Comedy isn’t typically the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Elon Musk. However, I found myself appreciating his sense of comedy and the absurd when he described some of the regulatory barriers his company faced.
So- seals? The short version is that in order to prove that launching rockets wouldn’t disrupt seal reproduction, they were required to play sonic boom sounds at an actual seal (thus “kidnap a seal”) and check for distress. Here’s a clip of the discussion:
The longer version includes a lot more, including several more regulatory issues (what’s the likelihood of hitting a shark with a rocket?) and a comparison of the experience of the seal to that of an alien abduction.
The long version (should start at the relevant section):
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