Elon Musk calls rocket launch regulations ‘broken’

July 01, 2021: -On Tuesday, SpaceX was seconds away from launching its 20th mission this year when the countdown was halted because of an aircraft entering the launch range, delaying the task by at least a day. Elon Musk voice his frustration regarding the delay on Twitter, reiterating prior criticisms he has made about regulations near the business of launching rockets.

“An aircraft entered the ‘keep out zone,’ which is unreasonably gigantic,” tweeted by Musk.

“There is simply no way that humanity can become a spacefaring civilization without major regulatory reform. But, unfortunately, the current regulatory system is broken,” he said.

Musk has ratcheted up his criticism of launch regulations this year, with SpaceX firing off Falcon 9 rockets at a blistering pace, with launches going up an average of every nine days and flying multiple development tests. In January, Starship prototype rockets. After a Starship test was delayed, Musk similarly criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for handling launch regulations.

“Unlike its aircraft division, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure,” Musk wrote.

“Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. According to those rules, humanity will never get to Mars,” Musk added.

In December, the FAA has pushed back on SpaceX after the violation of its launch license with the authorized test flight of Starship prototype SN8 by the company. After that, the FAA says SpaceX has “modified their procedures effectively” and testified before Congress about efforts to streamline launch regulations and rules earlier this month.

Although he’s publicly criticized regulators, Musk has also stated that “99.9% of the time, I agree with regulators!”

In April, Musk said, “On rare occasions, we disagree. This is almost always due to new technologies that past regulations didn’t anticipate.”