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54 minutes ago, derega16 said:

I'm not understand, how the rocket launch site related to racism? Or in American English "racism" have some meaning that's I don't known?

It's a wild card, but cannot be played by just anyone, usually requires being in the good graces of press-academia-capital, kind of like the church in the middle ages and accusations of heresy.

It is an accusation that is simultaneously so inflammatory that the charge need not be substantiated to harm the accused and so vague that the accused is incapable of rebutting it.

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3 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

It's a wild card, but cannot be played by just anyone, usually requires being in the good graces of press-academia-capital, kind of like the church in the middle ages and accusations of heresy.

It is an accusation that is simultaneously so inflammatory that the charge need not be substantiated to harm the accused and so vague that the accused is incapable of rebutting it.

Luckily this is a PEA, not a congress testimony, so the FAA will at most write something about how they take this concern very seriously and put it back in the series of comments irrelevant to the enviromental assestment with the "boca chica is a cover for an oil extraction site" and "starship is a mass destruction weapon" comments

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27 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:
1 hour ago, derega16 said:

I'm not understand, how the rocket launch site related to racism? Or in American English "racism" have some meaning that's I don't known?

It's a wild card, but cannot be played by just anyone, usually requires being in the good graces of press-academia-capital, kind of like the church in the middle ages and accusations of heresy.

I'm afraid that "press-academia-capital" is not a cognizable entity. Academia does generally recognize the reality that past decades of racial and ethnic discrimination have ongoing and pervasive effects on minority communities today, particularly in the the way that the burdens of pollution, climate change, and adverse economic pressure (as @Rakaydos pointed out) fall disproportionately on POC, but academics are generally ignored.

As for the press, the media seems utterly incapable of presenting anything on racial or social injustice (no matter how explicit and obvious) without the need to "balance" coverage with an opposing view. Media coverage of racism is generally designed to increase a sense of controversy but not to actually draw conclusions, identify real issues, or propose solutions.

27 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

It is an accusation that is simultaneously so inflammatory that the charge need not be substantiated to harm the accused and so vague that the accused is incapable of rebutting it.

Eh. As @Beccab points out, few if any of these complaints are going to be taken seriously. There is no need for the accused to rebut if the fact-finder simply dismisses it out of hand, along with the "I want better beach access" and "Starship is a WMD" complaints.

It's a shame, because there are legitimate issues here. Cameron County is one of the poorest counties in the state, and while Starbase definitely represents economic benefits for the region, those benefits are going to fall mostly to a small number of wealthy people who control much of the property in the region.

The bottom line is that when you already have a region or community marked by racial and economic segregation and injustice, any changes to that region represent an opportunity to either better or worsen those issues. It's something that SpaceX should consider and account for, but going to the FAA to force this consideration is not a useful strategy.

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6 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Luckily this is a PEA, not a congress testimony, so the FAA will at most write something about how they take this concern very seriously and put it back in the series of comments irrelevant to the enviromental assestment with the "boca chica is a cover for an oil extraction site" and "starship is a mass destruction weapon" comments

This, I say half of the posts was a bit nutty. Half of the rest was locals who don't want to live close to an rocket launch site who is fair, beach closure will become more common. 
The actual environmental treads was mostly about the site and not much about launches and test fire who will scare birds for some time, birds are not afraid of airports who is an safety problem. Obviously people is part of the environment and noise from airports is an major issue same goes for launch sites especially one who is planned to be used a lot. 

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4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

As for the press, the media seems utterly incapable of presenting anything on racial or social injustice (no matter how explicit and obvious) without the need to "balance" coverage with an opposing view. Media coverage of racism is generally designed to increase a sense of controversy but not to actually draw conclusions, identify real issues, or propose solutions.

Media's business model is to generate clicks, to get this you want click bait not balancing viewpoints. 
Yes taking this to far is an long term trap as you get known for it and you loose credibility to the level of becoming an joke, happened to lots of online only media. 
Obvious pay to win game get very good reviews for equal obvious reasons. 

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3 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Media's business model is to generate clicks, to get this you want click bait not balancing viewpoints. 
Yes taking this to far is an long term trap as you get known for it and you loose credibility to the level of becoming an joke, happened to lots of online only media.

Oh, I'm not suggesting the media balances viewpoints properly.

A while back, media companies realized that the appearance of controversy is even better at generating clicks/views than traditionally "raw" clickbait or scare headlines, especially because a plethora of scare headlines ends up injuring the company's reputation in the long run. If you lean into scare headlines, then you end up narrowing your audience more and more, which can be useful for an audience of one (cough) but is otherwise bad for profits.

It's much more lucrative to create the appearance of controversy even where there is none. If you have an obvious and straightforward story ("economic expansion in industrialized city disproportionately impacting low-income minority communities") then there's only so much attention you draw from it, even if you cover it well. But if you can drum up some nutter who will say "No, it's not the fault of industry, it's the fault of these poor people" then you will have attention from people outraged on both sides, and you get to hide behind the disingenuous veneer of "we're just showing both sides" while raking in profits.

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2 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Its a bit worrying that they still loose tiles from "minor" shaking. They have to stay on during a Superheavy launch with 33 engines, but come loose from a single raptor...

Keep in mind that the 33 Raptors will be ~70 meters further away. So will the ground, so the sound bouncing off the ground will also be less of an issue. I'm not sure, but the noise increase per engine might not be linear, it could taper off. 33 engines may not necessarily be 33x as loud as one engine.

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6 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Its a bit worrying that they still loose tiles from "minor" shaking. They have to stay on during a Superheavy launch with 33 engines, but come loose from a single raptor...

Worth mentioning STS-1 lost 16 tiles and damaged 148

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1 minute ago, Beccab said:

Worth mentioning STS-1 lost 16 tiles and damaged 148

Wait really? Can I have a source for that? I was under the impression that the loss of 1 tile = LOCV on the shuttle if its on the main body and not backed by anything supporting like on STS-27 or whatever that one was. Were all the 16 lost tiles on the backside or tail or something? Back before they replaced those areas with thermal blankets?

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8 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Wait really? Can I have a source for that? I was under the impression that the loss of 1 tile = LOCV on the shuttle if its on the main body and not backed by anything supporting like on STS-27 or whatever that one was. Were all the 16 lost tiles on the backside or tail or something? Back before they replaced those areas with thermal blankets?

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-1.html

"Major systems tested successfully on first flight of Space Transportation System. Orbiter sustained tile damage on launch and from overpressure wave created by the solid rocket boosters. Subsequent modifications to the water sound suppression system eliminated the problem. A total of sixteen tiles were lost and 148 tiles were damaged."

Don't forget that the first bunch of Shuttle flights were later evaluated by NASA to have had  1 chance out of 10 of destroying the orbiter

Edited by Beccab
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So, basically, SpaceX are developing a sonic weapon. All we need is a sandworm on Mars and our recreation of that Dune movie will be feature complete. 

I wonder if these tiles might end up being so problematic that they end up going back to perspiration cooling. There is a very real possibility of this kind of damage happening when taking off from Mars, where water sound suppression systems are not going to work and where there is no booster to take the brunt of the vibrations. 

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5 minutes ago, Deddly said:

So, basically, SpaceX are developing a sonic weapon. All we need is a sandworm on Mars and our recreation of that Dune movie will be feature complete. 

I wonder if these tiles might end up being so problematic that they end up going back to perspiration cooling. There is a very real possibility of this kind of damage happening when taking off from Mars, where water sound suppression systems are not going to work and where there is no booster to take the brunt of the vibrations. 

I imagine on mars the barely existant atmosphere is much more effective than a sound suppression system, the only decent vibrations would be the ones from the engines themselves instead of from the sound

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1 hour ago, Beccab said:

I imagine on mars the barely existant atmosphere is much more effective than a sound suppression system, the only decent vibrations would be the ones from the engines themselves instead of from the sound

Yeah, you don't really get shockwaves in a vacuum. It's how Galactica can take getting nuked 

 

In an actual orbital launch the heat shield will be very much further from the pad, and reflected energy goes with about r^4 if I remember my Scott Manley.

Plus water deluge sound suppression system.

 

 

Edited by RCgothic
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45 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Starship lunar wetlab base! This is basically the old lunar SIVB concepts NASA was working on for AAP, but with much more volume

I thought the same thing, you would have the crew quarters ready, it would be an horizontal orientation, put the airlocks in the crew compartment. You could launch it with steel floors in the  fuel tanks. 
One fun idea would be to replace the trust puck rear with an huge hatch, this would let you use the methane tank as an huge dry dock for repairing large rovers. Another hatch in the common dome to access this area. 

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