'It's Not Going To Be as Sexy': Boca Chica Looks Toward a SpaceX Future Less Lofty Than it'd Hoped
Jul. 4—BOCA CHICA VILLAGE — Luis Garza and his wife, Mireida, drove five hours from Monterrey, Mexico, to be here Friday. They brought their son, Luis Jr., 3, and daughter, Miranda, 7, to Starbase as part of a family vacation.
They came for a glimpse of a Starship, to pose with it in the background. They came with hopes of seeing the first-ever orbital launch from South Texas.
"Thanks to Elon, I can see the rockets," Garza said.
"I want to see the stars and the moon," his daughter added.
Posing with the big SpaceX rockets was simple. Seeing an orbital launch may not be.
For years, Elon Musk has touted SpaceX's compound in Boca Chica as the " Gateway to Mars" — the site from which his company would launch its massive Starship to carry astronauts to the moon and the red planet.
But area residents increasingly believe Musk is abandoning Starbase as his premier launch site. They're taking him at his word about turning the South Texas facility into a research and development center — and moving most orbital launch operations to Florida.
"Anything that goes to the moon or Mars is definitely not happening here," said Louis Balderas Jr., who for the past three years has been recording SpaceX operations 2 4/7 on his LabPadre YouTube channel. "It's not going to be as sexy being R&D. It won't be the true gateway to Mars."
SpaceX workers agree. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they don't have approval to discuss the company's plans, past and current employees say South Texas is no longer the gateway.
Future of Starbase
The future of Starbase — Musk's branding of the 47-acre facility here — began to come into focus last year as officials repeatedly delayed completion of an environmental review necessary for the Federal Aviation Administration to authorize orbital launch operations.
In February, it was Musk himself posing with a 400-foot-tall Starship, telling a crowd of employees, locals and journalists that he expected approval soon. But his optimism came with a warning: If the FAA postponed the review again, SpaceX might move operations to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it already had approval for orbital Starship launches.
After four more postponements, the FAA on June 13 concluded its review, issuing a finding of "no significant impact" from orbital launches. But the agency said it would require SpaceX to take more than 75 actions to mitigate environmental impacts before issuing the operator a license needed to launch from Starbase.
Musk, known for setting unrealistic timelines, said the company could handle the mitigation actions and be ready to launch as early as this month.
Balderas and others believe Musk will follow through with some orbital launches from Starbase. But they increasingly accept his message that SpaceX might use Florida, not South Texas, for most launches to deep space.
"The future role for Starbase. I think it's well-suited to be kind of like our advanced R&D location," Musk said in February in response to a reporter's question about his "long-term" vision for the site. "So, it's like where we would try out new designs and new versions of the rocket."
"I think probably Cape Kennedy will be our sort of main operational launch site," he said.
Balderas, who has spent the past few years buying and leasing properties near Starbase to get close-up camera shots of SpaceX operations for more than 200,000 subscribers to his streaming site, is "disappointed" by the idea of SpaceX moving launch operations out of Texas.
"I'd love to see launches happen here. I don't want to travel all the way to Florida just to see them," the 49-year-old South Padre Island resident said. "Not having the launches here, I won't get the views on my YouTube channel. But that's all right. I'm not going to cry about it."
'Too much invested'
California-based SpaceX has provided a big economic boost for the area, and elected and economic development officials hope it will keep growing.
With more than 1,600 employees at Starbase, it's already the largest employer in Brownsville, Mayor Troy Mendez said in his state of the city address in April. About 71 percent of those workers live in the Rio Grande Valley.
The company invested $430 million in operations last year in Cameron County, including payroll, construction and capital improvements. This year, the company was expected to add $885 million in gross economic output for the county, as well as continued job growth, Mendez said.
The economic effects were on residents' minds as the FAA delays mounted.
"Some were holding their breath asking what happens if they don't get that approval, and others were very optimistic, saying they're going to get it," said Cori Pena, president and CEO of the Brownsville Community Impact Corp., the area's economic development authority. "Then, we had the ones who hoped they didn't get it, because we have the environmentalists thinking the impact is going to be bad by gentrifying the community or impacting our wildlife."
Regardless of the outcome, Pena believes SpaceX will continue operations in some fashion at Starbase.
"They have too much invested there to shut it down and pull out," she said.
As an R&D center, though, it won't have the same impact. Beyond jobs and investment, SpaceX has contributed to a boost in regional tourism. Fans regularly fly into the area, book hotels and spend money at local businesses as they park along Texas 4 to see what's happening at Starbase.
On Friday, the site drew fans from around the United States, Mexico and Europe — as well as a group of students from Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District, about 82 miles west of Starbase.
Pena said local and outside vendors have been capitalizing on SpaceX's drawing power. Brownsville businesses are selling coffee and food to SpaceX employees and others near Starbase, she said, and a host of aerospace firms and other companies are looking to move into the area to be closer to Musk and SpaceX.
'We have to grow'
Hoping to build on the momentum and attract more startups, Pena's organization this month is opening its 36,000-square-foot eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization.
"As a community, we have to grow," Pena said. "If the community wants certain assets and quality of life and better job opportunities and pay, we need SpaceX and companies like that to come and invest in our community. It will change the landscape."
But she's weighing what it would mean if Musk turned Starbase solely into a research and development facility.
"There is going to be a lot of disappointed people," she said. "It would be great if he keeps to his idea of the Starbase theme of the mission to Mars. Only time will tell."
For now, she sees having SpaceX's R&D as a great outcome in that the company would continue to offer high-paying jobs to locals.
Early last week, at least 39 of SpaceX's 64 current job openings featured on the company's website were based in Brownsville. The positions are for Starship data and control systems engineers, mechanical engineers, temporary pipe welders and vehicle integration engineers responsible for "developing requirements and facilities capable of building orbital Starship and Super Heavy, faster than anyone thought possible."
Balderas agreed that SpaceX would continue to hire workers at Starbase. But he warned that fans of the company in Texas and across the U.S. might not be so inclined to travel to the Brownsville area and spend money without being able to see the reusable Starship rocket, the largest in commercial space history, lifting off.
"If there's not going to be big-time launches, there's not going to be lots of people for tourism," he said.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
South Texas challenges
To some residents, Musk is a visionary they hope will use his base in South Texas to create more jobs and make historic ventures into deep space. Others complain his operations have ruined the land, driven residents from homes, pushed up housing prices and disrupted family trips to the beach.
Musk has said he chose to set up Starbase because it's close to the equator and allows for an eastbound launch — important factors in trying to get "help from Earth's rotation" when going into orbit. Rockets need "a good clear area, several miles around the launch site to be unpopulated, or at least clearable," he said at the February event.
SpaceX began test launching Starship prototypes 6 miles into the Boca Chica skies in 2019. By December 2020, after a high-altitude flight and crash landing of a prototype called SN8, Musk tweeted: "Thank you, South Texas for your support! This is the gateway to Mars."
After a series of failures, including an explosion that sent chunks of steel across area marshlands, the company had its first successful launch and landing in May 2021.
The FAA's long-awaited approval of the environmental assessment comes with conditions. Among them: provide advance notice of launches to reduce closures of Texas 4 during operations; stop closing Boca Chica Beach, Texas state parks and the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge on holidays; install a biologist to monitor vegetation and wildlife; notify communities in advance about potential engine noise and sonic boom launches; work with state and federal agencies to remove launch debris from habitats; and adjust lights at the launch complex to minimize impact on the beach and wildlife.
Jim Chapman, a board member of environmental group SaveRGV, said it's not enough. He was hoping the FAA would deny Starbase operations entirely.
"The impacts of what SpaceX wants to do are enormous," said Chapman, 74. "The FAA's environmental assessment is quite inadequate and almost devoid of any true mitigation. They don't make up for the damage that's going to be done."
Last October, SaveRGV filed a lawsuit against the Texas General Land Office, Commissioner George P. Bush and Cameron County for allowing SpaceX to close Boca Chica Beach for rocket testing. In May, the California-based Sierra Club and a Floresville-based nonprofit representing the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas joined the lawsuit filed in state District Court in Cameron County.
The groups allege that officials' repeated closures of Boca Chica Beach for rocket tests and launches violate their constitutionally guaranteed right to access public beaches. They aim to prevent future closures of the beach and Texas 4, the only road that leads to the 8-mile stretch of beach.
"To people like Elon Musk, there's nothing out here," Chapman said. "But biologically, it's tremendous. What's left, we really need to hold onto."
Chapman considered whether Musk would turn Starbase into a research and development facility and shift flight operations to Florida.
He also acknowledged that Musk has mentioned the possibility of SpaceX using movable "floating space ports" — converting two offshore oil rigs into launch platforms about 30 miles off the Gulf Coast in South Texas.
"Musk has invested a lot in Starbase, that's for sure," he said. "But he has said that Boca Chica may just be a testing facility and the actual launches will be in Florida. And then there's the oil rigs. Was he just thinking aloud?"
He paused.
"The biggest impacts are launches," he said. "There might still be testing here, and that's going to have impacts, but I don't know how much. Is a quarter loaf better than a full loaf?"
___
(c)2022 the San Antonio Express-News
Visit the San Antonio Express-News at www.mysanantonio.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
