Danger: SpaceX
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Most of the folks in Cameron County love billionaire Elon Musk for the jobs he’s created at the once peaceful Boca Chica Beach where SpaceX now breathes flames, aiming for Mars.
I’m serious. That’s where Musk wants to go. Mars. He thinks he can save humanity that way.
In fact, Musk has stated that one of his primary motivations for pursuing space exploration and colonizing Mars is to preserve humanity. He believes that becoming a multiplanetary species is essential for our long-term survival, as it would provide us with a backup plan in case of an existential threat on Earth, such as an asteroid impact or a super-volcanic eruption.
Or, another Biden-Trump debate.
With eight-plus billion people on Planet Earth, getting a ticket to Mars should be a snap. Let’s go there and screw up that planet as badly as we’ve done this one. Within 30 days of landing, some war will ignite between the colonizers, bombs wiill be going off.
Reuters recently published an investigative piece it did on Musk’s SpaceX, which carried the headline: “At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk’s rush to Mars.”
This guy’s got so much money, politicians fawn over him like he’s some demi-god. In fact, he’s got so much cash, he can get around regulations, or shall we say, get them to apply differently than they would for most other companies working around high-risk investments, such as rocket fuel.
At SpaceX at Boca Chica, according to Reuters, workers are getting fingers crushed, flesh lacerated, bones broken, skulls fractured, heads concussed, and brains injured at six times the space-industry average.
Overall, according to Reuters, a news service that’s been around for 172 years, for years, SpaceX has failed to report annual injury-and-illness statistics to regulators. The data for 2022, which are more complete, reveal injury rates at three major SpaceX industrial facilities that far exceeded the space-industry average.
When you have as much money as Musk, $227 billion, you can avoid nuisances.
According to Reuters, in a written response, OSHA did not comment on SpaceX’s worker safety record or its enforcement decisions involving the company. The agency did not address why it never cited SpaceX for failing to report injury data for many years ($$$), saying it would be “unfair to draw a conclusion” because it didn’t know “the specifics.”
Uh-huh. Try that if you’re Joe Blow start-up, bust a gov reg, and see where that gets you.
The Boca Chica (Brownsville) SpaceX facility employs the most workers, with approximately 1,600 signed on to get us to Mars.
Apparently, though, according to the Reuters piece, the federal regulators aren’t policing them as they should, otherwise, there would be fewer crushed fingers, fewer cuts, brain injuries.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, because there have been eight SpaceX rocket explosions at Boca Chica in the past five years, safety should be a concern to local politicians, in charge of guarding the populace.
The most recent explosion occurred on April 20, 2023, when SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded in a fireball just four minutes after takeoff. The explosion destroyed the launch pad and sent debris raining down over nearby homes and businesses.
A recent report/story (need to Google it) talked about how much extensive damage that last explosion caused, which was far more than originally thought.
If I worked at SpaceX or lived near it, here’s a paragraph from the Nov. 10, 2023 Reuters story that would be of concern, because it bespeaks of a quirky dude, and quirky dudes and space rockets never go well together:
“Musk himself at times appeared cavalier about safety on visits to SpaceX sites: Four employees said he sometimes played with a novelty flamethrower and discouraged workers from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.”
He dislikes “bright colors?” Seriously?
On to Mars.