Ciao wonder2wonder , thanks for the latest on SpaceX.

In all honesty, I didn't even know there was a launch scheduled. Elon Musk has always learned from his " failures", his team will do better next time.

Before the pandemic, I was head over heels for Elon's project to colonise Mars but now I have lost much of my enthusiasm.

Do we really need Elon Musk in outer space? Ancient Alien Theorists say NO!

Well so far Elon is moving quicker ahead than NASA and probably is able to produce the rockets at a lower cost so why should you oppose Musk having a space program if we have to wait for NASA it probably would take another decade before they get a spacecraft anywhere near the Moon.

@Nexus71 said:

Well so far Elon is moving quicker ahead than NASA and probably is able to produce the rockets at a lower cost so why should you oppose Musk having a space program if we have to wait for NASA it probably would take another decade before they get a spacecraft anywhere near the Moon.

And especially compared to Mars etc, we're not all THAT far from the moon RIGHT NOW!

@wonder2wonder said:

The company has announced longer-term plans to use the spacecraft as a shuttle for commercial travel on Earth, promising trips from London to Tokyo in under an hour.

After enough waiting for pre-flight tests and countdowns and delays etc, that they would have been better off taking a train.

@Nexus71 I just don't like him, but you make valid points.

After the damage caused by the recent rocket launch, some SpaceX projects will be delayed for the foreseeable future due to lawsuits by local residents, and environmental and wildlife conservation groups. The FAA is also starting an investigation, which could take months to years to complete. Until then the vehicle is grounded.

... Excerpts from SpaceX Faces Reckoning after Starship’s Messy First Flight:

A History of Opposition

The judicial system is involved now, too. On May 1 local and environmental groups sued the FAA, claiming that the agency broke the law when it allowed SpaceX to expand operations at its Starbase site in southern Texas without undergoing a complete environmental review. The FAA declined to comment on the lawsuit for this article.

Ever since SpaceX announced its intention to fly Starship from Starbase, which is perched near where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico, opponents to the plan have vocally protested. Such mighty rockets, they say, could unleash untold havoc on the surrounding land, threatening the migratory birds, shorebirds, sea turtles and ocelots that it sustains.

Of course, the region’s human residents—most of whom are relatively poor people of color—could be threatened, too. SpaceX’s activities have raised particular concerns, given other proposed projects in the area, such as two liquified natural gas terminals and a pipeline. “We don’t want two explosive industries in a community,” says Rebekah Hinojosa, a local organizer with the Sierra Club. “This is textbook environmental racism.”

But residents maintain that the FAA and local governments have consistently catered to SpaceX and ignored their outspoken complaints. “I don’t think the FAA did the due diligence or even cared to listen,” says Michelle Serrano, a cultural strategist at Voces Unidas RGV, a community advocacy group based in the Rio Grande Valley. “They just went ahead and let it happen, even though the community raised so much ire over it.”

In particular, opponents have noted that SpaceX dodged a detailed review of Starbase’s impacts. Originally, the company presented the facility as a launch site for the tried-and-true Falcon 9 rocket, which has flown more than once a week on average so far this year without issue. As SpaceX enlarged Starbase to host experimental launches of the largest rocket ever built, the FAA decided the expansion required only an environmental assessment, not a more comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS)—a move that spurred the controversy now embodied by the lawsuit.

“No giant launch facility has ever been constructed without an EIS, and the EIS they had for the Falcon 9 rockets was so much different and so much smaller than what they have today that it’s a brand-new facility,” Roesch says. “The existing EIS is not a good framework to work off. It should have been a full EIS, and that would have identified more stuff—but critically, it would have taken a lot more time.”

Although Starship’s first test launch avoided the worst-case scenario—a rocket blowing up on the launchpad—last month’s launch threw wreckage beyond the bounds of the debris field SpaceX had outlined in its FAA documents as an estimate of damage that would result from that worst-case scenario.

The discrepancy is a major red flag that something went wrong during the regulatory process, according to Roesch. “This does not line up with what they disclosed to the public,” he says of SpaceX. “I don’t think they did their job of protecting the area or disclosing what the actual risks are.”

And that makes the damage from the flight powerful fodder for lawsuits such as the one already filed against the FAA. “I think it’s really incredible leverage,” Roesch says. “This was visible, and people have an emotional reaction to it.”

Still, local opponents of the launch site say that it shouldn’t have taken the destruction that unfolded to convince decision-makers not to take SpaceX at face value.

“Exactly what we said would happen happened, and it’s really, really disappointing, and it’s scary,” says Emma Guevara, a local organizer with the Sierra Club. “I’m disappointed that it took this much damage and this much danger for us to be taken seriously.”

Side notes:

So, until the judge and the FAA have given their permission, there will be no SpaceX rockets or astronauts going to the moon or Mars. NASA will take the lead now.

@wonder2wonder : I'm glad that no one got hurt from all of that debris. I think that NASA should take the lead from now on. Especially since for some nutty reason Elon Musk creeps me out.

@SecretaryIMF said:

@wonder2wonder : I'm glad that no one got hurt from all of that debris. I think that NASA should take the lead from now on. Especially since for some nutty reason Elon Musk creeps me out.

What you are sensing is: “A Disturbance in the Force.”

And it is not a good disturbance.

NASA has killed more people than Space-X has.

I'd still prefer NASA over Space X .

@SecretaryIMF said:

I'd still prefer NASA over Space X .

How many decades do you think it should take to get back to the Moon, or anywhere else?

@Knixon : I stand by my answer.

Safety comes first. NASA needs to be at least 110% sure that nothing can go wrong and no one dies during the mission.

The last disaster was twenty years ago on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The previous one was on January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all seven crew members - including school teacher Christa McAuliffe - aboard.

Any new disaster with the loss of lives could turn public opinion against NASA and shut down space missions for a long time. There is already an ongoing debate about the waste of time and money on space exploration, while there are still problems on Earth to solve.