I wonder if they ever considered moving the launch site 5 or 10 miles south into Mexico. It would certainly change the regulatory regime and Mexico would gain a facility with access to space.
Yes, SpaceX is a private company, and no, they're not a weapons manufacturer at the moment... but only because the DoD has only asked them to loft surveillance equipment and not told them to launch warheads, and only because they've aimed for orbital targets above the atmosphere rather than on a different continent.
They've no doubt signed their life away on not exporting Merlin, Draco, and Raptor engine designs. You may be annoyed at the NSA's attempts to control and restrict "military grade cryptography" in the 90s, or at various bureaucracies that attempt to license which trades and businesses are allowed or not allowed to do various kinds of work. But in rocketry, they're deadly serious about their job.
SpaceX cannot run to Mexico.
I am actually reasonably familiar with ITAR, including part 121, category 4 (or IV). And Mexico has 'special trading partner' status under the USMCA (formerly NAFTA) and there are carve outs between the US and Mexico.
I recognize the reality of such a move would be complicated, require licensing and review, and have geopolitical consequences that everyone would want to weigh in on.
All that said, SpaceX could start that process in earnest (which is to say, announce it, start knocking down the regulatory hurdles) and that would give them tremendous leverage in their discussions with the FAA. It would take a while, it would take persistence, but the longer they pushed for it the closer it would get to reality. It would create a credible alternative (if somewhat longer) path to launch against the push back by the US Gov't agencies.
The politics of space flight are complicated, but they are politics.
I would think that the people here who watched Uber take on the politics of the cab monopolies, or the EU's politics of privacy reaching in and impacting US companies, would begin to understand that laws and regulation are an expression of the prevailing politics and when the politics change the laws change to support the current point of view. Those examples are clearly not as significant as national security politics but history tells us that even those change.
The crypto wars, which I was in the middle of, are a good example of going from "you can't do that" here are the laws, regulations, etc. To "okay fine."
To be clear, I don't expect SpaceX to advocate for building a launch facility in Mexico. Their somewhat mercurial "technical guy" with the billions of dollars at his disposal however doesn't seem to shy away from politically difficult strategies if he sees an advantage in them. That makes betting against SpaceX opting to build a launch facility further south not as safe a bet as it would be say for Blue Origin doing something like that.
The FAA directions explicitly tell them they're bound, obligated to seek clearances from Mexico to do work which impacts Mexicans. I read the doc:
The VLA is approximately 2.2 miles north of the U.S./Mexico border and the LLCC is approximately 1.3 miles north of the U.S./Mexico border. ... SpaceX would coordinate with the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation–Mexico if any airspace, land, or water access restrictions in Mexico were required.There's precedent for these sort of foreign enclaves that would still be a part of the host country but fall within the geographical borders of another. Mexico could be open to some sort of agreement.
France keeps French Guiana and the ESA gets to launch rockets there. It's strategically valuable.
You think the US government would allow that? Or are you under the illusion that SpaceX doesn't have close ties with the DoD?
I don't know how any of this works though; assuming everyone else was cool with it, does the FAA need to be consulted in such a scenario? Does the FAA have worldwide jurisdiction over launches by/for USA companies?
This will presumably matter in the (IMO unlikely) case of suborbital city-to-city civilian transport via Starship launches.
Yes it does. Per https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/commercial-space-transportation... "An FAA license is required for any launch or reentry, or the operation of any launch or reentry site, by U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, or by any individual or entity within the U.S. "
Details matter