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SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#21

Post by bewaretheirs »

ericmay wrote: post #7

Quick question - since it's South Texas and I can see the Gulf of Mexico in the screenshot... isn't that a little close to the water? Not just maybe global warming + sea level rises but storm surge from hurricanes. Or is that not a concern? Anyone with more knowledge on the topic could share?

By design, launch pads (and landing pads) will be more compatible with varying sea level than most other structures.

Pads are generally flooded with water on every launch, starting shortly before the engines ignite. The water deluge system absorbs some of the energy of the rocket exhaust -- this reduces damage to both the pad and the rocket (from reflected sound).

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#22

Post by zlynx »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #20
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #17

It would be cool if they built a full-scale prototype of their proposed methane/oxygen propellant plant near the launch site. It would be harder to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere on Earth than on Mars, but on the other hand solar power is much more abundant here.

Do you really want a fuel plant next to a launch site?

Why not? The fuel is next to the launch site, before they put it into the rocket.

It can be protected from exploding rockets by berms, concrete, etc. It isn't as if an exploding rocket is a shaped charge; the force of an explosion would go up and out and be easily deflected.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#23

Post by Gravityloss »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #4
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #2

u/RGVaerial on r/SpaceXLounge has overlayed these plans onto an aerial photo [1]. It looks a lot smaller than one might expect. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/lzf9z7/propos...

If you add the massive Starship+SuperHeavy in for scale, it looks even smaller. https://twitter.com/Caspar_Stanley/status/136834862870895001...

Hmm can they stack and fuel and launch multiple in parallel if the pads are so close?

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #17

It would be cool if they built a full-scale prototype of their proposed methane/oxygen propellant plant near the launch site. It would be harder to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere on Earth than on Mars, but on the other hand solar power is much more abundant here.

If they do that, it'll probably be a couple of miles away at the old natural gas well site they own. That's where they're putting an oxygen purification stack.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#26

Post by texasbigdata »

lgats wrote: post #3

SpaceX just trademarked Starbase https://uspto.report/TM/90556104 STARBASE™ trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of launch services, namely, launching the payloads of others into space.

As mentioned at the bottom of the article it’s super cool he’s trying to rename the entire area into a city.

Additional source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-02/musk-floa...

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#27

Post by ARandomerDude »

They'll have to pay their engineers pretty well to live down there. Nearby South Padre Island is a decent vacation spot, but not many people want to live on the land that close to the border with Mexico.

I know a lot of folks who haven't been to Brownsville will reflexively think that's a racist comment or something, but it isn't. The area is extremely poor with police/border checkpoints everywhere, the land is ugly, the humidity is horrible, and the mosquitoes are worse.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#28

Post by 908B64B197 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #27

They'll have to pay their engineers pretty well to live down there. Nearby South Padre Island is a decent vacation spot, but not many people want to live on the land that close to the border with Mexico. I know a lot of folks who haven't been to Brownsville will reflexively think that's a racist comment or something, but it isn't. The area is extremely poor with police/border checkpoints everywhere, the land is ugly,…

Fly them from somewhere else?

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#29

Post by bryanlarsen »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #27

They'll have to pay their engineers pretty well to live down there. Nearby South Padre Island is a decent vacation spot, but not many people want to live on the land that close to the border with Mexico. I know a lot of folks who haven't been to Brownsville will reflexively think that's a racist comment or something, but it isn't. The area is extremely poor with police/border checkpoints everywhere, the land is ugly,…

South Padre may be 4 miles away as the crow flies, but it's a one hour drive due to the lack of bridges over the Brownsville harbour.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#30

Post by ncallaway »

mabbo wrote: post #5

And why not? At the rate SpaceX is moving at, they may have the world's largest orbital launch system by the end of the year. That's not even "Elon-time" anymore, it's totally within reason that they could have their first orbital Starship launch this year. When Starship becomes commercially viable, things are going to change fast for the space industry. And that little Starbase in Boca Chica is going to be a busy pl…

To be fair, "Elon time" for the first orbital Starship launch was 2020. Shotwell was saying that she would bet yes on an orbital Starship in 2021.

I think "Shotwell" time is generally much closer to 1:1 time than Elon time.

But I agree, Starship has a fairly plausible path to being orbital by the end of the year.

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