Space X Falcon 9 launch, August 16, 2024. California, Vandenberg Spaceport. Freeze frame from NASA video
By Leah Yananton, Ojai
Letter to the Santa Barbara Independent, 7 July 2026
Community members packed into Ojai City Hall to hear the Mission Update about Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launch increases at Vandenberg Space Force Base, as Colonel James Horne, Commander of Space Launch Delta 30, presented on June 22. No one from SpaceX was in attendance.
After decades of maybe nine rockets a year, by the end of 2026 VSFB expects to launch 84-90 rockets, and to keep increasing up to 400 a year — as “now the second space race is a commercial space race,” Col. Horne said. “It is Starlink now, in the future it will be Amazon LEO, and many other different types of constellations that are providing critical war fighting capability,” Col. Horne said. Vandenberg was pictured as a “Spaceport.”
Residents raised concerns about the cumulative harmful environmental impact that rocket launches have on people, wildlife, and on marine mammals, and that aluminum satellites have on the ozone layer as they burn up during reentry.
Professor Kent Gee, acoustics professor researcher at BYU, presented about sonic booms, and said there is still a lot that they don’t know.
During public comments, someone summarized the Mission as “Putting the Cart Before the Horse,” because sonic booms will continue to increase and damages might or might not be recognized in time for Vandenberg, or for humanity, to do anything about it.
Call your representative and tell them to vote No on the 1.5 trillion dollar Pentagon budget in November, and stop this runaway train of the commercial space race.
For more information, see the compilation here.
See: Original Article
