(The Center Square) – The California government denied a U.S. Air Force request to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to increase its California rocket launches, citing Musk’s politics.
The U.S. Department of Defense and a large bipartisan coalition of lawmakers endorsed the launch expansion, with some center-left housing activists attacking the vote as no different than the California Coastal Commission’s consistent denial of housing.
The Air Force and Space Force had requested that the California Coastal Commission allow SpaceX to increase its annual permitted launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara from 36 to 50.
“Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” said Commissioner Gretchen Newsom at the meeting.
“I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” said Commission Chair Caryl Hart at the meeting. “But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”
The bipartisan Congressional coalition signed a letter of support including a wide range of members of Congress, from leading Democrats Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands, and Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, to Republicans Michelle Steel, R-Fountain Valley, and Darrel Issa, R-San Diego.
Creating a reason beyond political considerations, Commissioner Dayne Bocho said, “I do believe that the Space Force has failed to establish that SpaceX is a part of the federal government, part of our defense.”
NASA currently does not have any of its own active vehicles for transporting goods or humans to space, and must rely either on Russia, or on American commercial partners such as SpaceX, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Boeing’s Starliner was sent to space in June for its first manned mission to the International Space Station. The eight day mission has now turned into an eight month mission due to the Starliner capsule being deemed unsafe to bring the astronauts home; soon thereafter, one Russian Soyuz capsule went to the station, after which NASA sent up a SpaceX Dragon capsule to carry back the stranded astronauts.
Boeing, which has outsourced (and significantly offshored) 70% of its design, engineering, and manufacturing, has lost $33 billion over the past five years following reliability concerns and two fatal crashes of its new, best-selling 737 Max 8 plane due to design, maintenance, and training-related issues.
As noted by conservative leaders, Musk cited the state’s policies — specifically its new rule banning parental notification for gender change requests from K-12 students — for his official relocation of X, formerly known as Twitter, and SpaceX to Texas.
“First Newsom drove SpaceX to move its headquarters out of California,” said Congressman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, on X. “Now, his Coastal Commission is denying their launch plan because the commissioners don't like Elon's political posts.”
First Amendment advocates wondered how it was legal to consider Musk’s legally protected political speech in its regulatory actions.
“While the commission can consider the nature of SpaceX’s activities and their environmental impact, the First Amendment forbids government agencies from leveraging regulatory power to stifle protected speech,” said the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a pro-First Amendment legal nonprofit, in a statement. “That was true when Florida’s government punished Disney for opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s education policies, it was true when a New York agency leaned on insurance companies to cut ties with the NRA because of its political advocacy, and it’s true here.”
Pro-housing advocates, who have long grappled with the CCC over its delays and denial of housing in high-demand areas, noted their disagreement with Musk but even greater disagreement over the CCC vote.
“No one on this website will confuse me with a fan of Elon Musk but it’s patently ridiculous that the California Coastal Commission can override the literal US Air Force in part because it doesn’t like Elon’s tweets,” said YIMBYs [Yes in My Backyard] for Harris co-founder Armand Domalewski on X. “It is a rogue agency.”
Musk said he would be filing a lawsuit against the CCC on Tuesday, when courts reopen. The dispute comes as SpaceX achieved a a victory over the weekend, relanding a part of its "Starship" rocket for later reuse, a key victory in the company's effort to make space flight less expensive.
