Ah, Musk and Trump, America's favorite toxic couple. After a very messy public breakup that saw accusations of pedophilia being flung back and forth (one of Musk's favorite rhetorical techniques), Musk eventually relented and bent the knee, with his submission now being rewarded by President Trump.
Trump's latest executive order has instructed the FAA to cut back on regulations regarding commercial rocket launches, allowing his off-again, on-again squeeze to flood our orbit with "rapid unscheduled disassemblies" even faster. Per Newsweek:
The executive order directed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to review Part 450 of FAA regulations governing launch licensing and to remove or revise rules deemed obsolete or overly restrictive for launch and reentry vehicles, potentially speeding approvals for multiple-launch licensing and novel activities.
The president's directive also elevated the Office of Space Commerce to report directly to the Commerce secretary and made the head of the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation a political appointee, changes the White House said would give commercial space greater priority.
SpaceX, the most frequent U.S. launcher and the company developing the large Starship system, stands to gain the most from these changes, as it conducts regular commercial launches to test Starship and maintain the Starlink network.
The order also instructed Duffy to work with the Council on Environmental Quality to eliminate or expedite environmental reviews for launches, including reviews carried out under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Maybe we wouldn't need to seek another planet to colonize if we weren't so dead-set on destroying this one.
