I would concur that SpaceX has a ways to go. Today SpaceX on their FB page put
out a request for anyone with a recording (audio photo or video) of the anomaly
to come forward with a copy. The email address to use is: report@xxxxxxxxxx
My gut instinct is telling me this is going to be difficult to track down.
Maybe there will be a paper trail they can follow. Maybe SLC-40 can provide pad
forensics. But there's also a possibility it could be a problem unique to SLC
40. In the face of that kind of uncertainty do you postpone trials at 39C or
from Vandenburg?
How much difference in pad infrastructure? There is obviously some.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 9, 2016, at 1:24 PM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As a former government guy I must concur. If someone sufficiently senior in
government decides to stop a launch it will most likely be stopped...and the
gods help anyone who successfully opposes such intention....
That said, I must also agree with Rand's contention that the current
leadership of FAA/AST is unlikely to do such a thing w/o a very serious
reason.
Bill
On Friday, September 9, 2016, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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
