SpaceX-Erklärung gegenüber der FAA zu X

This is setting up to be another OceanGate scenario – “it’s too long and difficult to comply with regulatory requirements so we are simply going to ignore them”.

That’s clearly what they’re looking for. They aren’t complaining about the regulations being too stringent, or the number of people who have to review them being more stringent than needed… because they know those things won’t change even with more funding.

Those are their real complaints, however, even if they aren’t saying them. They are complaining about more funding because they know it’s the first step – it likely will never get through Congress (where both parties hate spending more money than necessary), and even if it does, it won’t fix anything because they’ll still need time to review the mountains of documents (without AI!) that have to be submitted.

And that will be the beginning of their argument as to why it should be abolished or they should be exempt from the regulations. Which will be the end of safe SpaceX Starship.

*Stockton Rush nods silently from the great beyond*

People seem to be going from zero to 100 real quick on their conclusions. SpaceX is far from the first aerospace entity to criticize the snails pace that the FAA moves. In fact, industry leaders have been urging the FAA to receive a larger budget and to expand their regulatory footprint for decades to meet the exponential demand on a number of fronts.

The Air Traffic Controllers Association advocated for increased funding to help address the massive staffing shortage that they face (which one of the reasons why we see so many delayed and cancelled flights these days): https://www.natca.org/2024/03/05/natca-supports-fy24-appropriations-package-with-funding-for-faa/

The Airline Pilots Association has called for increased funding for the FAA to address how it approaches mental health in pilots (where pilots are incentivized to hide mental health issues due to the insanely long process to return to flying): https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2023-12-06-alpa-urges-changes-investment

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has asked for better funding and changes to 14 CFR 23 regulations to help make aircraft production and maintenence more affordable to help bring better accessibility to general aviation: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/december/17/aircraft-certification-reform-continues-to-advance

The FAA is a crucial part of our national infrastructure, and in some ways, one of the few government agencies that works so well. We are experiencing the longest period of aviation safety ever, and much of that is due to the FAA’s methodical approach towards regulation. That doesn’t mean it can’t improve and shouldn’t improve. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart, as a professional aviator and former SpaceX employee.

SpaceX isn’t asking to be given carte blanche permission to do as they please, but they want to end the political gamesmanship that the FAA has been playing with them, as well as make some of the processes more efficient to fit their model of development and rapid iteration.

Thanks for attending my Ted Talk, but I hope it helps the conversation along…