Those pesky rules you cannot buy your way around..

unless you're Boeing (and until you get caught out).

The one thing you can say about aviation is that its an environmental disaster area. Its the one industry that paves over large chunks of land, uses up incredible amounts of fossil fuels (airports are the only place in the US you can buy leaded petrol, its used by most light aircraft) and doesn't give a damn about noise pollution (for a start). It gets a pass because it is socially necessary -- currently its benefits seem to outweigh its costs.

The FAA's interest in tall structures is typically confined to putting some kind of marker on them to prevent low flying aircraft from running into them. SpaceX's launch facility is off limits to general aviation so there's little danger of that so what's the beef? My guess is that there's some crusty old geezer in the agency that just doesn't like Musk. The FAA is a bit of a boy's club anyway, you have to have a certain clubby mindset to join and be a part of that industry.

Still, harassing SpaceX probably makes a bit of a change from bothering aircraft modellers and looking through ADS-B logs for anything that could be regarded as a violation.

>> harassing SpaceX probably makes a bit of a change from bothering aircraft modellers

It's a mixed bag with the FAA.

A long time ago, I used to go parachuting. I still have a subscription to the USPA (United State Parachute Association) magazine. The organization helps protect the rights of skydivers, and they work closely with the FAA to do that.

There's the occasional story of some people who want to keep the local public airport only for their own use and deny skydivers the right to use it. Then the USPA will help the local skydiving business to lobby the FAA to get them to enforce the law or regulation which guarantees the skydivers access to the airport.

The other side of the coin is that occasionally the FAA tries to introduce some onerous restrictions on skydiving, based on some rationale which doesn't make sense, and the USPA has to lobby against it.

Its the one industry that paves over large chunks of land,

Trains and autos need much more land than aviation.

uses up incredible amounts of fossil fuels

Aviation is much more fuel efficient than autos per passenger-mile.

and doesn't give a damn about noise pollution (for a start).

The noise regulations on airports continue getting ever more strict. Aircraft and airports are far less noisy than they were a few decades ago. But it's a long, slow process.

My time living next to a mid-sized airport was far more peaceful than my time living next to train tracks.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.

The FAA have an 'interesting' view of where their authority stretches to - probably because many (most??) airports in the states have been in receipt of grants for infrastructure improvements. The rider that comes with the grant is that it gives the FAA a huge amount of say in the ongoing activities at the airport. This is often a good thing when local governments try to sell off a local airport to generate money and find that they can't. For subjective values of 'good' of course.

I rather suspect that attitude is being shown here despite this not being an FAA funded operation.

Be a shame if anything were to happen to them, right?

Seriously, the brazenness of Musk's lawbreaking boggles the mind.

From PayPal (acting as a bank while ignoring bank regulations), to Tesla (selling non existent product and overselling capabilities + stock manipulation + labor law violations), to Solar City (Securities fraud, etc), to the Boring Company (promising capabilities are simply not possible), it appears his super-power is, "Regulatory Arbitrage" (i.e. crime).

Don't agree.

Simply cos without Elon, you will not have the FAA regulations being dragged into the 21st century and we will still be stuck with the giants from last century still sending up overpriced rockets occasionally only.

On balance, I think Elon is still a net positive for humanity, even with his occasional craziness.

Nope there are plenty more who don't give a crap about the environment and want incumbents to give us third rate products for twice the price.

Not alone at all....

What's changed sufficiently to suggest that FAA regulations are now overbearing? Does rocket fuel make less of a bang when it explodes? Do light aircraft now bounce harmlessly off tall unmarked towers? Is the environment at less of a risk? Are billionaires more entitled to ride roughshod over regulation these days?

The idiotic thing about Musk is that he picks unnecessary fights, or stages unnecessary stunts, or makes impetuous but incorrect decisions. All he's doing is risking being closed down.

Hey! glad the short seller brigade is represented here on ye olde Reg. Sadly while the vitriol in your comment is fitting for the forums, it lacks the substance for an actual article, so here it shall remain.

You may get your wish though, but is seems like a long shot as Texans have and continue to do MUCH worse and remain free men.

Your last part is wrong though, he's not a super-villan, just a Hank Scorpio esque run of the mill Bond type. Only with rockets instead of death rays. Crime isn't a superpower, it's at best a occpation and at worst a dabblers hobby.

He can drop a several ton block of concrete anywhere on earth though, and probably at a high velocity and reasonable accuracy though. That's gotta count for something.

On the whole Musk has delivered far more than any other individual since Thomas Edison. Sure, some of his promises are over optimistic (he now admits that "self-driving cars are hard"). He's also learned that the stock market isn't a force for good, its a casino that will destroy you if there's money to be made from it. He might be ungodly wealthy -- on paper -- but he doesn't live like royalty, he's just interested in making stuff. He's usually right about regulations as well -- a launch was aborted unnecessarily because an errant light plane had strayed into a huge TFA, 1950's technology and mindset colliding with 21st century thinking. Things need to be tidied up.

As for labor law violations, I doubt it. SpaceX has a startup culture which means that the work is likely to be interesting, exciting even, but at the same time you're get worked to death unless you're careful. Its a tradeoff and anyone getting involved with this sort of company who expects a generic 'job' is likely to have a rude awakening (assuming they get hired in the first place).

Incidentally, I'm not a Musk groupie.

He has planning permission from the local council

Hmmm

Something smells here..... maybe the FAA want a nice brown envelope too

Yeah, they got their envelope already, just not from SpaceX.

Plenty of rich people wondering how they are going to close the 2-5 year lead SpaceX has on the competition. Slowing them down is the obvious choice.

"He has planning permission from the local council"

We're talking about Texas which -- outside of Travis County (Austin) -- is notoriously lacking in meddlesome regulation of just about everything. At least as long as you are the right sort of person. Being white and wealthy goes a long way toward making you the right sort of person. Bringing jobs to the neighborhood helps a lot also.

I doubt the local planning commission (if any) had any substantive objections to Musk's plans. If he even bothered to present them.

Don't get me wrong. Texas is not that bad a place if you are roughly the right sort of person, can tolerate interminable 35C (95F) plus most days Summers, and don't get nervous around dimwits with firearms. I wouldn't want to live there, but there are much less attractive places in North America.

Just like all your promises about autonomous driving cars 'next year' for the past 5 years at least, the hyperloop, electric truck convoys and other somesuch crap.

"electric truck convoys"

Goal: Multiple load units using electricity originally generated by a single, large, more efficient generator compared to multiple small [1] diesels.

Downsides: A convoy of trucks taking up either the passing lane on the highway or worse -- the ramp-side lane so you can't enter or leave.

Idea: Remove the trucks from the public highway onto dedicated right-of-way.

Solution: Both the original goal and the idea are already fulfilled using heavy-rail freight trains. Single large-diesel generator running at higher efficiency, dedicated trackage... Why are we reinventing this?

Add-on: Keep the electric-truck idea around for the final mile from freight yard (rail or air) to customer, just not highway convoys.

[1] "Small compared" to massive diesels on ships, trains, mining equipment, and midsize engines for construction, firefighting, etc.

>heavy-rail freight trains. ..... Why are we reinventing this?

Because trains are communist

The FAA is not a building approval agency. The only oversight they should have is if the thing is tall enough to interfere with flight and require lights.

This is nowhere near the FAA's jurisdiction. It would be like the FCC prohibiting me from putting in a new driveway.

For once I'm on Elon's usually whiny and overprivileged side.

Yeah, the article touches on the one legit part of this, that aerospace companies are regulated because of WHAT they make. If it was a pig farm and he was building a slaughterhouse the FDA would be involved. They make things that fly, and that is kind of the FAAs thing.

That said, if SpaceX wants to risk the cash, their assertion that the facility isn't making FAA certified craft might actually be a legal blind spot. The FAA has a history of claiming jurisdiction on things it's legal definition does not cover, like flying toys. The FDAs got a much broader scope of authority by comparison.

The FAA requires approval of any structure in the US taller than 200 (61m) feet above local ground level or near an airport. Musk's towers are more than twice that. Roughly the height of a 40 story building.

Of course he should have asked for approval. Assuming that they aren't actually an air travel hazard of some sort, I imagine he'll get approval. Along possibly with a (well deserved) fine?

Well he could be trying to set up a rocket launch business in Germany......

He can't be feeling as much frustration as he is over building his Tesla factory in Germany. Those guys don't have the word reasonable in their vocabulary. It is replaced with Comply in every case.

Musk could shoot a starship into the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any fanboys.

And he could cure cancer, AIDS and end poverty and not lose any haters either. Haters gonna hate, fanboys gonna fan.

"Excuse me Mr Musk, is this your erection? Please remove it from public view before we do."