No man’s airspace: Why our skies aren’t ready for the space boom

Space News ^ | 4/14/25 | Mathew Lewallen

[EnderWiggin1970]

On a clear evening this January, flights out of Miami, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale suddenly ground to a halt. The culprit wasn’t weather or a software glitch — it was a rocket launch. SpaceX’s Starship, the largest spacecraft ever built, had lifted off from Texas and exploded mid-flight, raining 100 tons of debris at over 13,250 miles per hour over the Caribbean. The FAA swiftly issued an unprecedented order: a temporary freeze on air traffic at four major Florida airports. Then another Starship exploded on its next test launch in March. According to FAA data reported by Reuters, the disruption affected about 240 flights with delays averaging 28 minutes, forcing 28 of those aircraft to divert, and left 40 airborne flights in holding patterns. Passengers as far away as Philadelphia felt the shockwave in scheduling. It was a dramatic wake-up call that our airspace is no longer the exclusive domain of airplanes. Rockets have arrived, and the system isn’t ready. These incidents aren’t a fluke — they’re a glimpse into what happens when rockets and airplanes share the same sky.

[VanShuyten]

Good advice, except it seems every government computer system is still operating with Win 98.

[roadcat]

Doesn’t almost every other rocket launch by multiple companies allow their boosters to come back and burn in the atmosphere, raining debris over the oceans? Only SpaceX attempts to land boosters back on Earth. (Speaking of orbital and sub-orbital launches, not the straight up and down Blue Origin joyride.) This has been going on for decades with rockets, and the de-orbiting of satellites.

[EnderWiggin1970]

This issue I think is the volume of launches. As they point out in the article it wasn't a big deal to reroute aircraft for the rare shuttle launch. But with the big boom in private launches it's more of an issue.

I think it's a legit concern. I'd hate for a booster to go *boom* (either by accident or design) high in the sky and be raining down debris as passenger aircraft are flying along underneath. Any contact would be at around 600 mph, and even small pieces of debris could make for a serious if not catastrophic problem at that speed.