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Starbase, LA

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Re: Starbase, LA

#111

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

ericmay wrote: post #94
UltraSane wrote: post #52

Musk has done a huge amount to put us INTO this situation.

Which situation did Elon Musk put us in to? Can you elaborate? When did this situation start? What happened? What did he personally do that put us in the situation?

One such example - he's using his massive wealth and influence to support fascist political movements that promise mass deportation and "remigration", and even supporting these policies explicitly himself.

In the US, his political beneficiaries have managed to "achieve" net negative migration to the US for the first time in 50 years, and the first decline in overall population in US history.

If this becomes the new trend (and if Musk gets his political desires fulfilled, it might), the hole is getting much, much deeper while our capacity to climb out is being severely impaired.

And oh yea, he killed hundreds of thousands of kids, mostly under 5.

Re: Starbase, LA

#112

Post by watwut »

ericmay wrote: post #103
chinathrow wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding DJT while he was running for office?

I'm not sure what situation we're in (can someone describe it please?), but did that situation only start the day Trump took office again after being elected by the American people?

And Musks money and twitter takeover did a lot of work to convince Americans vote for Trump. Then Musk joined the administration and continued digging the hole

Re: Starbase, LA

#113

Post by piloto_ciego »

happyopossum wrote: post #95
piloto_ciego wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for sun-synchronous orbits, almost assuredly. This is for space data centers. Man, I was hoping they would pick Alaska (as it's even better for launching into those orbits) - we could really use new industries other than just resource extraction, but Louisiana makes a lot of sense, I just am surprised that there's actually the available land there to do this. Interesting.

> as it's even better for launching into those orbits When the weather agrees, yes. Sooooo many launches are scheduled around weather patterns and are affected by weather delays - I'd be shocked if LA didn't have 3-4x more 'launchanble weather' days on average compared to Alaska. I'm sure we'll get to the point where we can launch and land without regard to weather outside of the extremes, much as we have with air tr…

Totally this is reasonable, but, I flew in AK (and a couple thousand hours in the lower 48 too) professionally for over a decade, there are other advantages up here? Not nearly as many thunderstorms up here.

Icing might be a problem? I would expect there to be basically no reasonable icing accretion possible well before max q? But I'm not sure because that's not my field.

Regardless, if we're going to be building data centers in space to avoid NIMBYs, we can build rocket infrastructure in Alaska to avoid NIMBYs too. And other infrastructure too? Maybe. I know the SpinLaunch lunatics (I mean that in the most loving way, I love that crazy idea even though it seems insane to me) were getting some sort of permit to launch from Adak. I have been out there a few times and I wish we would try to build more infrastructure out there too... with the NW passage being more traversable due to global warming there's could be a lot more infrastructure there too.

Re: Starbase, LA

#114

Post by chews »

chasd00 wrote: 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.

Is it a good time though? - Their Texas suppliers have been chasing payment and Greg Abbott rolled over and let Elon get their property without payment. Not the only Tesla/SpaceX vendor not being paid either. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/tesla/tesla-cybertruc...

Re: Starbase, LA

#116

Post by aksss »

chasd00 wrote: 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.

Incremental domestic capital investment, good.

The level of cynicism, shit-talking, and schadenfreude wish-casting in response to this is crazy. Start cheering on successes. Resist the deconstructionist mindset.

Re: Starbase, LA

#117

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

gen220 wrote: post #102
estearum wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single Starship launch produces motorcycle (100dB) to permanent hearing loss + immediate pain (140dB) sound out to about 7 miles. Having that intermittently a couple times per day I think will be very disruptive.

To be clear, I'm not trying to argue that this project is ecologically beneficial or neutral (I think that part is beyond debate for many reasons including the noise pollution you've identified) I was just trying to say that the marshland restoration stuff is likely not lip service, insofar as they actually do need wetland buffer zone to keep their launchpads above sea level.

Turns out draining swamps is actually a bad thing.

Re: Starbase, LA

#118

Post by asadotzler »

bigtex88 wrote: post #98

Isn't this an absolutely horrible idea to build this here? What happens when the next Category 5 hurricane hits this area? It's an absolute certainty that they will get another Category 5 at some point.

Do you know where NASA's launch facilities are? The Florida coast.

Re: Starbase, LA

#119

Post by tcmart14 »

ianm218 wrote: 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.

But its also hard not to be. I'm not a fan of Musk and it doesn't even have to do with Musk himself as its a common theme I see among a lot of the big tech companies or really any company doing a big project in my neck of the woods. An hour north east of me, there has been big on going data center projects for 10+ years. Sounds good right? I got a lot of family and friends in the trades. But I can almost set my watch to it. When work ramps up, its always good pay and 15 years of guaranteed work until suddenly its not. 8 months go by, suddenly everything is paused and all those contractors are out of work for a year and a half until things start up again. Then its rinse and repeat.

Re: Starbase, LA

#120

Post by tantalor »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #45
swingandamiss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of good, hard working people in that area that would love to have these jobs open up.

somewhat topical video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dSjY4j7Ak tl;dw -- louisiana has a ton of natural resources and wonderful harbors, but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes, cleaning up their waste, or generally being held accountable. And likely related, there is a long history of rampant corruption in the area. With sea levels rising and cancero…

Reminds me of Africa in terms of resource exploitation and lack of re-investment.
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