Coastal Commission chaired by Sonoma County leader clashes with SpaceX, Elon Musk on Air Force contract
- by Santa Rosa Press Democrat
- Oct 16, 2024
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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024
The man whose nicknames include “Space Karen” went on to describe the commissioners as an “utterly insufferable and misanthropic group of Karens,” and threatened to sue the agency on First Amendment grounds.
SpaceX did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.
Space Force, a military branch within the Air Force, got the Coastal Commission’s green light in 2023 to increase SpaceX’s rocket launches at Vandenberg from six to 36. The proposal before the commission last week would have taken it from 36 to 50. Two months from now, officials said, Space Force intends to ask the commission to increase the number of launches to 100 per year.
That, at least, was the plan before the commissioners voted 6-4 last Thursday to pump the brakes on that accelerated schedule.
Among those voting no was Hart, the former director of Sonoma County Regional Parks, who was elected in January to chair the powerful state agency, whose mission is to regulate development along California’s 840-mile coastline.
She declined to comment for this story.
After resisting cooperation in earlier meetings, the Air Force agreed to take steps requested by the commission to protect the coast. Those steps include “marine debris reduction,” enhanced “biological monitoring,” improved coordination with “commercial and recreational fishing” and “sonic boom assessment and minimization.”
But underlying those environmental matters is a larger, more divisive issue.
Federal agency or private business?
As a state entity, the Coastal Commission has limited influence over Department of Defense activities on federal land. Air Force officials and SpaceX contend that the rocket launches fall under the umbrella of “federal agency activity”— and aren’t subject to the Coastal Commission’s notoriously onerous permitting process.
Hart, and the commissioners who joined her in that 6-4 vote, beg to differ.
They make the case that the launches most benefit SpaceX and its business operations, as opposed to the government. They insist that the Hawthorne, CA, based company is a private enterprise. As such, it must appear before the commission and apply for a conditional development permit.
“It is essential that SpaceX apply for a CDP,” said Hart, before the vote. “We are going to hit a wall here. There is no other way forward, in my opinion.”
While SpaceX periodically launches satellites and payloads serving various federal government agencies, the primary purpose of its launches, according to a Coastal Commission report, “is to further expand and support SpaceX’s commercial satellite internet and telecommunications network, Starlink.”
Each rocket launch puts around 21 Starlink satellites into Earth orbit, the report said.
“This network, or ‘satellite constellation,’ is now comprised of several thousand individual satellites that provide internet across the globe through a subscription service and are now equipped to support cellular phone service as well.
“Building and maintaining this system and leadership position [in those business] is the primary purpose for launches and reason for their proposed increase.”
Representing the military at the Oct. 10 meeting were Ravi Chaudhary, an assistant secretary of the Air Force, and Col. Mark Shoemaker, Commander of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg.
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