foreign

[Music]

welcome to this episode of the Common

Sense skeptic where we're going to dig

into a recent Twitter space interview of

Elon Musk hosted by Fanboy Tim Dodd

dealing with musk's interpretation of

events surrounding the stewardship

Maiden launch disaster this was recorded

a week after the 420 crash took place

and many of the statements that musk

made were interesting to say the least

as we go through this virtual exchange

of bodily fluids between musk and Dot

keeping in mind that dot is one of 10

people currently waiting until Hell

Freezes Over for his free seat on yusaku

maizala dear Moon crew mission we intend

to show why and how to interpret a musk

interview conducted by a totally bought

and paid for sycophant and why exactly

you should take interviews like this

with a pinch of salt followed by a shot

at penicillin

the format started out as a musk

expository rundown and ended with more

of a q a session including questions

from a couple of journalists whose name

you'll probably recognize as we go

through the hour-long broadcast

highlights we'll timestamp pertinent

statements give you the facts with

regards to the points being brought up

at the time and make special notes of

the contradictions we can find also

while we have been putting this episode

together of course new information has

come to light and we'll add those

tidbits as updates after we show the

conclusions we came to before that

information was released and so we're

clear we are once again going to edit

out all the mumbles we can so that a

clip that originally sounds like this

and I first guess would have been that

The Rock tornado uh would have caused

the you know potentially significant

damage to the engines but turns into

something more like this our first guess

would have been that The Rock tornado

would have caused essentially

significant damage to the engines but

much easier to listen to but if you

think think the context that the edit

has been changed in any way feel free to

check the entire mumbling stammering

pregnant pause presentation in its

original form yourself

the Twitter space recording starts off

with must be introducing Dodd and the

first Speaker who isn't properly

introduced Irene klotz a senior space

editor for Aviation week and space

technology klotz and Dodd spend the

first minute fawning over musk and the

amazing Starship launch which in their

eyes was a huge success then musk watch

is unprompted into his claims of a

successful launch the outcome was

roughly what I expected maybe slightly

exceeding my expectations but roughly

what I expected or Rojo before I should

say which is that we would get clear of

the pad with minimal damage to pad and

I'm glad to report that the pat damage

is actually quite small and looks like

it can be repaired quickly so that

should put everyone at ease right this

launch which blasted shrapnel and debris

over several square kilometers

obliterated the launch Mount Foundation

ruptured the tank farm and had cascading

failures of engines resulting in the

destruction of the vehicle over Mexican

Waters exceeded musk's expectation only

minutes into the this interview these

statements beg the question was the FAA

as the licensing agency aware that this

was musk's expectation when the FAA

hastily granted a launch license for

this event the week prior

in musk's assessment the level of

Destruction to the olm was minimal very

little damage to the pad and can be

repaired quickly he says the question

there of course is what pad there is no

pad left under the olm it's completely

gone but more on that later musk

continues on about the collection of

data that SpaceX claims to have

collected we would also get a

significant in-flight data particularly

with respect to the pressurizing of the

tanks with the propellant liquids so

that actually looks quite good now

here's the thing as you'll see as this

interview continues it becomes pretty

damned obvious that they were not able

to collect nearly as much data even from

the engine failures as you would expect

and if they are relying on their own

Telemetry Banner or the monitoring

equipment feeding the information to the

Telemetry Banner that information is

going to be flawed since we already know

that the super heavy engine diagram

stopped reacting properly after the

sixth failure by our out at least 11

Raptors quit before the machine entered

the death spiral but the graphic was

frozen after it reverted back to showing

only five units out

at 220 musk continues we also went uh

supersonic that was no problem at all at

launch there were 33 rocket engines

strapped to the bottom of this cylinder

you should have been able to cinch these

to a garbage Skip and still hit Mach 1

with ease hell they do something very

similar at Rocket sled test ranges all

the time with wedges on Rails so really

not a big deal

the question is can you get to that

Benchmark intact and obviously Starship

could not the rocket was already missing

at least six possibly eight Raptors by

the time this vehicle went Supersonic

and the time it took to reach Mach 1 was

a full minute longer than it took

shuttle of course Starship never went

Hypersonic as intended either meaning

Mach 5 or faster a threshold shuttle

crossed at 241 into flight at a similar

altitude to the apogee of this

particular launch so we're going to

throw off see some good news items here

the vehicle structural margins appear to

be better than we expected as we can

tell the fact that the vehicle is

actually doing somersaults towards the

end and us still staying intact as you

can see in the end the combined vehicle

did not stay intact and it was

structural failure that finally caused

the terminal explosions of the flight

from a rocket standpoint and Pad

standpoint we are probably ready to

launch in six to eight weeks

all we're going to say about this six to

eight week claim now is that we're going

to have a bunch to say about it later

but for now let's continue the longest

lead item on that is probably

re-qualification of the flight

termination system because we did

initiate the flight termination system

but it took way too long to rupture the

tanks so we need more detonation code to

uh lines of the tanks at altitude and

ensure that it's basically the rocket

explodes immediately what was the

timeline I think it was on the order of

40 seconds ish

re-qualification of an FTS system is not

a process that moves quickly and from

what we saw in a previous analysis video

from the ineffectiveness of the one used

a new system would have to start from

scratch so you're talking months not

weeks now in this segment we can clear

up a couple common comments made in our

previous video comment section

first it's obvious they intended for the

FTS to blast the rocket out of the sky

which it did not that's what we

concluded in the video

second there were comments made about

how the FTS is automated by Mandate of

the FAA and that this event was

automatically triggered musk is

contradicting the assertion that this

was an automated event by saying it was

triggered from the ground at their

discretion Wayne FTS was triggered it

took too long to rupture the tanks the

delay between instruction and tank

rupture was according to musk about 40

seconds so the suggestion this launch

included a successful test of the FTS is

not truthful FTS failed and has to be

redesigned and then it has to be

re-qualified including according to musk

much more detonation cord to unzip the

tanks and destroy the vehicle

instantaneously

um I'll go through a bunch of notables

at liftoff there were three engines that

we chose not to start that hit abort

that and so we actually lift it off with

30 engines which is the minimum number

of engines those engines do not explode

but the system didn't think they were

healthy enough to bring them to full

thrust so they were shut down prior to T

minus zero Mission Control detected that

three engines on booster 7 were not

healthy that were indicating abort but

musk chose to launch anyway an abort

today to conduct maintenance on those

three engines may have increased the

rods a week from now but musk would have

lost his all-important 420. also a 10

failure rate in Raptors pre-ignition

does not speak well for reliability

whatsoever let's assume what musk is

saying here is true although a given the

state of the immediate vicinity there's

absolutely no chance Raptors weren't

bombarded with debris upon ignition and

according to photos of the back end of

the ship those engines that weren't

firing were missing their nozzles

altogether even if true and and 30 is

the operational minimum number of

engines required to conduct the mission

when this lifted off there was

automatically zero margin for error as

soon as one more engine crabs out you're

facing total Mission failure and that's

what happened only 27 seconds later then

at t plus 27 seconds engine 19 loss

Communications concurrent with some kind

of energetic event that liberated the

outer heat shield from the engines 17 18

19 and 20 area you can see this on video

actually the energetic event which

liberates the outer heat shields of

engines 17 18 19 and 20 occurred at this

point of the launch

now we know what number engines are in

that area and that the material falling

away is the heat shield for four engines

not even a minute into a flight that

already started off with three dead

units and now the margin for error has

definitely been exceeded this is the

SpaceX best assessment after a week so

something bad happened at t plus 27

seconds because the engine 19 lost

little Communications and some kind of

explosion happened to knock out the heat

shields of engines 17 18 19 at 20. at 2

plus 62 seconds we see additional after

heat shield damage near engine 30 how

the engine continues to run and then at

T 85 seconds is where things really hit

the fan we see engine 6 with elastic

communication to thrust vector control

from this point onwards we lose thrust

back to control of the Rockets So we

lose steering 2 plus 85 seconds is when

they lost control of the rocket no

longer able to steer it the flight

exploded at almost the four minute Mark

which would be the 240 second Mark let's

see what the announcers were telling

viewers around the t plus 85 Mark

shelling so velocity increases the depth

of the atmosphere is decreasing

stress on the vehicle to call out next

to now

foreign

to watch the first stage as we head

downrange

seconds into flight

our next major activity

on the first stage

before Houston announced acquisition of

signal Starship was already no longer

steerable at t plus 85 seconds the

vehicle was moving 915 kilometers per

hour at an elevation of 10 kilometers

Ground Control allowed that flight to

continue to an elevation of 39

kilometers to speeds over 2100

kilometers per hour

given the proximity to populated areas

in both the U.S and Mexico that seems

beyond irresponsible what's your best

guess as to what caused the initial

engine issues and then I guess it

cascaded after that but what do you

think happened I think we don't know

with certainty we did generate quite the

rock tornado at the base of the vehicle

our first guess would have been that The

Rock tornado would have caused

potentially significant damage to the

engines but we weirdly do not see

evidence of the rock tornado actually

damaging engines or heat shields in a

material way this really does seem a

ridiculous statement to make given not

only the state of the olm and Pad but

also the subsequent cascading failure of

the rocket itself you might not have a

video screenshot of a chunk of fun day

shattering pieces of the engine

compartment nor would you possibly

expect to get such a shot in this

Maelstrom of Destruction using normal

cameras but you can certainly infer from

the extreme damage to the pet and the

video capturing tons of cement getting

hurled straight up the side of the

rocket that the engine compartment did

not Escape injury

however if it truly didn't catch any

damage from the launch as must suggests

here that only means that scenario can

no longer be used as an excuse and his

rocket behaved that much worse all on

its own you can't have it both ways but

now musk has some comments to make about

the Raptor engines on booster 7. the

engines on booster 7 were built over a

long period of time so each engine was a

little bit of a unique item whereas the

engines on booster and line which is

next are much newer and more consistent

and really with a significant

reliability improvements over booster 7.

so I think we'll see a much more robust

engine situation with booster 9. now we

find out that the 33 Raptors they

strapped to booster 7 were pretty much

all the older mismatched unreliable

engines in the inventory all built at

different times why we installed a good

reliable units they're putting on

booster 9 for the maiden watch the

entire world would be watching right

just clear out all the old inventory

nobody will know the difference and to

be fair until he told us this factoid

nobody did probably not even the FAA

when they granted the launch license

but it gets better as he keeps going the

shields which are both force and heat

shields around the engines for booster 9

are much better because they would

retrofit it which was seven year we kind

of retrofitted heat shields whereas

booster line is designed in okay the

jury rigged shielding on seven and got

blasted off sucked and nine is supposed

to be better because it's built in and

not retrofitted anything else it was

actually just good to get this this

vehicle off the ground because we've

made so many improvements booster 9 and

Beyond we really just need to fly this

vehicle and then move on to the much

improved booster nine so musk pretty

much just needed to get rid of this

Frankenstein vehicle to make room for

booster nine and it looks like he even

managed to dump this trashy ICBM into

Mexican domestic Waters without anybody

saying a damn thing about it win-win

next Point brought up by musk is this so

the thing that we want to make sure

probably most with the next flight is

that any kind of central Nexus that

controls multiple engines is extremely

robust and with you know extra shielding

so that we don't have a single point

that can take out multiple engines and

for sure we don't want a single point

they can take out thrust back to control

which is engine steering now to the

Layman's ear that sounds like booster 7

was designed so poorly that the failure

of one component could take out multiple

engines and steering and they now have

to fix that in booster 9 somehow it also

sounds like a design that would not have

passed muster in the first place at any

other rocket company ever

Zach from CSI Starbase asked a two-part

question that was probably more

important than he thought it was tell

you why after musk answers two-part

question like what actually triggers

second stage ignition and also the

second part of that question did ship 24

attempt to light its engines after the

destruction of booster 7. when Flight

termination is executed if it's executed

on both so the ship currently does not

attempt to save itself arguably maybe it

should that's a good point

yes inarguably Starship should try to

save itself or else this thing is never

getting human rated or did you forget

the fact that a crew abort scenario

still has to be worked out with this

craft during the Starship 2022 update

musk even touched on this suggesting

without showing that the Starship itself

would be able to react quickly enough to

Rocket away from a booster disaster

scenario this Sasha will not have an

independent award system but I think

something that would make sense is to

have the Thruster weight of the ship be

enough that it could take off from the

booster even if the booster has a

failure at the pad level that seems

unlikely but that was the pitch a year

ago so let it be known that as of April

27 2023 no consideration for saving this

Starship in the case of a failure has

been contemplated when they have already

taken money in 2018 for a human flight

around the Moon they have yet to make

good on

now we've taken out most of Dodge

spawning in this interview but he pipes

up with this comment and embarrasses

himself that's crazy it looks like the

engine's lit after the boosts are let go

and after the booster finally blew up

like there's what looks like then

unfortunately the recorded audio cuts

out for 15 seconds and whatever answer

musk gave him his lust to everyone

listening but if Tim would like to show

us where in the two seconds between

explosions after the ship started

folding in half where he saw Starship

try to ignite engines to save itself

we'd love to see him try and when musk

comes back on he's talking about another

big difference between booster 7 and

booster 9. the big things that are like

important for the next flight are

isolation with respect to control which

with the producer 9 is a lot easier

because we use electric motors to steer

the engines as opposed to hydraulic

actuators where you've got a common

manifold between the hydraulic actuators

so if you lose hydraulic pressure you

can lose multiple engines essentially so

one more reason why booster 7 is

inferior to booster 9. completely

different steering controls isolated

electric motors versus common manifold

Hydraulics so the next direct that

Mexico has to clean up won't have to

deal with leaking hydraulic fluid how

considerate of them now is anyone else

wondering at this point if anybody from

the FAA so much as laid eyes on booster

7 before certifying it for launch

but now it's time to talk about

upgrading the pad and Irene opens that

conversation with these rapid fire

questions in a row Elon since you've

gone ahead and uh excavated your uh your

launch mount a bit I assume you're gonna

go ahead and put in that steel grid and

the water to lose

um do you think that that will fully

address the issue of the wider than

expected debris field and are you

expecting any pushback from

environmental and kind of community

groups that this uh that this event did

put debris where it wasn't expected

musk's answer and failure to answer

these questions tells you everything you

need to know about how seriously he's

taking the damage he caused to the

surrounding area he could not give a

[ __ ] I mean the debris is really just

you know basically sand and rock so it's

not like not toxic at all or anything

it's just it's like a sandstorm

essentially basically a human-made set

stencil but we don't we don't want to do

that again a human created sandstorm

calls it well here's some news for Mr

Musk pulverized concrete dust is not

sand

sand falling 10 miles away in Port

Isabel is bad enough but the Dark Cloud

carrying Jagged microscopic fragments of

launch pad that settles into peoples and

animals lungs is a serious health

concern

and adding that mixture of non-native

aggregate calcium aluminate dust to the

local environment covering algal flats

and vegetation and animals and mixing in

with the water those animals drink well

that ought to keep the environmentalists

quite busy telling up the long-term

damage caused by this one single launch

so here's his genius plan to avoid this

from happening again which is bound to

work out just as well as any of his

other failed genius plants we were

putting down basically a water jacketed

sandwich that's two layers of perfect

plate steel that are also perforated on

the upper side so that you have what is

basically a massive super strong steel

shower head pointing up and then the

water pressure coming out of there has

to exceed the the engines the crust is

exerting on the steel plate beneath the

north stand so it which is is all doable

and we should not have a rock tornado

with an x-line a steel plate perforated

with holes using an extruded liquid to

cool down the surface in a high heat

environment where have we heard that

before well yeah that's another one of

the genius ideas that never worked out

on this same vehicle

one of the early claims musk made which

got him all sorts of undeserved positive

press about this crap was that instead

of using heat tiles to Stave off the

heat caused by re-entry the skin of

Starship was either going to ooze water

or the later claim was it was going to

it was propellant through thousands of

tiny holes in the ship's outer skin his

minions cheered on his genius the rest

of us knew exactly what to think of it

it's actually not far off his hyperloop

stupidity when he claimed hyperloop was

like an air hockey table in a vacuum

tube a concept so easy his interns could

work it out and that worked out so well

they even tore out the hyperloop test

track that they used for the annual

competitions which to date also yielded

no useful technology

anyway according to musk they're going

to install a mega steel sandwich between

the plates of which water will flow

before being forced out of a 10 or so

meter wide shower head at pressures

comparable to the forces bearing down at

them from the rocket who comes up with

this stuff

there's a CGI artist named Ryan Hansen

and he seems to hang on musk's every

word he shared a series of renders where

he takes what musk said and tries to

visualize this for people these are some

of the Pixies come up with so far and

they depict a plate top and bottom with

honey coming in between them to allow

water to circulate in this one he also

has water bubbling up out of the pad

which of course would get blasted out of

the way immediately upon rocket ignition

and this isn't really what musk said in

the interview anyway

musk wants a 100 square meter shower

head shedding Jets of water into the

engine compartment with enough Force to

counter the rocket engines bearing down

on it again this is what the plate is

staring down and that sounds like a

wonderful environment for the electric

motors that are supposed to be replacing

the hydraulic control mechanisms

basically you need to ask yourself this

question if you're standing in front of

this with a fire hose from 50 feet away

what size of fire hose do you need to

have to stop the force before it gets to

you then the second question is are you

going to be able to hold that fire hose

Newton's law regarding actions and

reactions suggest that fire hose is

going to throw you around like a ragdoll

so if this plate manages to shoot water

out the top of it with enough Force to

counter 33 Raptor engines at takeoff

does that not mean the plate would now

be exerting that same amount of force

downwards into the foundation

if water is getting shot out of one end

of an object that object tends to move

the other way and if that plate presses

down with that type of force what is it

going to be crushing

well if you take a look at the work done

on a site to date and account for the

fact that instead of cutting out the

Twisted rebar they instead straightened

it you have to expect that they're going

to be pouring concrete again for the

plate to sit on which means if the water

is unable to hold back the forces of the

rocket and the rockets are able to get

underneath the plate and or if the plate

itself crushes the structure it's

sitting on not only is the concrete

scenario going to be played out again

these steel plates are also going to get

thrown about as additional shrapnel

okay let's go back to this model from

Ryan Hansen since it shows a pattern of

holes meant for the water to get four

step out of we'll count up one section

and multiply by six since the pad

represents a hexagon in this section

there's 112 individual holes making a

total on the pad of 672 holes or about

20 water nozzles per Raptor engine in

the booster

now in comparison this is a test of the

water Deluge system at the SLS launch

site at Kennedy's pad 39b it uses 450

000 gallons or about 1.7 million liters

of water to knock down the sound energy

and vibrations of the massive SLS rocket

launch

SLS is rated at 39 Mega Newton's maximum

thrust super heavy booster is rated at

72 Mega Newtons so to keep the ratio

about the same you're looking at having

about 830 000 gallons or 3.14 million

liters of water to keep the noise and

vibrations in check ignoring the

exponential qualities of sound pressure

level

meaning each hole in the pad we're

looking at would need to be responsible

for

1235 gallons of water in a matter of

seconds no diameter on the hole was

provided so PSI Etc are left to the

imagination but let's do a little math

and see what it might come to to work

out PSI multiply the gallons per minute

by 4 then divide by pi times the

diameter squared measured in feet let's

say the total Deluge Cycle takes 15

seconds to complete multiply the 1235 by

4 to get to a minute then by 4 again

according to the formula and the

numerator comes in at

19760. on an exit with a diameter of one

foot the denominator is simply Pi giving

a result of 6300 PSI per hole on an exit

with a diameter of half a foot the

denominator gets cut in quarters and the

resulting PSI is over 25

000 PSI which is approaching the 30 000

PSI used by water cutting Jets which

brings us to another point about the

value system at Kennedy this entire

stream is gravity fed from the water

tower on site there are no pumps in this

delivery system at all but if musk is

going to try to pull this off he will

have to rely entirely on pumps to get

the job done the question is do they

even make pumps that can handle that

kind of volume and the short answer is

no no they don't we know by comparison

that to mitigate sound and vibrations

the same way as Kennedy does for the SLS

they're looking at providing 830 000

gallons of water to the pad in about 15

seconds so 3.32 million gallons or 12.6

million liters per minute that's 210 000

liters 210 tons of water per second and

the world's most powerful water pump

according to this 2021 article and again

as Book of World Records is capable of

delivering roughly one quarter that

volume at 60 000 liters or 60 tons of

water per second and to operate it

requires 4 megawatts of power musk would

need four of these units in Boca Chica

to replicate what Kennedy does with

gravity

but it's about time we put an end to

this water cool pad nonsense anyway has

anybody asked why musk is trying to

reinvent the water wheel where rocket

launches are concerned because that

answer is actually very simple

when musk announced his intentions to

grow his operations in Boca Chica he

discovered SpaceX would have to work

with the Army Corps of Engineers to

mitigate the effects such operations

would have on the local area resulting

in SpaceX filing permit application swg

2012-00381 the corps asked for public

input on March 4th of 2021 in May of

2021 the corps wrote two SpaceX

outlining concerns from the public also

from the U.S EPA the usfws the Texas

commission for Environmental Quality and

the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

musk ignored the letter and continued to

build up Boca Chica without cooperating

with the Corps in any way so on March

7th of 2022 the department of the army

sent SpaceX another letter telling them

that their permit application was being

withdrawn due to lack of contact no

response to the public concerns and no

compensatory mitigation plan for the

works that were being suggested

which means among other things musk

cannot build a water Deluge system such

a system requires fresh water not salt

water and that water cannot be released

into the estuaries surrounding the Boca

Chica launch site it would have to be

caught and held in holding and settling

ponds the same as it is at Kennedy this

is the Starship olm location and this is

the border between it and the protected

nature preserves there is absolutely no

room to build holding and settling ponds

for any sort of deluge system

so what is musk's big plan here well

remember that time musk made

flamethrowers for the boring company but

selling flamethrowers is actually

illegal since they're prohibited weapon

so he labeled them not a flamethrower

and he got away with it or a Tesla how

his full self-driving program didn't

actually produce cars that were full

self-driving and according to the

company in legal filings that system

will never exceed an Adas level 2 rating

or how musk told the FAA that the launch

Tower he was building at Boca Chica

without a permit wasn't actually a

launch Tower the exact same thing is

happening here this Mega steel water

plate idea is musk's version of not a

water Deluge system

we're guessing that musk figures if he

doesn't build a normal water Deluge

system like every other grown-up launch

site has and if he calls it something

different like a water cooled Mega steel

pancake then he'll be off the hook with

the Army Corps of Engineers so now the

question is are the Army Corps of

Engineers a bunch of [ __ ] who are

going to tolerate an end run like that

how stupid does musk think they are and

what is the punishment going to be when

musk tries activating this ridiculous

system and pollutes the local

environment with a million gallons of

fresh water runoff because it's pretty

obvious he has no intentions of building

the pawns that are required musk had the

ability to do things properly at Boca

Chica with the assistance of the Army

Corps of Engineers and he refused to

play ball just like at his Twitter

headquarters where he's now Under Fire

for breaking local and federal laws

related to the building occupied by

Twitter where he refuses to pay rent

musk's pattern is obvious you only have

to open your eyes to see it

time for the obvious question then Joey

from Reuters why couldn't you install

that before this launch was that a

technical reason or a regulatory reason

it wasn't ready it's not like we

expected if we'd expect it to dig a hole

we would not have flown

that answer is so telling the water

cooled steel plate wasn't installed

because it wasn't ready in time this

would indicate that musk's launch

schedule for this date superseded

Readiness of the platform he also says

they didn't expect to excavate a hole in

the pad so this would be contradictory

to his claims at the top when he said

this event exceeded his expectations the

question is why didn't they think this

would dig a hole we've done a static

fire of the booster and that had just

resulted in fairly modest erosion of the

high strength concrete at the base which

is called fond dag they're basically the

strongest highest temperature form of

concrete that you can get to steel

reinforest and everything we thought it

would be fine for one launch we would

erode some amount of the concrete but

that it would be fine we certainly

didn't expect to shatter the concrete

this really illustrates the problems

you're likely to encounter when you

think this is a suitable static fire for

testing your rocket equipment this this

is [ __ ] the only thing you can learn

from [ __ ] is more [ __ ] now even this

short burst without two engines running

and the other is all running at half

thrust encountered some erosion

according to musk but obviously this

gave his team absolutely no indication

what they had in store for them on

launch day and that's really all that

needs to be said their level of testing

was obviously completely inadequate and

anybody watching this who knew anything

at all about rocket launches knew it was

completely inadequate

but let's also touch on the comments

musk made about fondig this concrete

that must cause the strongest in the

world he often makes claims like this

and then they generally turn out to be

[ __ ] this one is no exception

Structural Engineers or concrete experts

can weigh in in the comments about the

properties of fond egg or pure calcium

illuminate concrete but here's what we

found fond egg is indeed marketed as a

high strength high temperature concrete

which after curing has a compressive

strength of eight to nine thousand PSI

or about 55 to 60 megapascals with

resistance to extreme temperatures up to

2000 degrees Fahrenheit simply put

that's not even close to the strongest

concretes in the world known as uhpcs or

ultra high performance concretes such as

those to produce Bridge beams they dwarf

fondae compressive strength numbers

requiring a minimum rating of 17 000 PSI

or 120 megapascals and ratings can

exceed 29 000 PSI or 200 megapascals

leaving fond egg in their dust and

obviously fond egg wasn't up to the task

so it will be interesting to see what

concrete Muskies is to fill in that hole

to put this steel pancake on top of

Joy continues with the next obvious

question why the steel pancake over like

a flame trench or something like that

well you could do it either way and

that's there's different schools of

thought there the important thing is

that you have a regeneratively cooled

like where wherever the flame is hitting

that you that that is regeneratively and

evaporatively cooled first off there are

not two schools of thought about this

where heavy lift Rockets are concerned

Tori Bruno said people straight on this

threw a tweet he put out last week

describing how flame diverters and Flame

trenches are given at the top end of

rocketry and just as an FYI we would

take pretty much anything Tori has to

say at face value given his and his

company's track record he's probably the

straightest shooter and least

egotistical CEO in the Aerospace sector

and the people working at SpaceX in 2014

when they were pitching Starbase to the

state of Texas knew that flame trenches

were important which is why they have

one under the Falcon heavy in this

artist rendering from their cover page

of the proposal musk claim that this

plate will be regeneratively cooled is

absolutely laughable just as the seeping

skin idea on a Starship was if you take

the Heat and force from the ass end of

that rocket and point it at a water

source you're going to get steam in the

expansion of water into steam at those

temperatures is upwards of 4 000 times

expansion

to visualize that concept here's a one

liter bottle of water and to scale when

it expands into steam it will fill four

or more of these one ton totes this

conversion happens at 212 degrees

Fahrenheit or 100 degrees celsius

compared to the temperature of the

Raptor Blast Furnace above it as soon as

that expansion gets forced back into the

plate the sandwich of metal will very

quickly separate first destroying the

plate then the strata underneath it it's

completely predictable just as an

example of what happens when water is

introduced to a high heat environment

this is what happens when damp scrap

metal is added to a blast furnace the

explosion happens within seconds and

with great force if a similar Force

lifts just one of the plates that musk

intends to lay down that's game over

so we have an update to add since SpaceX

was kind enough to provide this YouTube

clip through their Twitter account this

20 second clip shows a standalone metal

plate spraying Jets of water towards a

raptor of unknown variant of course the

sycophant channels and muskrats food and

odd about this clip but we're not so

sure they saw what we saw so let's back

it up and go through it without knowing

the amount of water coming through this

system either in terms of gallons per

minute or pressure upon ignition the

rocket engine has absolutely no issues

penetrating right through the watervale

you can see the plate getting blasted

immediately by the plasma stream there's

some debate online as to whether or not

the engine was even firing at full

thrust given the orange Hue of the flame

versus a proper blue purple methane

Flame the orange in a flame could be

from a fuel Rich burn or maybe it's

interacting with the steam or dust on

the site either way the flame smashes

right into the water cool plate and

instantly explosively vaporizes any

water it comes into contact with the

plate in the video appears to reach

white hot temperature which means the

water has done nothing to prevent it

from heating up and thereby expanding

and warping and it would appear the

Flames had the ability to penetrate deep

into the water system since it takes

about 4 seconds to resume flowing at

full strength after the rocket shuts off

even then the water stream looks quite

different than it did at the beginning

of the test but the video Fades out here

obviously on purpose and we never get

the opportunity to see clearly the

damage or warpage done to the plate or

to the surrounding area this is the last

frame in a video before rocket ignition

this is the last frame in the video

before the end fade after five seconds

of recovery these two spray patterns are

not even remotely similar and that would

indicate damage to the plate system also

you can see a good amount of steam

coming off the back of the plate stand

now remember when we said earlier

there's static fire tests were [ __ ] and

all you can learn from [ __ ] is more [ __ ]

well this test is also [ __ ] although we

can obviously already tell that the

system won't do what musk expects it to

so why is this test total garbage well

for starters there is no background at

the plate stand so a lot of the energy

and pressure created by the rocket is

going right by the stand and not being

absorbed into the local area or it's

being reflected off at 90 degrees into

nowhere this in no way resembles how the

plate would be used the system as

described by musk is sat flat under the

rocket with 33 Raptors bearing down on

it hitting an unknown number of plates

each of those plates will expand

differently and they will warp under

this type of punishment as soon as that

happens the entire system will likely

rupture and if those plates are tied

directly into the legs the legs may be

compromised so for those muskrat

channels heralding this demonstration as

amazing we're going to take the exact

opposite opinion based on what we

observed that this is another failed

experiment

then musk makes a comment about the

acoustic environment but only in regards

to the payload in the upper stage the

acoustic environment is worse with a

flat plate as you might imagine but the

payload is 400 feet away from where the

plume is impinging so it's so far away

that the Acoustics are are not actually

not that bad in the payload pairing he

seems to have little if any clue what

effect sound pressure levels are capable

of doing at the bottom end of the rocket

without the heat those spls alone are

capable of shattering objects and

instantly boiling water we're going to

extend the steel Beyond just underneath

the rocket because we want to make sure

we don't sort of dig out concrete

elsewhere we're going to connect the

load of the massive steel sandwich

underneath the launch pad into the

launch Mount lags tying the steel into

the legs seems like another bad idea

that means any forces that happen to

blow the steel pancake top apart due to

expansion of the water or expansion of

the steel or any other failure would be

transferred to the legs directly and

that seems like yet another recipe for

disaster if there are Structural

Engineers out there that would like to

weigh in on this opinion that's what the

comment section is for we're guessing

here but since bridge deck plates for

example float so that their expansion

plates can work together and not Ram

into each other we're thinking that the

forces acting against a monolithic metal

plate expanding outwards directly across

the legs of the superstructure is

probably not ideal

Tim chimes in again at the 2135 Mark

what things do you think went better

than you expected and what things went

worse than you expected I mean getting

past Max Q is pretty big deal I was

actually quite shocked that's for sure

an important Milestone both of them are

under the impression that the ship made

it through Max Q right around the time

the vehicle lost steering at t plus 79

seconds so velocity increases the depth

of the atmosphere is decreasing Mexicans

listening stress on the vehicle to call

out next to now moving only 840

kilometers per hour far short of Mach 1

at an elevation of only nine kilometers

musk reported the ship lost vector

control six seconds later now again

maybe they actually did make Max Q at

that timestamp but Max q and Mach 1 are

often side by side in the callouts of a

rocket launch as an example

Ula didn't have a full readout of their

Telemetry information with their Delta

IV

nrol91 launch but Max q and Mach 1 are

called out in quick succession at

approximately t plus 80 equals now

passing through Max Q maximum Dynamic

pressure

Mach 1 Delta 4 is now supersonic

electron has supersonic the much smaller

rocket Labs electron rocket goes

supersonic at 7.8 kilometers altitude

which is 15 seconds before it hits Max Q

at 13 kilometers while moving 1 671

kilometers per hour

Mach 1 before it hits Max Cube

and the Falcon heavy supersonic call is

again immediately followed by the max Q

call both right around the t plus 60

seconds around the t plus 42nd Mark

Supersonic in preparation for Max Q

vehicle moving in excess of 1200

kilometers per hour at an elevation

under 10 kilometers that means the max

Cube call out Milestone that Tim and

musk are gushing over here was likely

false and was just the radio voices

reading from a script based on the

timeline rather than instrumentational

readings

maskew might have been achieved later in

the flight when the rocket went

supersonic at t plus 145 at a point in

time when it was no longer able to be

steered but that was not the call out

and anything after t plus 85 according

to musk the mission was doomed

so when he makes this claim this is also

nonsense and it got pretty close to

Stage separation if we had maintained uh

thrust back to control and throttled up

because we needed to compensate we'd

lost too many engines so we needed to

make up for the for the missing ones but

if we're not lost if we're thrown off

the remaining engines and maintain

thrust effect control we would have made

it to staging yeah if you hadn't lost

control and if you hadn't lost so many

engines and if the other engines could

have compensated and if you'd crossed

your fingers and prayed hard enough you

might have been able to make it to

staging but none of that happened so

saying Starship almost made it there is

beyond disingenuous only people dumb

enough to volunteer for a neuralink

device would believe a statement like

that

at 2425 Irene klotz is back with another

question Elon would you change the

flight profile all and what would you

have to do to actually reach orbit as

opposed to the 146 miles that this one

seemed like that would have been the max

altitude I'd say like I think we've got

a better than 30 chance of reaching

Orbit on the next line yeah and we're

just going to repeat basically so so 50

chance of success doing the same thing

over again that's how rocket companies

work right CEO says it's a coin flip so

that's an automatic green light for

everybody

can someone at Ula confirm that's how

you do things

from here and for the next several

minutes musk wax is poetic about the

Soviet N1 rocket we've cut it down to

the highlights for you I always

recommend people read the history of the

N1 program which was the competitor

rocket to the Saturn V the Soviets were

really at their A-game I mean they were

just fantastic so they had a plus

players it's fair to say that their

motivation was maximized success means

you're a hero of the Soviet Union

failure you're probably going to the

gulag and still the N1 failed it never

resolved it the N1 is the closest to

Starship of any rocket that's flown a

Starship is is actually a bit more risky

in some ways in that we've got a

cryogenic fuel it's always harder to

deal with hygienic fuel that is liquid

at room temperature we're running a

higher chamber pressure engine that's

full flow stage combustion so it's the

most complex and difficult engine

configuration but the one with the

highest efficiency we're using

autogenous pressurization which I don't

think they did and our scale is also

bigger so we're we're about twice the

mass and about 60 percent more thrust

than an N1 so your takeaways here are

musk has great respect for dictatorial

space programs that can imprison people

who don't meet insane job performance

requirements Starship and N1 are closely

related and one never made it to orbit

and for several reasons Starship is

inherently more risky and dangerous than

anyone ever was and one of course being

the second largest non-nuclear explosion

in history

now regarding the reliability of a

rocket with a lot of engines if you've

got a rocker with light engines as we do

if you have extremely good engine

isolation that if an engine fails it

does not cause a failure of neighboring

engine or the stage itself you have a

very robust design because then you know

if you lose one of 33 engines that's a

three percent thrust loss it's not a big

deal but if you do not have good engine

isolation and an engine failure Domino

to other engines or to parts of the

stage then you have a an extremely

unreliable design when we look at the

bottom of booster 7 what we don't see is

engine isolation these things have

barely any separation between them at

all and according to musk if an engine

failure can Cascade to a neighboring

engine then the design is flawed as

booster 7 must be because these engine

failures are clustered in pairs four

pairs of engines were dead by the time

the vehicle started exhibiting obvious

loss of control is this not confirmation

of a poor design using musk's own words

okay moving on Irene is back at 3120

with a question that musk should have

been expecting but obviously wasn't and

without comment we're just going to give

the question she asked and every stammer

of the response that musk gave her do

you expect hls to beat Starship hls to

be the long pole for Artemis 3. no I I

definitely don't I think we'll be we

will be the first thing to really be I

think we'll no I think

we will be for the yeah that we will not

be a limiting factor at all

that's how musk sounds when his brain

tires are mired in the muck and the

answer he gave was wrong absolutely

without question Starship will be the

long hold on Artemis 3. SLS has already

flown and Artemis 2 announced their crew

recently they're good to go meanwhile in

Boca Chica

Joey from Reuters is back Elon how much

do you expect to spend in this kind of

like you know prototype development

phase before one of these Starships

actually starts flying real payloads

rather you know starlink or otherwise

and how many kind of tests are you

targeting before that that was a great

question listen to musk Dodge it with

half a dozen tangents well a couple we

can get four flights out this year maybe

five I would be surprised if we exit

this year without getting to orbit I'd

say it's not it's not 100 it's not 100

probably but I think we've probably got

an 80 cross probability of reaching

orbit this year and close to 100 chance

reaching orbit within 12 months I think

bear in mind is like SpaceX is actually

quite good at production the best in

history of any rocket made from Woods

production I mean we're making a falcon

9 upper stage every three or four days

we're actually slowed it down slightly

because we've got more Raptors than we

know what to do with we're actually

focusing a bit more on the Raptor side

on on upgrades uh mostly to improve

reliability and robustness of the engine

the question wasn't answered so let's

drag in and that the cost of all this

like how I guess how much do you expect

to spend on all that either this year or

before you start flying real payloads be

a couple billion dollars this year two

billion dollars ish all in on Starship

finally a clean answer Starship alone is

costing the company two billion dollars

per year we're going to come back to

this because there is a part two to the

question now and there's a struggle by

other companies to um raise funds lately

uh for a number of reasons and SpaceX

has usually kind of been insulated from

that do you see any kind of difference

nowadays is SpaceX kind of thinking

about fundraising differently and does

that affect how you know the pressure on

this Starship program at all uh we do

not anticipate needing to raise funding

we don't think we need to raise funding

um what we'll do our standard thing

where we provide liquidity to employees

who are in stock the best of my

knowledge we do not need to raise

incremental funding for SpaceX well that

ought to give the venture capitalist

that musk has been bleeding dry every

couple of months a sigh of relief see

every three to six months musk has

needed another billion dollars or so to

keep the lights on those Capital raises

are publicly published and you can see

how many times musk has gone back to the

trough for more money

but musk says he doesn't need to raise

funding despite a two billion dollar

annual burn rate guess Starlight must be

raking into cash for them hey well no

according to starlink it currently has

1.5 million subscribers worldwide

enjoying laggy gappy data cap satellite

service and starlink lost its billion

dollar Grant from the FCC a Starlight

subscription in the U.S cost 110 per

month and less than some other parts of

the world but let's say it's a hundred

and ten dollars for everyone that's a

cool 1.98 billion dollars in gross

receipts annually right off the top we

can remove the 32 launches musk could

have sold at 55 million dollars each so

their loss of opportunity on those is

1.76 billion and as of November of 2022

there were

3271 starlink satellites in orbit at an

estimated cost of half a million dollars

each so there's another 1.635 billion

dollars spent

it's fair to say that starlink is not

financing Starship like not at all nor

can it possibly be turning a profit at

these levels after you count the loss

leader on outset Terminal purchases

wages leases advertising and every other

business expense of a third-party

telecommunications provider not the

least of which would be the data rate

for the local isps where the ground

stations are located

but musk is telling these guys he's

spending 2 billion a year on Starship

and he doesn't need your cash so all you

venture capitalists listening make sure

you pay attention and don't give him any

one final thing here because one of the

favorite things that muskrats like

telling people is that Starship will be

able to get 100 tons of payload to orbit

for 2 million dollars per launch good

luck making that math work when musk

failed to deliver a single ounce to

orbit for 1 000 times that amount spent

in the past year with far more spending

Yet to Come amortized across total

development costs the numbers are going

to be laughably higher than what his

minions have been made to believe

the next question from John Krause puts

to rest theories spun by musk Fanboy

channels like Scott Manley regarding the

wonky Ascent from the pad yeah I have a

I have a fun question so uh the lean off

the pad was that intentional was it more

than you thought it might be was it

related to the engines out and do you

expect to do that

um on like future more operational

launches so related to the engines out

and we do not normally expect to lean I

should be us personally going straight

up that is the end of this argument

there was no pad avoidance maneuver

there was no pre-planned lean the thing

took off at a five degree angle before

it corrected because musk elected to

launch with three dead engines so all

you muskrats out there quit trying to

attribute to Brilliance what can just as

easily be chalked up to stupidity

because it is normally stupidity

at 3550 musk makes a comment about the

best way to launch the vehicle which

includes a useful stat if it is accurate

there's a debate of do you keep the

rocket over the pad in which case you

the small cooking of the base or do you

start moving sideways sooner if you move

sideways sooner you are moving that big

cutting torch across the launch room

like we have big steel plates over the

top of launch ring I think depending on

how close the engines are they are they

erode that steel at a roughly half an

inch to an inch per second

now plot this erosion information

against the steel plate he wants to

install at the bottom of the launch ring

and also against the claim the launch

pad is going to require no refurbishment

at all between launches these parameters

are incompatible

let's say a Starship takes five seconds

to leave the pad after the first Flames

hit the pad plating according to musk

that means there will be up to 5 inches

of erosion in the plate meaning the top

plate alone has to be at least five

inches thick to withstand that

punishment before melting right through

into the water cavity between plates

five inches is roughly 12.5 centimeters

and we're going to add the metric now

the basal booster 7 was 9 meters across

but musk has already said those plates

will extend further out from the olm to

cover more surrounding area let's say he

intends to use a plate measuring 12

meters across instead of nine for an

extra rim of 1.5 meters around the

outside that gives us an area of 113.1

square meters on top of a cylinder 12.5

centimeters high with a resulting volume

of 14.14 cubic meters basically no

matter how it's segmented you're looking

at a giant steel coin as the top plate a

cubic meter of Steel weighs around

7850 kilograms a little under 8 ton so

that works out to 111 tons of steel in

the top plate alone steel that will be

eroded at an inch per second in these

conditions and will have to be replaced

after every launch that doesn't exactly

sound like zero refurbishment in between

launches it's like nobody at SpaceX

knows how to run numbers anymore

at 4230 he gives his idea of a timeline

as follows I think we're actually at I'm

upbeat about the the next 12 months I

think we're going to get to orbit and

then the it'll probably take us a few

more years to achieve reusability on a

regular basis where we bring the booster

back and bring the ship back where it

gets it'll it'll take a few years to get

to where Falcon 9 is today where it is

now quite normal for the rocket to land

honestly it's not even worth talking

about timelines at this point since

SpaceX is grounded for the foreseeable

future at 43 minutes Joey's back asking

about the environmental groups upset

about the damage here's the question the

answer from musk and Tim Dodd's

imbecilic interjection on the topic

you'll see what we mean there's a lot of

opposition from these environmental

groups in the area over the debris and I

just wanted to kind of get your reaction

to that since some didn't expect the

debris to go as far as it seemed to go

and if there is a legal challenge in

court you know either against SpaceX or

the FAA how would SpaceX respond and

then what would that do to the timeline

I think you know if you say like for

practical purposes what was if you were

to look at an aerial picture of the of

the area and apart from the area around

launch stand tell me where things are

are damaged it's actually you can't I

think you can't even see it at this

point it's not uh like the rocket you

know uses non-toxic propellants you know

so discounted a lot of dust so best of

our knowledge like there has not been

any meaningful damaged environment uh

that we're aware of and to be honest I

was out there at the pad two days after

there's a huge storm on Saturday like 70

80 mile an hour winds yeah that was

intense and like I saw more debris

coming off the shore from like people's

Ducks falling into the water and like

capsized boats yeah that's true I did uh

anything more than just some some you

know bits of concrete which you know

yeah again it's beyond obvious that musk

is not acknowledging the damage he did

to the surrounding area to the tune of

about 385 Acres according to estimates

so God helped Texas and Brownsville if

they don't grab him by the Scruff of the

neck and smarten him up there only

shooting themselves in the foot if they

let him skate by pretending nothing bad

happened here and trying to compare the

damage that musk did to the nesting

grounds to some dock wood that Dodd

claims to have seen on the shoreline is

absolutely pathetic

now let's learn a couple of things about

the Raptor engines themselves the

reference wrote We believe is the

highest heat flux of any human-made

object ever

whoa is it somehow that plasma has to go

through a throat how does that throat

not melt that's crazy and literally how

does it from a massive amount of film

Cooling and regenerative cooling yeah I

mean it's getting colder it's like

getting crazy regen Cooling and um like

we're flowing you know liquid methane at

extreme pressure you know uh 11 000 PSI

through the the jacket so it's ripping

um and then combine that with foam

Cooling and the best thermal barrier

Coatings we can come up with but it's

still shocking that that we do not

vaporize the throat of that engine in

immediately that has to make people feel

safe and comfortable that they're in

good hands planning a trip to the moon

eh how does that engine not vaporize its

own throat immediately musk asks

well they do must told you as much

during this third shift presentation in

2022. we assume the next booster is

going to require you know Raptor too so

kind of where you at with uh with the

production and the and the testing so

far the only remaining issue that we're

aware of is melting the chamber

um so if that thing really wants to melt

you know huge issue with the engine

which we probably watched play out every

time we saw a green flame spat from the

back of booster 7 because that color

comes from pieces of copper in the

engine getting caught in the propellant

stream and being vaporized the engine

will not function properly afterwards

without all of its parts

but cue the standard musk justification

word solid to make it all better this is

what's needed if we were to become a

space prank civilization and build up

base on the moon and a city on Mars and

yeah multi-planet species which is I

think a super exciting future and I mean

at a high level the the super cool thing

here is that hey this thing this thing

kind of works

um and and we're going to solve the

issues that are remaining and we'll get

it to orbit and we'll we'll make it

reusable and that that means that that

we have a real path here to get Humanity

to Mars and here's where we put the goal

post back to where they were for our

very first episode even if against every

law in physics musk manages to get this

Behemoth safely to orbit at any point in

the future it is still never getting

Humanity to Mars if you want to learn

why you can start it our debunking

Starship episode 1 and just keep

watching every video in that series

remains every bit on point now as it was

three years ago nothing has changed next

question is Michael sheets from CNBC hey

Elon this is uh Michael sheets with CNBC

quick question on the launch Tower side

of things have you cataloged the damage

to the equipment I mean it looks like

some of the the tanks were hit by debris

and there's quite a lot scattered around

do you know can you give us like a a

rundown of uh what you guys need to

replace versus repair we're going to be

replacing a bunch of the tanks in the

tank bomb but these are tanks that we

wanted to replace anyway we're going

with more of the vacuum jacketed kind of

giant hot dog looking tanks those are in

the best shape and those are what we

want anyway the tower itself is in good

shape no meaningful damage to the tower

even though it did get hit with some

pretty big chunks of concrete hopefully

be ready to fly again in a couple months

once again excitement guaranteed Success

is Not

so the tank farm they're planning on

replacing then would be the ones they

just finished installing in October of

2021 so they're maybe 18 months old and

they're shot to shed now with patch

drought and also their garbage maybe

just thinking out loud if they hadn't

been parked 80 meters away from the olm

they could have survived more than one

launch but to be fair they weren't safe

anywhere inside a one mile radius of

this destruction epicenter now musk

wants them swapped out for more like the

current methane tanks which were only 60

meters away from ground zero and how the

hell they survived this debacle is a

complete mystery the locations of these

tanks has to be of concern to any

government Authority reviewing the site

at this point how can they possibly be

okay with that location

and from this point to the interview on

it's just repeated questions and musk

saying he'll do another update at a

later date so here's our takeaways first

off booster 7 was obviously a junkyard

version of the rocket that never should

have been given a green light the launch

should have been given every chance of

success but wasn't summarizing what musk

has said about differences between

booster 7 and his next bombshell booster

9. booster 7 used an assembly of

outdated unreliable Raptor 2s where

booster 9 engines will all be from

similarly dated batches and have a

higher degree of reliability according

to musk booster 7 had to be retrofitted

for heat and blast Shields booster 9

Shields will be more built in according

to Musk booster 7 hydraulic gimbaling

controls will be replaced with electric

gimbaling controls in future launches

presumably including nine won't have a

central Nexus in control of multiple

engines such as seven did and apparently

nobody working on this rocket thought of

that problematic point of failure before

in short in his own words musk had a

much better vehicle option available to

him with better controls engines and

shielding yet launched the inferior

machine anyway basically just to clear

the pad on the stoner's national holiday

that's what it comes down to two years

they had to work this thing out since

sn15 landed and caught fire and what

they launched in the end was a subpar

version of an already dubious vehicle

second must dismissal of the damage

caused by this launch just shows he is

absolutely in no sense of the word a

responsible Steward of this area and has

no respect for the sensitivity of the

area

and third musk is long overdue to be

interviewed by someone who will stand

their ground with him and make him

explain himself enough with the

sycophant softballs like Dodd or Ellie

or manly when do the people who can

think for themselves get a shot at him

musk needs to get asked the hard

questions needs to take responsibility

for the damage he caused needs to be

made aware that the days of skating by

on his lies and false promises are

coming to an end and he better start

positioning himself accordingly he can

start by taking complete ownership of

this failure starting by publicly

acknowledging it was a complete failure

and without being prompted or forced

conduct the clearing of debris from the

area as described to the letter in their

signed agreement of September 2021 with

the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

then he should lock the gates at Boca

Chica until such time as he has

permission from the tpwd the usfws the

FAA and the state to resume operations

because at this point that is not a

given

after that if Texas any FAA are stupid

enough to allow him to watch from Boca

Chica again when NASA has blocked Musk

from testing and launching at Cape

Canaveral even though they have multiple

contracts on stewardship's fate then the

FAA in Texas can dig their own Graves

as it is the FAA is already in hot water

over this launch as they are being sued

by a coalition of groups for their

failure to perform an adequate Eis on

spacex's program at Boca Chica in fact

we got a copy of the official legal

filing that we're going to walk you

through but only the highlights of the

introductional paragraphs on May 1st of

2023 the FAA and the director in His

official capacity named Billy Nolan were

sued by multiple plaintiffs including

the center for biological diversity

African bird Conservancy Surf Rider

Foundation save RGV and the Carrizo Kama

Credo nation of Texas Incorporated this

will be a landmark case concerning

whether the nation's commitment to

preserving our critical wildlife habitat

and treasured Coastal landscape must be

sacrificed as we reach out to explore

the cosmos basically asking the court

whether the destructive wake left behind

by musk is worth the cost of having

access to space which Starship honestly

isn't capable of delivering on anyway

in paragraph 2 plaintiffs identify the

FAA as the federal authority over the

launching of vehicles into space who has

authorized the super heavy launch

vehicle program at Boca Chica Texas

without complying with bedrock Federal

Environmental law and without fully

analyzing the significant environmental

and Community impacts of the SpaceX

launch program including destruction of

some of the most vital migratory bird

habitat in North America and without

requiring mitigation sufficient to

offset those impacts

paraphrasing paragraph 3 the planets

claim the faa's Pea and resulting Fonzi

Rod was relied upon to issue the

commercial space transport license on

April 14th that resulted in the April

20th disaster

paragraph 4 goes through the stats of

the vehicle and the negative effects for

the area including intense heat noise

and light that affects surrounding

habitat areas and communities

paragraph 5 states that although the FAA

stated they were temporarily grounding

the rocket after the April 20th disaster

they have not withdrawn or modified the

Fonzi Rod which was obviously poorly

conducted nor has it announced any plans

for a supplemental review process

pursuant to NEPA the National

Environmental Policy Act paragraph 6

details how the area is surrounded by

biologically diverse and essential

habitat areas including many federally

protected animals that are also sacred

to the creaso kamakruto people it's set

at the center of a National Wildlife

Refuge two state parks a State Wildlife

Management Area and a state Coastal

preserve it is also a central area to

migratory birds of North America

paragraph 7 identifies the history of at

least eight explosions on the site which

is being extremely kind some of which

have caused significant brush fires in

the National Wildlife Refuge it

continues on to say the usfws has found

prior SpaceX rocket explosions have

harmed protected wildlife and designated

critical habitat in violation of The

Endangered Species Act and paragraph 8

lays out all the complaints of frequent

closures of public roads and beaches

totaling over 100 dates per year far in

excess of what is permitted in the

agreements that are signed by a SpaceX

we've heard much of this before and it

has always fallen on deaf ears maybe

this time in federal court they'll take

notice in paragraph 9 the plaintiffs

take direct aim at the faa's chief of

staff of commercial space Transportation

who initially stated that the FAA

planned to conduct a new environmental

impact statement for this program to

analyze the environmental impacts

pursuant to NEPA however and this is

extremely important the FAA instead

delegated that decision to SpaceX and

did not prepare an Eis to analyze the

launch program rather based on spacex's

preference FAA relied on a programmatic

environmental assessment pea prepared by

SpaceX for NEPA compliance followed by

the FAA issuing a mitigated finding of

no significant impact of Fonzie that

obviously failed to account for this

situation this is something we picked up

on in our episode called SpaceX Boca

Chica draft pea tear down where we noted

who actually created that report we had

intended to go through this 150 plus

page document Point by point with our

concerns but we note that this document

was not created by the FAA this document

was prepared by three environmental

Engineers who are SpaceX employees and

one employee named Brian pownell who is

a transportation engineer working for a

consulting firm named Kimberly horn and

Associates that firm seems to specialize

in large city-scale infrastructure

projects rather than anything remotely

environmentally friendly and that is

absolutely going to be one of their key

arguments

paragraph 10 correctly States the

proposed mitigation measures in the Pea

are insufficient and the FAA failed to

explain how the mitigation measures

would properly address nepa's standards

paragraph 11 of the introduction states

that the proposed mitigation measures

are inadequate to prevent these SpaceX

launch program from causing significant

environmental harm which was

demonstrated perfectly by the amount of

damage to the immediate area without

even having the vehicle explode on the

pad as so many expected would happen it

states clearly and accurately that no

mitigation efforts have been imposed to

prevent or minimize anomalies in the

first place

paragraph 12 claims FAA violated NEPA by

failing to consider a reasonable range

of Alternatives having only considered

spacex's proposed project and not

properly considering the Kennedy Space

Center as a viable alternative location

where musk is already building a second

location anyway

as we've noted before geographically

Boca Chica is a terrible launch location

as the only launch Azimuth they can aim

for is the very thin Corridor of space

between Florida and Cuba without

invading another nation's airspace

paragraph 13 claims the FAA failed to

take a hard look at the environmental

impacts of the program including the

increased light heat and environmental

pollution risk of wildfires damage to

critical habitat and the program's

contribution to climate change in the

final paragraph 14 sums up the points so

here it is verbatim in some the

environmental impacts of the Starship

super heavy launch vehicle program

cannot be reduced through mitigation

such that the FAA can ensure that there

will not be significant harm from the

launch program and FAA failed entirely

to even address how the proposed

mitigation could achieve that level of

protection therefore the faa's failure

to fully consider and address the

impacts of the Starship super heavy

launch vehicle program through an Eis

including the impacts of the failed

April 20th launch and its failure to

consider alternatives that would reduce

the impacts of the launch program was

arbitrary and capricious in violation of

NEPA and the administrative procedure

act APA the court should vacate the

fonsi and accompanying record of

decision and remand with instructions

that the FAA perform a full Eis

that's as far as we're going to dig into

this document for now you are welcome

and encouraged to read through the

entire document to see how the plaintiff

defended their claims but the long and

short immediate impact of this case is

if the FAA licenses another launch while

this matter is still in the courts and

it goes the same way this one does or

Worse the legal shitstorm that's going

to rain down on the FAA and SpaceX will

be able to fertilize these protected

habitats for decades to come

now just as we're wrapping up this

episode we find out that SpaceX has

joined the FAA as a co-defendant in this

case and we're willing to bet it's

because everyone knows full well that

the draft pea that SpaceX wrote and the

FAA signed off on is going to get burned

to the ground in federal court and

result in the full Eis that should have

been conducted in the first place if

things were done properly which we know

SpaceX cannot possibly pass

thanks for tuning in to this episode of

the Common Sense skeptic it's always

interesting when doing these longer

shows to see how much new information

comes out after we start writing the

script and how much of that information

tends to verify exactly what we're

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