That said, I don't know how sensitive the locals are being about launches. Is there a rumble across the area, or is this the sort of thing that would stress a non-trivial percentage of the population?
The locals in the valley are generally not sensitive. They're all generally agricultural and just happy to be employed, or they make their livelihood off of VAFB in some way or another...so...more rockets is more job security. There's really very little publicly accessible land use affected by launches, since most of the area is part of the base anyway. When they're talking about evacs it's really campers down around the corner or limiting how close folks can get to the beach/train station to watch launches--not anyone that's actually a resident (like BC, for instance). I'd buy that a handful of vocal Rich Folk in SB/Ojai are a bit more miffed than they've been in the past, but in more of a "you kids turn down that music" kind of way than anything else...so...not the first voice for which I'd advocate here...
That said, it would be really unfortunate if the CCC gets The Heisman on this simply because "That's not what the rules say." As with every law/rule/mandate/doctrine ever created in the history of everything, contemporary context matters. When the subject plans were drafted for vandy it was unfathomable that there might be more than a few launches a month, let alone anyone contemplating multiple launches per week.
Indeed the concerns raised are quite reasonable, and there's a compromise here for sure. It does make sense for vandy to serve as a US launch site, both from a national security perspective as well as to maintain leadership in the global launch industry. It does make sense that more frequent launch rates are coming (and they should be allowed to come--and not just from SX) and kicking the can on how increased launch cadence impacts everything will just compound the problem. It makes sense that federal use (national security) and participating partners get a bit of a free pass for some things (within reason). It DOESN'T make sense that an entity like SX should benefit in perpetuity and across the board from those free passes if only a very small percentage of their activity is
actually for federal use. (As would be the case if SX ramps up to 36 launches/year, let alone more than that). It DOESN'T make sense to simply go head-in-sand on potential environmental impacts of greatly increased launch frequency.
