Makes me wonder, too: Who handles Range Safety for SpaceX out of Texas?
Like all launch vehicles, Starship is equipped with flight termination systems to allow ground controllers to blow up the vehicle if it goes off-track. You launch out of Canaveral, and it’s a NASA employee with their sweaty thumb over the button.
Who does it out of Boca Chica? I’m guessing it’s a SpaceX employee…who might get fired if they actually press the button. Sounds like a major conflict of interest.
In the '90s, there was the launch of a new vehicle that started to go awry during ascent. The range safety officer was calling for destruct, but the corporate head of the activity felt that the vehicle would recover and jammed the command to destruct. As it happened, he was right…the vehicle did recover. Needless to say, though NASA was P.O.'d.