What a second Trump term could mean for SpaceX

0:01NPR.

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX is capping off a busy 2024. It's launched more than 115 rockets into orbit so far, with plans for even more next year. The company's latest flight test of its Starship last month was attended by President-elect Donald Trump. At the launch, the rocket booster was supposed to come back to the launch pad so it could be reused quickly. But there was damage to the launch tower, and it landed in the Gulf of Mexico instead. Jeff Brumfield covers SpaceX for NPR's science desk. It's a really strange way to do it because, you know, other rockets just drop their boosters or in the case of the space shuttle, sometimes they would go out into the ocean and retrieve the boosters.

0:55The idea here is very, very rapid reusability. You catch the booster, you just lower it back on the launch pad, fill it back up with gas, and then you can go. And, you know, Elon Musk says he wants this launching as often as three times a day. Jeff spoke to Regina Barber, the co-host of NPR's podcast Shortwave. It was a really interesting conversation about the environmental impact of the Starship program, which is currently taking place in a vulnerable Texas ecosystem. They also talked about what a second Trump administration could mean for the company. That's after the break. This message comes from NPR sponsor Zendesk, introducing the next generation of AI agents, built to deliver resolutions for everyone.

1:40With an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30 % of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need. Loved by over 10 ,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier. That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at Zendesk.com. NPR science correspondent Jeff Brumfield, hello. Hello, Regina. So, okay, Musk wants to launch these things like three times a day. What does that mean for like where they're launching these things? So in the long term, Musk has said that he wants these launched from the middle of the ocean because, of course, launching a giant rocket is very disruptive.

2:23I don't know if floating platforms will ever be able to launch starships. I mean, I think that might be a little unrealistic. But in the near term, what they're planning to do is launch a lot more from this site in Texas. Now, this year they are authorized to launch five times. Next year, they want to go up to as many as 25 times. And recently, SpaceX executive Gwen Shotwell said that she would not be surprised if the company launched Starship 400 times in the next four years. And this has gotten environmentalists really worried because SpaceX's launch site in Texas is in the middle of a state and federal wildlife refuge.

3:03I mean, how is that even allowed? Yeah, well, it's a really interesting situation. So basically, this site is near the city of Brownsville. Right next to it is this large area known kind of colloquially as Boca Chica. It's a mix of state land and federal land and little parcels of private land sort of tucked away in there. Oh. So about 10 years ago, SpaceX bought these little patches of private land. And, you know, on one site they have their production facility, and on another site just up the road they have their launch facility. Wow. And you actually went there, right? Like, what did you see?

3:39It's really a fascinating place to visit because it sits about a half hour outside of Brownsville along this two-lane highway. It's sort of cutting through these native grasslands near the Gulf of Mexico that's home to hundreds of bird species, including many that stop over during migrations to Central and South America. So this is the weird thing about the setup is, you know, because there's public land right next to all of SpaceX's facilities, you can pull right up next to the launch complex and park there. And that's exactly why I did. Wow. Oh. And, you know, it was so weird because you, like, get out of your car.

4:16You're just parked on the side of the road next to a sand dune. And there's this, ah, it's just so big. This huge rocket right there. It was just there. Like, just the rocket. You could just see it. Just standing right there on the pad. And, you know, I met Justin LeClaire there. He's a biologist with the nonprofit Coastal Bays, Bends, and Estuaries, which monitors wildlife in Boca Chica. We nailed it today. Look at this. The whole rocket's here. indeed it's always different out here the the biggest building back in production um with all the glass and stuff in the front uh that was not anywhere near that close to being done last time i was here like a month and a half ago so they just fly through everything so justin and i started climbing back into the dunes next to the launch pad wow so this is all coastal prairie We're getting kind of into the dune habitat here as well.

5:08And as soon as we get back there, we start seeing these enormous chunks of concrete. It was basically a minefield of debris out here after the April 2023, that first flight test. So the first flight of Starship was particularly damaging to the local environment because the rocket was so powerful, it actually blew a hole in its launch pad. Wow. I mean, when you say there's just debris everywhere, I just imagine like like animals walking through there, like just like just chunks of debris flying everywhere. Yeah. I mean, it was a lot. And part of the reason this happened was SpaceX and their rush to get Starship flying did not install a standard piece of equipment known as a water deluge system.

5:53Now, this is designed to suppress the power of the rocket engines. Basically, it's a giant upside-down shower that sprays hundreds of thousands of gallons of water under the rocket as it launches. So they put one of these things in, and that solved that problem. But it also created a new problem because the launch pad is completely flat. And so every launch, the water goes everywhere. Now, SpaceX says, look, this is drinking water used in the system. It's not dangerous. But the fact of the matter is it does contain some harmful chemicals after it comes in contact with the rocket exhaust. And the EPA classifies this water as industrial wastewater.

6:32So just letting it spill out into wetlands violates the Clean Water Act. SpaceX knew this before two other launches earlier this year, but they launched anyway. And they later got fined by the EPA and local regulators. So what does SpaceX say about all this, like how they're affecting the environment? Yeah, I mean, SpaceX didn't talk to me directly, but they did put out a lengthy statement on this issue in September. And they said, quote, the narrative that we operate free or in defiance of environmental regulation is demonstrably false. SpaceX is committed to minimizing impact and enhancing the surrounding environment where possible.

7:10OK, Jeff, SpaceX is like racing ahead here, right? But Donald Trump has been reelected and he and Elon are buddies. So like what's the impact likely to be? I think there's likely to be sort of two areas where we're going to see some changes in SpaceX's relationship to the government. The first is regulation. So Starship is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration in consultation with other agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency. And those regulators have been perceived as slowing down Starship's launches, due in part to these environmental concerns. I spoke to Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator of NASA under Barack Obama, and she thinks all that's about to change.

7:52The FAA and the EPA will not be raising flags as they have been these last couple of years. Now, there may still be barriers. Environmental groups are already suing the FAA for failing to conduct an adequate environmental review of Starship's impact on Boca Chica. And those suits are still going to go forward. But in terms of the regulators, that may ease up quite a bit. Okay, so less regulatory oversight. What else might change? Well, the other thing is money. SpaceX gets billions in government contracts, including money for Starship. But it's not the only player. So, for example, NASA has spent nearly$100 billion trying to get astronauts back to the moon.

8:35A sliver of that money has gone to Starship, which is theoretically going to work as a lunar lander. Tim Ferrara is president of a consulting firm called TMF Associates, which tracks SpaceX's business. He says it's quite possible Musk is going to try and push more money from other parts of the moon program into Starship. There are many different companies involved in building things. And Musk would say, well, do we need all of those? You know, why don't you give us the money and we'll do all of this with Starship instead? And you know, SpaceX has already surged ahead in the launch market in recent years with its other rockets.

9:14Wow. And Farrah says its power is going to grow almost inevitably. The most visible sign of all this change is going to be Starship. We'll see if they actually get up to 25 launches next year. But even if they only do a fraction of those, the program will make huge strides with its goal of rapid reusability for space exploration. And it's also going to have big environmental consequences for the grasslands that surround the launch site. This episode was originally produced and edited by Rachel Carlson and Rebecca Ramirez with engineering by Maggie Luthar. Tyler Jones did the fact-checking. Additional production by Julia Ritchie with engineering by Jimmy Keighley.

9:54Kate Kincanon is the editor of The Indicator. Shortwave and The Indicator are productions of NPR.