[AR] Re: SpaceX grounded for 9 to 12 months
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:55:25 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 9 Sep 2016, Rand Simberg wrote:
And no one has legal authority to "ground" them. It's up to them and
their customers.
... Unless there is some clear reason that the launch will endanger the
general public, or harm the national interest, FAA has no reason to deny
a license. They don't do mission assurance.
That still leaves wiggle room to be difficult :-) if they want to be.
Notably, I could see it being "in the national interest" for SpaceX not to
fuel a Falcon 9 on pad 39A unless/until they're pretty sure this won't
happen again, since the LC-39 pads are unique resources.
In practice, whether or not the government has formal authority to ground
Falcon 9 on mission-assurance grounds, the US-government-business slice of
SpaceX's income is so large that SpaceX is going to be very sensitive to
the government's wishes.
Henry
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