggest "green" issue is the rockets burns tons of fuel. Thd FAA review was a green light. This phenomena of punching holes was hopefully considered by the FAA (but at this point, can only hope that everything was at least considered)
Yes sorry, FAA. I’m a Brit so not as familiar with the US institutions.
My point is there is extensive and persistent oversight, debate and opportunities for input and objection. Journalists play a role in the public interest in any democratic society.
One person didn’t ask whether we should? Space technology has been controversial since its inception. Citizens, journalists and politicians have been questioning it throughout its history. You really honestly think you’re the first person, or this is the first time anyone has stopped to wonder about it?
>Of course nobody should get a free pass to wreck the Earth. That’s a cartoonishly absurd caricature of what’s going on.
>My point is there is extensive and persistent oversight, debate and opportunities for input and objection.
the point that other commentators have made, which has seemingly been ignored, is that being the person with the most wealth in the entire world allows one to ignore a lot of the checks and balances associated with any activity.
A lot of the 'extensive and persistent oversight' comes from 1) internal employees and 2) government officials that have been 'taken out to dinner' enough times that they don't want to lose the opportunity to schmooze with what amounts to be the most and influential people in the world.
this is essentially how all of American aerospace operates, and I speak from personal experience -- most groups don't have the luxury of being a cult of personality on top of the thick wallets, however.
You can call CO2 harmless all you want, but the reality is that we have a tenuous grasp, if any at all, on what spilling hundreds of tons in a minute will add up to [0], and that's only a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the environmental accumulative 'unknowns'.[1]
In effect Musk's pass to wreck the Earth was by no means free, he paid for it. The problem is that someone , anyone with money and pop interest, can do that.
I'm by no means anti-space, but this trend of pretending that there isn't a sacrifice made on Earth to fuel these mega-ventures is absolutely naive, and the tragedy is that the every-person is going to be the one paying the bill; it won't be Musk's redirected billions.
I read comments like this almost every time SpaceX is mentioned here, and climate crisis extremists bang on about it endlessly. It’s impossible to ignore, it’s just that most people disagree.
>you can call CO2 harmless all you want…
I did not do so, thank you very much. I’m aware of the issues. Climate change is a real problem, but exaggerated histrionics aren’t going to solve problems.
>Musk’s pass to wreck the Earth… pretending that there isn’t a sacrifice being made…
He has no such pass, and nobody’s pretending anything of the sort. See above about exaggerated histrionics. They’re so obviously absurd it does the climate change cause no good whatsoever. To mainstream voters it makes extinction rebellion folks look like a fanatical cult dissociated from reality, and by association undermines the credible and important climate change cause. A cause Musk has probably done more to physically advance through direct personal action than all but maybe a handful of other human beings on Earth.
Sorry to pile in a bit, it's tough as there is a lot to comment on.
> "I read comments like this almost every time SpaceX is mentioned here, and climate crisis extremists bang on about it endlessly. It’s impossible to ignore, it’s just that most people disagree."
Respectfully, I feel you are responding to those comments, rather than the ones placed here. How can anyone disagree with the statement that the impact of rocket launches on the atmosphere is not well understood. AFAIK, that is fact. If there are such studies, that would be super interesting, to my knowledge, those studies have not been done (and could not be done because nobody was launching rockets at an appreciable frequency for anyone to even study it).
If those studies had been done, I would not expect the punching of holes in the ionosphere to be news.
So, let's see the hard evidence of how thoroughly the problem of launching rockets has been studied. What percentage of the SpaceX budget is dedicated to studying why SpaceX should not launch rockets?
Journalists are great, but it's not like they have a many million dollar budget to study this. The hole in the ionosphere seems to be news, seemingly this is an area where humanity is missing _lots_ of knowledge.
There are some interesting reads on whether Musk is a net benefit or not (reasonable people can disagree here)
> this brings us to the first fundamental problem: Elon Musk does what he wants and wants everyone else to do the same. He only sees the advantages of his approach, without ever asking himself about the consequences. It is certain that the aerospace industry has played a fundamental role in the study of climate, thanks to the weather satellites placed in orbit. The problem is that Elon Musk wants to multiply the number of satellites by 20, which will directly disrupt space operations and astronomical research.
Personally, I think the AI car thing has been a distraction and has been an excuse for continuing to put all of our transport eggs in the single-occupancy-vehicle basket. Had Musk pushed the EV numbers he is pushing now back 20 years ago - I would agree that he had done a lot. As-is, for EVs, I view Musk a bit like Steve Jobs, brought the touch-screen phone forward by several years and helped the market adoption, but touch-screen phones would have happened without Jobs.
There are some other interesting reads too from less biased sources:
> It's not surprising that Musk’s socially-responsible message of warning about environmental crisis combined with his massive capital success building electric vehicles (EVs) has given him a messianic status among some of his many admirers. But this status also means that by attacking the Build Back Better legislation, which is by far the United States’ most significant legislation ever aimed at fighting climate change, Musk is providing ammunition to climate deniers and fossil fuel industry opponents of efforts to protect the U.S. from climate change, create good jobs, and lead the world in technology and policies.
> If Musk is really serious about combatting climate change, we need him to support an all-hands-on-deck approach. The commitments, innovation, and investments of private companies must be matched with government policies and incentives.
> Let’s look first at Musk’s achievements in both electric cars and solar power, which Manjoo singles out. In many ways, Tesla is certainly deserving of a lot of praise
> Meanwhile, Musk has dismissed the idea of improving existing public transit—which experts say is arguably more important in cutting emissions than popularizing electric cars.
I'll note that exploring space is very different from commercializing space.
> You really honestly think you’re the first person, or this is the first time anyone has stopped to wonder about it?
I don't think that, I didn't imply that, and wondering if I was the first person to ever wonder that for the first time is putting words in my mouth.
My question is whether anyone that was in a position to know and was also not being payed off wondered this. Given the lack of science around this, the major players I think are more concerned with going further than they are in really studying exactly whether they should. That makes no sense for SpaceX to devout half of their budget to study why they should not be launching rockets. If they are not studying that, who exactly is?
> Of course nobody should get a free pass to wreck the Earth. That’s a cartoonishly absurd caricature of what’s going on.
There have been plenty of free passes to wreck the earth. Examples are subsidies going out to industries that pollute. These free-passes go back in time, recall the train companies giving free tickets to those that would shoot Bison from the windows of the train. We can also talk about deforestation, that most old growth forests have been chopped down and so many tree farms are now taking their place (tree farms grow overly dense, and very sickly trees that have nowhere near the same positive impact as old growth does). There are so many examples of free passes being given.. Why else are so many rivers toxic and unswimmable? The fact we have so many things and areas that are wrecked serves as counter-point.
Beyond this, I think 'serf' responds pretty well, I will not add further.
Furthermore it’s an issue that affects all launches, by ULA, NASA, ESA, whoever, not just SpaceX.
But sure, go ahead and ignore all of that and make a thoughtless dig against one person, in one country, running one rocket company for the crime of being successful at it.