Trump Admin orders review of environmental rules for rocket launches

The administration has ordered a review of rules intended to protect the public and environment during rocket launches, according to a report by Propublica published on Ars Technica yesterday. 

A draft executive order being circulated among federal agencies, and viewed by ProPublica, directs Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for launch licenses. It could also, in time, require states to allow more launches or even more launch sites—known as spaceports—along their coastlines.

The order is a step toward the rollback of federal oversight that Musk, who has fought bitterly with the Federal Aviation Administration over his space operations, and others have pushed for.  Commercial rocket launches have grown exponentially more frequent in recent years.

This is undoubtedly going to "trigger" the people opposed to launches essentially anytime or anywhere because Secretary of Transportation Duffy is also serving as NASA administrator and critics would argue that he has a conflict of interest. 

Because they fly so much more than any other launch service provider, SpaceX and Elon Musk have been at the center of this storm.  Musk has fought bitterly with the Federal Aviation Administration over his space operations, as well as the things other launch providers have pushed for. 

As you'd expect the advocates for fewer launches have started showing up.  

Critics warn such a move could have dangerous consequences.

“It would not be reasonable for them to be rescinding regulations that are there to protect the public interest, and the public, from harm,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that works to protect animals and the environment. “And that’s my fear here: Are they going to change things in a way that puts people at risk, that puts habitats and wildlife at risk?”

Naturally, that's assuming the regulations are properly constructed with no mistakes either in creating or implementing them, and are written in a perfect compromise between the desire to do no damage to anything and the need get things into space. 

It's reported that documents show the draft order also seeks to restrict the authority of state coastal officials who have challenged commercial launch companies.  It could lead to federal officials interfering with state efforts to enforce their environmental rules when they conflict with the construction or operation of spaceports.  They seem to be afraid the Federal government will order states or territories to build spaceports instead of whatever the states want to build.  I'm fairly certain that has never happened and it seems hard to think it would happen now. 

The changes outlined in the order would greatly benefit SpaceX, which launches far more rockets into space than any other company in the US. But it would also help rivals such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and California-based Rocket Lab. The companies have been pushing to pare down oversight for years, warning that the US is racing with China to return to the moon—in hopes of mining resources like water and rare earth metals and using it as a stepping stone to Mars—and could lose if regulations don’t allow US companies to move faster, said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Federation, a trade group that represents eight launch companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab.

“It sounds like they’ve been listening to industry, because all of those things are things that we’ve been advocating for strongly,” Cavossa said when asked about the contents of the draft order.

I hope the author at Pro Publica understands the talk about mining water on the moon, is for use on the moon, not to send back down to Earth.  Same with rare earth metals - they're for use on the moon.  

Currently, the FAA’s environmental reviews look at 14 types of potential impacts that include air and water quality, noise pollution, and land use, and provide details about the launches that are not otherwise available. They have at times drawn big responses from the public.

When SpaceX sought to increase its Starship launches in Texas from five to 25 a year, residents and government agencies submitted thousands of comments. Most of the nearly 11,400 publicly posted comments opposed the increase, a ProPublica analysis found. The FAA approved the increase anyway earlier this year. After conducting an environmental assessment for the May launch of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 from Texas, the FAA released documents that revealed as many as 175 airline flights could be disrupted and Turks and Caicos’ Providenciales International Airport would need to close during the launch.

Since SpaceX is launching more than anyone on Earth, it seems fitting to leave the closing comments to him.

Musk helped lead the charge. Last September, he told attendees at a conference in Los Angeles, “It really should not be possible to build a giant rocket faster than paper can move from one desk to another.” 

In the background, a Falcon 9 rocket climbs away from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, while in the foreground another Falcon 9 stands on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center awaiting its opportunity to fly.