When SpaceX's rocket Starship blew up shortly after take-off last week, questions rose about safety, intentions, and consequences. While company PR posed the vehicle's "rapid unscheduled disassembly" as immaterial to the technical success of the test launch before it, residents had already expressed their disagreement with the launch and its possible environmental impact.
"SpaceX routine operations and testing are already destroying wildlife refuges and sacred lands
of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and are threatening Rio Grande Valley communities with explosion risks. In addition to these accumulating impacts, the launch of the new massive
Starship Super Heavy itself will increase the size and scale of SpaceX's already damaging
impacts on nearby communities, wildlife, and the environment. For years, Rio Grande Valley residents have been outspoken about SpaceX cutting off access to the beach from local families, preventing the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe from accessing sacred lands for ceremonies, destroying more than 60 acres of wildlife habitat for threatened and endangered species, and threatening public safety with rocket shrapnel blown into fishing spots and the community."
Now that the spaceship blew itself to smithereens, perhaps as a result of Musk's impatience and infantile sense of humor, it seems that the particular details of SpaceX's operation are hidden behind the secured veil of non-disclosure agreements. Maybe Martin Hench from Cory Doctorow's new novel Red Team Blues can help crack the case.
As reported by Texas Public Radio, "Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) requests reveal that not only have public entities in Cameron County signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with SpaceX, but those entities have also sought to keep those NDAs private despite ongoing relationships with the company.
Two NDAs, one signed by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in April 2020 and another by the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (BPUB) in March 2017, were released only after the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) in Texas ordered them to become public.
The city of Brownsville is currently fighting the release of any SpaceX-related NDAs. Cameron County previously acknowledged the existence of an NDA with SpaceX. However, that NDA was never released and has since disappeared." Maybe the NDA was in the rocket?
What is he hiding?
