More launches, more disturbance at the Cape
Thank you for the editorial on the potential of Starship launches at Cape Canaveral (“Don’t shortchange public comment, scientific input on SpaceX plans,” Aug. 26). When we read through the draft assessment, it shows that almost everything is A-OK. The one specific point that is not satisfactory is that it is very annoying to local residents. Perhaps no one preparing the report actually lives near the Cape and has never experienced night launches, shaking houses, big noises and then sonic booms. The report says that launch noises last two minutes; I believe their stopwatch is not in good order.
Elon Musk has said that he wants up to 1,000 Dragon launches per year. SpaceX has said it wants to launch the Starship at the Cape before the end of the year. Does anybody else think we need a rocket to be launched here before it has had a successful launch and flight that doesn’t explode and rain down rocket junk?
There is a virtual meeting to discuss the draft assessment Sept. 3, or the opportunity to leave public comments on the faa.gov website.
S. Lee Thompson Titusville
DOT should leave rainbows, repair roads
Wouldn’t be wonderful if the Florida Department of Transportation would repair our roads at the same rate they are able to paint over memorial rainbow lines on the road honoring the 49 people who lost their lives at the Orlando Pulse nightclub (Editorial: “State vandalism won’t dim Orlando’s colors,” Aug. 23)? Let’s ask Ron DeSantis, who said, “We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” why he is using his authority to commandeer our roads for his political “anti-woke propaganda” against the gay and LGBTQ+ community?
Kathy Weaver Clermont
Parents, read to your children
I was shocked to read a survey this week that showed a 40% drop in reading for fun. Even more distressing to me, as a former teacher of children with learning disabilities, was the finding that only 2% of people with children under nine years old are reading to them. I recently came across an excerpt from a poem by 20th-century author Strickland Gillilan:
“You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I, you could never be.
I had a mother who read to me.”
Perhaps this could be a mantra for all parents of young children. The renewed interest in reading would be a positive for everyone.
Janet Pauley Umatilla
Fight crime where there is crime
In a Monday commentary, “Domestic tranquility — A shared federal responsibility,” Bill O’Brien of New Hampshire, the “live free or die” state, sure has a funny way of endorsing that motto. His arguments that military use is sometimes necessary, allowed under strict legal constraints, and that crime is truly terrible in some places are inarguable. It does not mean there aren’t other, already tried and successful federal crime reduction solutions. It certainly doesn’t mean deploying troops to locations whose leaders made our president angry by not saying or doing exactly what he wanted, or where a single crime caught our former TV game show host’s eye. Given nearly all of the top 10 highest murder-rate states are in the former Confederacy, let’s see how soon we see troops in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s murder-rate champ, Louisiana.
Jock Smee Orlando
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