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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

Well that may still continue to happen. The wonderful and competent state of California is literally trying to block SpaceX launches over Musk’s constitutionally protected political speech:

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/10/california-reject-m...

I cannot remember a more explicit case of authoritarian government abuse in a developed nation in recent memory, and it’s especially infuriating given SpaceX and Musk are one of the most important and innovative companies and leaders of all time. No other country would think to look at such accomplishments and try to undermine themselves through petty politics and lawfare.

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But Starship launches from (checks map) Texas.

It is a state commission composed of political appointees. It's unlikely it has the jurisdiction over Vandenberg to ban any activities, except when such activities violate state environmental laws. Even then, the federal government might be able to override them. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Ideally, the commission will withdraw its objections and allow the launches; SpaceX obviously chose this site both for its proximity to the Pacific Ocean and for redundancy in case of poor weather in Florida (like this past week for example).

It has jurisdiction over Vandenberg for private launches, and there is debate over what counts as private versus federal. However, regardless of possible environmental concerns, they’ve already explicitly said they’re targeting SpaceX because of Musk’s political speech, which is morally reprehensible and also illegal per the constitution.

Can the federal government override them if the launches are purely commercial. Presumably that would be the case eventually, so I think it’s something that needs to addressed sooner.

Vandenberg does not provide redundancy. It accesses completely different orbital inclinations. You cannot launch east from there but you can launch south. The opposite is true in Florida.

Seems like it nonetheless provides redundancy. Also, one site can only handle so many launches per day. If SpaceX gets really busy, it will need multiple launch pads to handle the traffic, both launches and landings.

But then, there may be military missions that require launching from an air force base.

Vandenberg DOES NOT provide redundancy.

An orbit from there is useless for a mission profile that was slated for Florida. It costs more fuel and has completely different ground tracks.

The sats that spacex launches for Starlink, which are about as interchangeable as you can get, are less valuable in polar orbits because they spend significantly less time over population.

I don’t understand how this is a constitutional violation like you claim. Let’s pretend he posted something absurd on Twitter for arguments sake, like “I’m going to use my rockets to kill every endangered bird on every California beach”, do you think that should not be considered when evaluating the request for more launches?

It’s straight up unconstitutional. It doesn’t matter what the speech is, the government cannot make rules that discriminate on the content of the speech.

  Congress shall make no law respecting
  an establishment of religion, or
  prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
  or abridging the freedom of speech, or
  of the press; or the right of the
  people peaceably to assemble, and to
  petition the government for a redress
  of grievances.

The first amendment has been interpreted by the courts as applying to all of the government, not just Congress, and via the 14th amendment is has been incorporated against the States, meaning that it applies to them too.

Therefore, for a California state government agency to punish SpaceX for its founder's speech is unconstitutional.

Title 18 USC section 232 lays out criminal penalties for violating a citizens civil rights, thus unconstitutional acts can be and often are criminal acts.

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