Here’s one that I definitely did not see coming. You may have been among the army of people – including me – that watched in anticipation a couple of weeks ago when SpaceX finally launched Elon Musk’s first “Super Heavy” starship. It was the largest and heaviest thing ever built by the hand of man to take to the skies under its own power and the launch was spectacular. Sadly, the rest of the flight didn’t go as planned when the second stage failed to separate from the first, leading to what the control tower crew described as a “rapid, unplanned disassembly.” (It blew up over the ocean.)

But there were other problems as well. The starship’s rockets were so powerful that they literally blew up the launch pad while it was taking off, scattering construction material over a wide area. It also ignited a fire in a nearby state park which consumed more than three acres. Thankfully, there were no injuries, but now a coalition of environmental and “cultural heritage” groups have filed a lawsuit against the FAA, claiming that the agency never should have granted Musk clearance to launch the rocket. (NBC News)

Five environmental and cultural heritage groups are suing the Federal Aviation Administration, alleging that the agency violated the National Environment Policy Act when it allowed SpaceX to launch the largest rocket ever built from its Boca Chica, Texas facility without a comprehensive environmental review, according to court filings obtained by CNBC.

SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy test flight on April 20 blew up the company’s launch pad, hurling chunks of concrete and metal sheets thousands of feet away into sensitive habitat, spreading particulate matter including pulverized concrete for miles, and sparking a 3.5-acre fire on state park lands near the launch site.

The lawsuit against the FAA was filed in a district court in Washington D.C. on Monday by plaintiffs including: The Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, SurfRider Foundation, Save Rio Grande Valley (Save RGV) and a cultural heritage organization, the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

Leftist groups have basically declared war on Elon Musk ever since he bought Twitter, so perhaps this development isn’t all that surprising. (Despite the fact that he was a darling of the left when he was voting for Democrats.) But it’s obvious that they couldn’t go after Musk directly, as much as they probably wanted to. Musk has been in the space business for years now, celebrated around the world for his advancements in private space flight and his global online access programs.

In all of that time, Musk has followed the rules. He has publicly spoken at length about all of the government regulations you have to follow if you want to put rockets into orbit from the United States. He followed those rules again and obtained permission from the FAA to launch the starship. So they are suing the FAA in a backdoor attempt to get his project shut down.

But advancements in science always carry risks. Nobody has ever lit off a set of rockets that powerful before, but that’s what it’s going to take to put a craft of that size into orbit in preparation to head to the moon, to Mars, and beyond. He already has a contract to take astronauts up for various parts of NASA’s agenda. And he’s doing it more cheaply and efficiently than the government manages to do.

Should Elon Musk have known that the launch pad might blow up? He did! SpaceX sent out warnings. They cleared the entire area and worked in concert with the Coast Guard to make sure that no boats would be in the area under the rocket’s projected flight path. He went out on Twitter before the first aborted launch attempt and said the chances of a successful mission were 50-50 at best. The announcers from SpaceX broadcasting the flight on their YouTube channel repeatedly said they would be happy “if we make it off the launchpad.”

Even after the crash, Musk quickly came out and explained how the pad was destroyed, what they got wrong, and what they learned from it.

3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.

Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.

Looks like we can be ready to launch again in 1 to 2 months.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2023

The bottom line? Science is hard, particularly when you’re doing something that’s never been done before. If the people behind this lawsuit think that reaching out to the stars is not worth the “risk” to a few acres of a park and a small stretch of wetlands, they should have spoken up before the launch happened. Musk did what was possible at the moment and, frankly, had been impossible until now. This lawsuit should be dismissed.