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Skylon

By Skylon
in Science & Spaceflight

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sevenperforce

sevenperforce

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

6 hours ago, Beccab said:

or balanced. Seriously, enviromental racism?

Ooh - I missed that. 

Somebody is being a special little snowflake - just in time for winter! 

That article is absurd.

Sure, environmental racism is a real thing. The burden created by environmental and ecological waste/neglect often falls heaviest on low-income communities, particularly communities with many POC.

But raising the spectre of environmental racism in an article about a white lady from Ohio who owns two vacation homes? Please. 

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SunlitZelkova

SunlitZelkova

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Day late and a dollar short, NBC News joins the party. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/disgruntled-neighbors-dwindling-shorebirds-jeopardize-spacex-expansion-rcna7792

Okay, there is nothing short about the article. 

It's a meandering take on SX, Boca Chica and the environmental review. 

Favorite theme is 'SX won't buy me another Beach View house somewhere else... They only offer me at or above the value of my home.  I want more but I think the commissioner is out to get me. Sadface. "

Of course, there is automatic apprehension that comes with a mass media article, but this was a pretty decent run down of people's issues and complaints with Starbase.

"Meandering take"? Of course, there are some questionable parts, like the accusation of environmental racism (it should be noted however that looking beyond the very vocal retired white people, Brownsville is a "community of color" https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US4810768-brownsville-tx/), but most of these concerns are pretty valid.

Did you properly read the article? The original offer the first interviewee (Celia Johnson) was given was based on that of homes without a beach view, which is obviously lower than that of her beach view home.

There is no evidence (at least in the article) SpaceX or the third-party real estate firm they use (JLL) has actually offered anyone above the value of their home. The second retiree interviewee (Maria Pointer) stated they got "substantially more" than the previous offer of $210,000 and the original of $70,000, but this was only after holding out through intimidation tactics used by JLL.

The comment Mrs. Pointer made about the government was not in relation to the amount she got for her home. It was about SpaceX's negative business practices in general.

The environmental concerns are completely valid. I'm not going to list them here because unlike the section about their property acquirement tactics, those were presented pretty well.

14 hours ago, Beccab said:

or balanced. Seriously, enviromental racism?

As is mentioned above, Brownsville does appear to have a pretty high Hispanic population (95%). It is not an entirely unreasonable accusation.

That said, I disagree with that one too. SpaceX and Musk would be doing what they are doing whether it was in Brownsville or in an "all white" community.

Edited by SunlitZelkova
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SunlitZelkova

SunlitZelkova

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I felt the article rambled.  It could have been better presented.

Thus, 'Meandering'

Within the context of a mass media article, and the (low) expectations there are for the quality of such reporting, I think it *wasn't awful*. But I agree it could have been structured better.

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Beccab

Beccab

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

There is no evidence (at least in the article) SpaceX or the third-party real estate firm they use (JLL) has actually offered anyone above the value of their home. The second retiree interviewee (Maria Pointer) stated they got "substantially more" than the previous offer of $210,000 and the original of $70,000, but this was only after holding out through intimidation tactics used by JLL.

Hard disagree with this part. You have spacex stating they offer more than the estimated value of the property and this person saying that it has a higher value; if you say there is no evidence they offer more, then you also have to add that there is no evidence they don't do that, as it is a matter of opinions on the values of the properties with no way for either party to prove they are right. And besides, if the offer was so low that it didn't reach the value of the terrain why didn't they sell it to someone else? An important aspect in the price is the willingness of other people to buy the property themselves, and considering we're talking about one of the poorest areas of the US until a few years ago I can't imagine the demand to be high. They can't, like the people in the article, espect it to be valued as high as even just highly touristic zones like South Padre island

Edited by Beccab
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RCgothic

RCgothic

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Any of you math wizards calculate the delta-V of that plane change? :D

It takes about 3.8km/s to plane change from the lattitude of Cape Kennedy to a 0.2deg inclination.

Edited by RCgothic
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SunlitZelkova

SunlitZelkova

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Beccab said:

And besides, if the offer was so low that it didn't reach the value of the terrain why didn't they sell it to someone else?

Because none of these people actually want to move. They are only moving because SpaceX wants them to. And some apparently gladly will, so long as they get enough money to buy an equivalent property near a different part of the area.

Now whether that is "correct" or not is a different question, but in any case, it is understandable that if you are going to try to get people to move out of a scenic retirement-type community purely for the purposing of expanding your facility (whatever that may be, industrial or space or whatever) they are going to want to get enough money to buy an equivalent property in return. Especially when you originally got approval for the facility while making it seem like the scale and operations were going to be on the down low.

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Meecrob

Meecrob

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

It takes about 925m/s* to plane change from the lattitude of Cape Kennedy to a 0.2deg inclination.

That's curious...why 0.2 degrees instead of 0.0?

 

 

*See below.

Edited by Meecrob
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Beccab

Beccab

Posted
Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

By the way, Starlink Group 2-3 is still slated for launch this month, would be flight 11 of B1051.

There's also Turksat 5B and CRS-24, so there'll be 31 falcon 9s this year excluding delays or almost one every 11 days. If they launch at least two of these and both land that will be 25 consecutive successful landings, breaking the previous record that was interrupted by Starlink 19 earlier this year

Also fun fact from checking the wikipedia page, only one RTLS failed in the whole program out of 25 attempts and that was more than 3 years ago. Curious

Edited by Beccab
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