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Rocket launches are loud, and big rockets are louder. Launches used to be occasional spectacles, and not many people minded the noise.
But the pace has quickened. SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, now sends a Falcon 9 rocket to space at least once every few days from launchpads in Florida and California. Other companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, also have ambitions to send rockets to space at an accelerating pace.
And the noise is no longer just the roar of the rockets heading upward, but also the sonic booms of rocket boosters returning to Earth.
That noise shakes windows and foundations and wakens sleeping people. How the sound waves travel — shifted by wind, bending and reflecting off layers of the atmosphere and the ground below — is complex. Rules and limits that were designed for airports and rock concerts may not suffice.
“There is a gap in the science,” said Kent Gee, a professor of physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University in Utah who is one of the few scientists studying the sounds of spaceflight. “We don’t know what people actually find acceptable.”
And SpaceX is testing Starship, the largest and likely the loudest rocket ever. To fulfill his dreams of sending people to Mars one day, Mr. Musk envisions a steady parade of Starships launching from sites in Texas and Florida.
