Thursday, September 21, 2023

Launchpads as commodity

This present Administration (but don't call them gangsters) has the word out that Elon does not go to space today. (FAA says October looks good; Interior / Fisheries says no.) Yesterday Zim noted that Blue Origin has been building launchpads, in Florida. But aren't doing, you know, launches. Hey - I might have a plan!

The key here is location. FAA - supposedly - rules the air; Interior is looking at the land... supposedly. Honestly I doubt that Interior own jurismuhdiction between a Union State, another nation (Mexico here), and a body of international water between them; Louisiana (say) is hardly affected. Interior see no interstate concern with unlawful migration into Texas; Biden got his own glorious wall. This leaves what happens at the Rio Bravo for NAFTA - at best.

Elon himself has more concern. I gather Texas overall has more concern. The Bushies in the present Legislature are unlikely to care but maybe the Texans can clean House, later.

Anyway, since the BFR test "mishap" (which somehow was worse than Rocket Lab losing actual freight), I'm considering if we could commoditise our launchpads. Say: Elon can't launch from South Padre. Fine. Then nobody gets to launch from South Padre. NASA is allowed to launch that stupid SLS from Canaveral. That means everyone gets to launch from Canaveral.

Some other business needs to sell launchpad services, which can be to Elon, but can also be to Rocket Lab or to NASA. Some other business like Space Origin. The launchpad company is responsible for rating their launchpads for Raptor 2 or (soon) Next 1337. Interior can deal with them.

Meanwhile Zim has noticed that SpaceX have Constitutional considerations on some of the Federal animadversions to other SpaceX practices here hiring. I reckon that Texas might have some considerations of its own, against the Fisheries and Interior, out where there is no Federal interstate commerce-clause interest.

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