The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand “due to a structural failure.”
Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site.
I’m pretty sure it’s ridiculously hard to stop government projects in your backyard there. The best you can do is refuse to sell your land.
It won’t matter if you do, unless you’re a Party member. Example: the completion of the Three Gorges Dam was accompanied by forcing upwards of 30 million people to move. No compensation or new housing provided…just move somewhere else or you’ll drown. Fascinating book based on his long term reporting (I think New York Times IIRC), “River Town” by Peter Hessler. He was there, he lived it.
It‘s impossible. You can protest against mid sized manufacturers that pollute the environment but you cannot do anything whatsoever against directly state baked companies that do the real damage at which point you might rightfully ask yourself: „Why bother about the environment or safety whatsoever? The state says it takes care of it and I have no say in it anyway.“
These projects tend to bring a bunch of economic development along with it. Would be like Floridians rejecting Cape Canaveral or Texans trying to shut down SpaceX. Locals might not be thrilled, but developers and business leaders are ready for the rest of you to take the risk.
Cape Canaveral is directly east of Orlando, with a bunch of vacation resort spots hugging the shore. The Florida coastline isn’t exactly lightly developed.
