Man has never been more than when walking in spaceAppear smaller, or greater
Language. Laughing to death.
The results of the second test flight of the Starship, the largest carrier of mankind, are known to everyone on earth. During the flight on November 18, all 33 Raptor engines of the first stage rocket, the super-heavy booster, ignited normally, and the thermal separation of the first and second stages, which were previously considered the most risky, was also successfully implemented, but the first and second stages disintegrated after separation and did not splash down in the predetermined sea area as planned. However, SpaceX called it a success — a "test flight" with a clear mission to advance technology, and the goal of "testing" may have been met by the team.
Although Musk said as early as the beginning of September that Starship was ready for a second test flight, SpaceX waited almost seven months from the first test flight in April this year to November. During this period, the FAA concluded the investigation into the first test flight accident of Starship, SpaceX implemented 63 corrective measures proposed by the FAA one by one, and the FAA completed the safety review of the second launch permit. That's it?No, no, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) environmental review isn't over yet.
Starship base location (Source: rtfitchauthor).
So the question arises: what are the possible hazards of a rocket launch to fish and wildlife?What exactly is such a lengthy environmental review?Last month, Mr. Musk touched on the topic on a podcast with Lex Fridman, a computer scientist at MIT, who delayed the release because he feared that the falling rocket would hit sharks in the waters near the launch site.
The ocean is huge, how often can you see sharks?It is impossible to see it very often. You know, sharks make up almost zero of the ocean's surface area. SpaceX asked FWS for shark distribution information but was denied because it was worried that it could be used to catch sharks for shark fins ......As a result, things became Musk's joke that "we may need to get a fishing license before we can launch rockets".
Next, another Musk organization that "never knew it existed" began to worry that a SpaceX launch could crash into a whale in the open sea. "If you look at the Pacific Ocean, what percentage of the area are whales?It's basically zero too. If our rocket does crash into a whale in disbelief, it's fate, the worst luck ever. I mean, it's completely ridiculous bureaucracy. But it's crazy that such a bureaucratic event actually happened. ”
Whales in the Gulf of Mexico (Photo: Natural Habitat Adventures).
Marine life is abundant, not just sharks and whales – but seals as well. There are also concerns that the sonic boom from the rocket launch may interfere with the mood of the seals and thus affect their reproduction.
Rockets launched from the Vandenberg Space Force base are plentiful, and the number of seals has been growing steadily!"Justification is useless. SpaceX had to "kidnap" a seal, fix it to a wooden board and put headphones on it, and then ** rocket fire the sound effects of a sonic boom to see if it would be depressed by it.
Here comes the funniest part. "This seal is very calm. Because if I were it, I would feel like it was over, and they would definitely eat me!And when this seal goes back and tells his seal friends about his experience, people will never believe it. It's like you tell someone that you only had a ** digital test after being kidnapped by aliens. Nobody believes it, it's ridiculous. "This kind of seal listening to sonic boom experiments, even did two ......
It's this seal (Picture: Tweaktown).
The FAA is the largest transportation agency in the United States, overseeing civil aviation in the country and surrounding international waters, and its powers include air traffic control, certification of personnel and aircraft, airport standards-setting, and the protection of U.S. assets during the launch or re-entry of commercial spacecraft. FWS is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife and natural habitats, with more than 560 national wildlife refuges, 70 national fish hatcheries, offices across the country, and thousands of ongoing conservation projects employing nearly 8,000 people.
Looking at this introduction, they are all departments that manage every day, so the review process is cumbersomeNo wonder SpaceX executives and Musk himself have publicly complained many times: waiting for launch permission is longer than building a rocket!
Musk complained (**lex clips@youtube).
Reference article:
elon musk reveals spacex was forced to kidnap a seal and blast it with sonic booms，
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