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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

#61

Post by hrvTGKFyDyko3aK »

monocasa wrote: post #52
ARandomerDude wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you only get stopped if you have brown skin Maybe, though I think it's fair to point out a large number of CPB agents on the border also have brown skin, if for no other reason than they need a huge percentage of native Spanish speakers.

You can be racist and of the same race. You just see yourself as "one of the few good ones" and internally hate yourself a bit.

It doesn't take it any prejudice to know there aren't likely to be many Asian people trying to illegally enter the US from Mexico.

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

#62

Post by baking »

asdff wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closeness to the water is a requirement so that if a rocket fails it doesn't land on people. And you don't want to launch to the West so that you can take advantage of the Earth's rotation rather than fighting it. (Launch sites on the West coast are for polar orbits which launch either North or South). Given those requirements, there's no location that isn't vulnerable to hurricanes. Boca Chica actually doesn't get m…

Can you launch over the great lakes? Or a desert? Also, what about the east coast? Sure, there was Sandy, but it was nothing compared to what happens in the gulf with regularity. Part of my hunch is that the regulatory environment is favorable in nowhere, TX to bring in potentially polluting industry. No chance Elon could have had a launch site built on the tip of Montauk, for example, although he probably would have…

I think they would have to fly out between Florida and Cuba on orbital flights so a little more restricted than Cape Canaveral.

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

#63

Post by baking »

bdamm wrote: post #9
altcognito wrote: post #6

There's no indication that they are building any sort of structure to "catch" the first stage booster at the landing site. edit: It was pointed out that the integration tower to the very bottom is a likely candidate. This seems right as the proposed launch layout is slightly larger given the larger size of the booster.

There is the "Integration Tower" structure at the south side next to the new orbital launch pad. If the plan is to catch and re-fly then that would make sense.

I think the first structure designed to catch boosters will be away from the launch mounts. The primary advantage of catching is eliminating the mass of the legs. Quick relaunch capability is just a bonus and primarily useful at offshore launch sites.

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

#64

Post by chasd00 »

darknavi wrote: post #19
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?

Not sure it is any worse than KSC in terms of proximity to danger water. Being on the cost is also nice because eventually they'll ship/fly the ships to the converted oil rig launch facilities.

fun fact, KSC is also a huge nature preserve. ...and there are alligators EVERYWHERE. Last time i was there (many years ago) they were basically as common as squirrels. Actually, i wouldn't surprised if they allowed hunters these days.

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

#65

Post by bryanlarsen »

asdff wrote: post #37

I wonder if Elon settled on Texas due to the local regulatory environment not really caring about the local ecology. The current site is built on a sensitive wetland literally in a state park. No clue how Elon managed that one, but it probably wouldn't have been kosher in a blue state. Local TX officials probably saw how the political capital of bringing 'space jobs' to the middle of nowhere outweighed local flora an…

Canaveral is evidence that sensitive wetland in a state park is a great place to build a rocket launch facility. Rocket launch pads have huge keep out zones, and those zones are monitored a lot more closely and effectively than any other state park. Poaching sea turtles from Boca Chica would not be a safe activity.

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

#66

Post by baking »

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.

I think that plant is just for oxygen and nitrogen (plus the bonus argon for the welders.) Somebody did a calculation that showed that the number of truckloads of methane needed to power the plant was substantially less then the number of truckloads of oxygen that would otherwise be needed.

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

#67

Post by chasd00 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #28
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?

It's probably all construction crews and heavy machinery operators at Boca Chica. Any engineers, or other high maintenance types, likely fly in for test launches and then fly right back out.

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

#68

Post by bryanlarsen »

baking wrote: post #66
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.

I think that plant is just for oxygen and nitrogen (plus the bonus argon for the welders.) Somebody did a calculation that showed that the number of truckloads of methane needed to power the plant was substantially less then the number of truckloads of oxygen that would otherwise be needed.

They might also pull out some krypton for Starlink and Xenon for ion thrusters on other satellites.

AFAICT, thescriptkiddie is talking about an electrolysis plant to create hydrogen, and then a Sabatier plant to create methane from that hydrogen and atmospheric CO2 from the air liquidation stack.

This would not make sense economically, but they have two good reasons for doing this.

1: using a carbon-neutral fuel would be on-message for Elon Musk and would mitigate a major criticism of frequent spaceflight.

2: They're going to have to do something similar on Mars to create fuel for the return flight home. So doing it at scale on Earth first may help them debug the process before trying to do it on Mars.

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

#69

Post by monocasa »

chasd00 wrote: post #58
monocasa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a thing. They're primarily in the 100 miles of the southern border, and generally you only get stopped if you have brown skin if you're worried about being a Canadian in the US. Check out the term "constitution free zone" if you want to learn more.

I spend a lot of time near the TX/Mexico border. Everyone gets stopped, you get asked a couple questions and that's it. I haven't been required to show ID or anything like that. They do a walk around your car with a dog and then wave you through.

By stopped, I meant a situation where they don't just wave you through the checkpoint.

The dog they use around the car is to let them harass certain people based on what the dog handler thinks of them. https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/201...

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

#70

Post by bpodgursky »

ncallaway wrote: post #54
bpodgursky wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be pedantic, it actually seems pretty likely the first stage could have reached LEO. There were no issues at all on ascent, and it has the fuel capacity. At one point Elon was talking about possibly testing this. But they decided not to do this, because their first priority was to get it to land, and they don't envision LEO launches using only the first stage. That will be in conjunction with the much larger secon…

> At one point Elon was talking about possibly testing this. I hadn't heard about that. I know he's said that the Starship is theoretically _capable_ of SSTO w/ no payload, but I don't recall any suggestion from him that he'd test it. Elon says a lot of things though, and I probably just missed it somewhere. Any chance you know where/when he said it?

Nah, you're right. That's the quote I see, and probably all he said: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1076613555091234816. Sounds like it's capable, and the plan on Moon and Mars, but not on Earth.

Must have been others speculating on the Starship test plans.

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