“All new rockets which are proposed to launch from Kennedy require significant safety and environmental analysis prior to launch,” says Don Dankert, KSC’s Spaceport Integration Environmental Planning Lead. The safeguards responsible for NASA’s impressive environmental record begin whenever a new rocket-whether the venerable Saturn 5, the just-developed Space Launch System, or SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy-is first under design and construction. Environmental groups have recently criticized some proposals floated by the commercial space sector and NASA to build a spaceport on Kennedy Space Center land that would send rockets flying over the Merritt Island Preserve instead of straight out over the ocean-but those projects are nowhere near fruition and the environmental sector is mounting stiff opposition. The rest encompasses the Merritt Island preserve and the Canaveral National Seashore-both of which have remained untouched by generations of NASA launches. The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) measures 140,000 square acres, but just 5,500 of them have been developed for space operations. What SpaceX isn’t doing, NASA assuredly does-and it isn’t easy. But if they’re going to move forward, they certainly need to do a full analysis and make sure they’re imposing sufficient mitigation, which we don’t believe they’re doing.” Learning from NASA “So perhaps this isn’t the right place to be blowing up these rockets. “This is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the country,” says Margolis. The reason lies partly in the engineering-the Starship launch pad was simply not built robustly enough to withstand the blast of the first stage’s 33 engines-and, according to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, partly bureaucratic: the lawsuit claims neither the FAA nor anyone else ever conducted the kind of full environmental impact study necessary to protect Boca Chica before the launch took place. Sixty years and thousands of launches-including 135 of the space shuttle alone and 18 of the massive Saturn 5 rocket-produced nothing like the devastation wrought on the Boca Chica area by just one Starship launch. The SpaceX mess stands in sharp contrast to NASA, which has long shared its Kennedy Space Center home with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a preserve that is home to more than 1,500 species of plants and animals. Collaborating with the FAA will give SpaceX more influence over the defense strategy. On May 22, SpaceX’s request to join the FAA as a co-defendant in the lawsuit was granted by a federal judge-a standard move by a company whose own permit to fly is in jeopardy by a lawsuit. Notwithstanding, on May 18, SpaceX rolled another Starship out to the pad for engine tests preparatory to a launch that will come only after the current lawsuit is resolved. The heat and the light and the noise was way more than I think they had anticipated from this launch.” (“The FAA does not comment on ongoing litigation matters,” the agency said in an email to TIME.) The agency, though, will likely tread carefully this time around – after all, the "meatball" is still head honcho.“We’re seeking to have it sent back to the agency for a full-blown, full-out analysis,” says Jared Margolis, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. With the upcoming revival, NASA says the red logotype will eventually be applied more places, though no official decisions have been made. With the exception of souvenirs and historical documents, the "meatball" had become the dominant symbol for NASA. "There appeared to be no middle ground for the situation employees and NASA’s partners either enthusiastically endorsed the logotype or despised it," historians Joseph Chambers and Mark Chambers said in the book.īy 1992, after adorning the space shuttle, buildings, space suits, documents, and even the Hubble Space Telescope, the "worm" was scrubbed. "The perception of the program advocates was that the younger NASA employees preferred the new graphics program, but the older employees were, in general, upset over the change." "The managers at the NASA centers were upset over the unexpected announcement, and the employees were even more inflamed," a 2015 book published by NASA, titled "Emblems of Exploration," reads. The way it was announced to center directors – by not telling them, but quietly including it on new stationery shipments – led to design-related frictions within NASA. The insignia was a radical departure from the more traditional "meatball," which led to some less-than-stellar opinions about its placement across agency products.
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