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Starbase, LA

spacex.com

71–80 of 641 posts

Re: Starbase, LA

#72
post #34

It’s easy to be pessimistic about Musk timelines/ big tech but I am thrilled that ambitious, real world, hard projects are happening in the US again.

I love that people see a website about one of musk’s ideas and go “wow this is real and happening” in the year of our lord 2026

Of all of Musk's ventures, SpaceX seems to actually do things and not just say they do things.

Re: Starbase, LA

#73
Space exploration is a pipe dream and fantasy that billionaires hope to have up and running just in time to "escape" the world they have helped destroy.

Prove me wrong bro

Re: Starbase, LA

#74
Elon-types won't "dig us out" of our mess.

Removing parasitic elements in government spending and policy will. This starts with politics. We first need a healthy, educated, engaged, and safe population. All else follows. These are all things Elon actively works against. You aren't part of his future.

Re: Starbase, LA

#75
post #66
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are "3,000 new jobs" enough to make a dent though?

it doesn't fix everything wrong in the state but it's > 0. There's a lot of additional economic activity that comes with the construction too. Restaurants get busier, Walmart gets busier, lots of auto repair/servicing will be needed etc. Som e people will move for construction and end up staying there. It can be a shock to the local communities though but i think the positives still outweigh the negatives.

The biggest issue is these kinds of construction jobs are temporary. It's similar to but not quite as bad as datacenters where you get a very short term influx of skilled highly paid labor but those jobs don't stick around after the construction is over. Starbase will require more people on site at least.

Re: Starbase, LA

#76
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He often promises incredibly ambitious things that don't happen. But, with a fairly reasonable frequency, he promises incredibly ambitious that do happen. For example, SpaceX is responsible for a massive spike in orbital launches [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-...

SpaceX and Tesla are both successful companies doing really impressive things, but the more ambitious claims are almost always silently discarded. Including robotaxis, tesla semi-trucks, hyperloop, optimus, roadster 2.0, cheap whole home batteries, true FSD, Mars landing, nueralink, and more I'm sure. It is difficult for me to get excited about a decades long, ambitious project when the follow through rate is <10%.

He is definitely overly optimistic on timelines but pretty much all those things you mentioned are actually still happening, it's too early to say they haven't followed through.

Re: Starbase, LA

#77

> Pecan Island and nearby wetlands are high-value habitat for migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and other coastal wildlife. SpaceX is not developing the full footprint of the land and will preserve wetlands and wildlife habitat. Pretty cynical corpo-ambiguity-speak, even by Musk standards. We're supposed to be happy they're promising not to develop one-hundred percent of the land footprint? They will lea…

Building multi-decade service life infrastructure on the coast in this era of the Anthropocene actually requires you (from an engineering point of view, not merely a regulatory one) to have a buffer zone of wetlands, marshes and sea walls to absorb storm surges.

You can still choose to read that cynically, but I think the cynical angle is taking moral ecological credit for a pragmatic engineering reality :P

Re: Starbase, LA

#78
post #2

Man if this actually starts to happen it's a good time to be a welder, concrete worker, or any general contractor or tradesman in Louisiana. Coastal Louisiana is some of the poorest areas in the US even more so than the valley in Texas where Starbase Texas is located. Probably 10-20 years worth of solid work building out that site.

If the figures in this announcement hold up, they're gonna spend like $20k per resident of LA. That's insane.

Lol. I can't imaging the figures from a Musk venture not holding up.

Re: Starbase, LA

#79

Elon-types won't "dig us out" of our mess. Removing parasitic elements in government spending and policy will. This starts with politics. We first need a healthy, educated, engaged, and safe population. All else follows. These are all things Elon actively works against. You aren't part of his future.

We just need more leeches.

Re: Starbase, LA

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space data centers still make absolutely no sense.

When nobody lets you build a land data center they're going to make a lot of sense.

That's an if, not a when. A very big, hugely improbable if. Nobody? really?
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