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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying:

> SpaceX told the FAA in May that it did not believe the review was necessary because it only intends to use the "integration tower for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or -permitted launches," the FAA said.

Does the FAA have jurisdiction over this tower if they're not actually using it for launches?

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The issue is the tower is intended to be as high as 480ft. This is significant as that means it will end up being listed on charts and factored into any nearby instrument approach procedures.

All that said, this is a case where the FAA probably shouldn't be dragging their heels. It's trivial (single digit minutes) to figure out what this impacts and shouldn't be more than a day to come to a conclusion and generate a report on necessary approach, chart, and notam updates among others. Unfortunately this isn't how these agencies operate.

EDIT: The FAA reviewed the site multiple times, including earlier this year and found no impact on aviation navigation so unclear what they're potentially upset about. The area is rather sparse and the closest airport is a small untowered field 15 miles away.

> Unfortunately this isn't how these agencies operate.

I have some state-run tennis courts nearby. In order to sign up you need to bypass the certificate warning, identify what kind of nonprofit you aren't, specifically ask for the "tennis" amenity at the tennis court location, and explain what you want to do there (tennis). Oh, and you need to sign up at least two days in advance so the bureaucrat can approve it.

Indeed, it is not how these agencies operate.

A small untowered airport seems like exactly the type of place where someone could fly into a nearby tower.

It’s 15 miles away. No instrument approach I’ve flown is that low that far away. Never would I ever fly below 500 feet AGL in IFR conditions and not on final approach.

Without knowing the height it is hard to tell. As an amateur radio operator I can put up a tower that is just under 200 feet tall without any real approval. Past that I would need FAA approval. It gets expensive, mostly because you need to keep the tower illuminated at night.

I agree, it's right next to an airport, so the FAA has jurisdiction over anything over 200 feet tall. What it's meant for is basically irrelevant, except the scenario where SpaceX lied to the FAA about what it is for.

> The FAA letter said the tower could be as high as 480 feet.

without any further context, this seems like the system working as intended: the FAA gives warning as a courtesy, spaceX says "thanks, we know, we're not using it for anything that would break the rules".

nobody has issued any orders or fines. any drama about the FAA being "angry" seems to be invented by the internet.

How much testing can you do with a launch tower without actually launching anything? Surely any launch would have to be cleared by the FAA right?

(I could totally be wrong and there's good reasons to build this, but my initial assumption is that the only real reason to build a launch tower would be to launch stuff with it)

At the very least it's good for show.

"integration" means putting it together/assembling it. At Cape Canaveral, they have the Vehicle Assembly Building for this.

I believe the goal is to have a launch tower catch falcon 9 rockets, then take a starship, rotate it around the tower 180 degrees and put it on top of the rocket that just landed to refuel and launch again.

edit: super heavy not falcon 9 here is the youtube video I was remembering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdU9RzlHm-o

In theory it could used for payload integration tests, dress rehearsal, or even static fires. But it seems odd to do those at a different pad than you'd actually launch from

Technically the tower may not be used for launches; it's only used for putting the stack on the launch pad. During the launch itself the stack may not be touching the tower at all.

>Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying

Well, the article does sort of accuse them of that, right after the part you quote:

> But the agency said description in documents "indicates otherwise."

> The FAA cited a SpaceX document that the towers would be used to integrate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle. "Super Heavy would be mated to the launch mount, followed by Starship mated to Super Heavy," the FAA letter said quoting SpaceX's May 5 submission.

FAA already granted permission to SpaceX to build the tower several months ago.

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/searchAction.jsp?action...

Title is completely misleading.

I've been following Starship development closely, and I would be shocked if SpaceX was not planning to use this tower for the first orbital launch. Even as of the last few weeks, their aspirational goal was to launch this month, and the planned second tower would take months to build from this point - no evidence of progress on a second launch mount or tower foundation.

"Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying"

They'd never do that, would they?

Perhaps FCC?

There are rules about towers within some distance of an airport. Perhaps it runs afoul of those.

One major problem with bureaucracy is that it will create issues to justify itself.

I'm sure there's no real problem, it's just the government getting some PR and potentially some money via some kind of license/permit fee.

Musk and SpaceX have no desire to hurt anyone, that would impact their plans.

At this point this country would greatly benefit from less government involvement in just about everything. /libertarian

> I'm sure there's no real problem, it's just the government getting some PR and potentially some money via some kind of license/permit fee.

What makes you so sure? There's airports and heli pads nearby. It's the FAAs job to keep aviation safe.

Tell that to the folks who were on the 737 Max....

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