SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — For environmental attorney, Ana Citrin, the Andree Clark bird and wildlife refuge in Santa Barbara represents what’s at stake.

Citrin lives in Goleta, about 50 miles south of the Vandenberg Space Force Base, where SpaceX launches its Falcon 9 rocket, to send Starlink satellites into orbit.

“Unless it’s foggy or cloudy, we always see them, and always hear them,” Citrin said.

SpaceX’s mission is to provide Starlink internet access to rural parts of the country and help the U.S. military bolster its national defense.

But according to Citrin, who works on behalf of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, that mission may come at a cost to the local environment.

“There are a lot of sensitive species on the base, and around the base, including on the Channel Islands,” she said. “And they are impacted by the extremely loud rocket noise as well as the sonic booms.”

Those species include the Western snowy plovers, which live in sand dunes around SpaceX’s launch complex at Vandenberg, the Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and more.

The concern over sonic booms affecting these vulnerable animals, was brought up at an Oct. 10 California Coastal Commission meeting, ahead of a vote in which the agency rejected SpaceX’s bid to increase their rocket launches from 36 to 50 by the end of the year.

The agency also listing concerns about marine debris, air pollution and issues with beach access.

During a brief comment period by the board ahead of the vote, commission chair Caryl Hart, also citing Elon Musk’s political comments as a reason to slow the launches.

“But here we’re dealing with a company that is not... that the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and made it clear what his point of view is,” Hart said.

On Wednesday, Musk’s company fired back with a lawsuit against the coastal commission. The legal documents obtained by the LA Times said, in part, “rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO.”

We reached out to the commission for a response, but did not hear back from them.

Arizona-based astronomer Erika Hamden said there is value to SpaceX’s work, even beyond the Starlink internet goal. There’s also an opportunity, she said, for astronomers to advance their work without breaking the bank.

“One of the things they’ve [SpaceX] done is revolutionize easy access to space, so you know when we’re launching things like telescopes, that are going be orbiting the earth or looking at the universe, now you can put them on a SpaceX rocket and it’ll be faster, and cheaper,” Hamden said.

Citrin said in her effort to defend snowy plovers and marine life, she’s not looking to stop advancements in the aerospace industry.

“We support our national defense and competitiveness in space... but we don’t support doing that at the expense of endangered species and our habitats,” Citrin said.

She said she’s hoping to protect vulnerable wildlife, and launch into the future of connectivity, in a more harmonious way.