By Kevin Kiley – October 16, 2024
Early Sunday morning, against a beautiful Texas sunrise, science fiction became reality. SpaceX launched its Starship rocket, the most powerful ever built – and then minutes later, the rocket returned to the same tower from which it was launched, caught using giant “chopsticks.”
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the breathtaking video. And remember: the Biden-Harris bureaucracy wanted to stop this. After the FAA invented absurd bureaucratic reasons to delay the launch by two months, I confronted FAA head Michael Whitaker about it at a hearing.
You can watch my questioning here, during which Whitaker made numerous statements that were proven false. The next day, I gave a speech on the House Floor questioning his fitness to lead the FAA. Thankfully, a few days ago the FAA relented and cleared Sunday’s historic launch.
The success of Starship is going to allow the U.S. to greatly increase its already massive advantage in space, which is almost entirely thanks to SpaceX. This is a tremendous asset when it comes to national security, and is enabling things like Internet even in the most remote areas.
Yet right as SpaceX was preparing to make history, the California “Coastal Commission” engaged in an act of historic stupidity. The Commission, with several Newsom appointees, rejected a request from SpaceX to increase its launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
I had signed a bipartisan letter in favor of the request that was joined by some of the most conservative and liberal members of Congress. Yet the Commission said no, and their stated reason was they don’t like Elon Musk’s political posts. Now he’s suing them, and he’ll win.
Newsom, for his part, absurdly tried to take credit for Elon’s success – even though he caused SpaceX to relocate its headquarters. This all goes to show our state and country still produce world-class innovators, but we have to fix the political/bureaucratic idiocy holding them back.
3 weeks to Election Day! Help me win.
Kevin Kiley is a California Congressman
