[ad_1]
- The facility is located about 17 miles east of Brownsville, one of the poorest cities in the United States, and surrounds a small community called Boca Chica Village.
- SpaceX originally planned to launch a dozen commercial expenses a year from the site. He now uses the private spaceport to develop Starship: a rocket designed to send people to Mars.
- Business Insider recently visited the area and spoke with locals. Here is what we saw and heard.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
In June 2012, SpaceX quietly began buying properties in Boca Chica, Texas: an isolated, steep and sleepy seaside community located at the southern tip of the state.
Two years later, the company Elon Musk has obtained the agreement of the federal, provincial and local governments to build what, according to him, would be the first commercial space port in the world. By the end of 2018, however, SpaceX has converted the facilities into storage facilities for the development of a completely reusable giant spacecraft called Starship.
A completed ship (formerly Big Falcon Rocket) would have a giant spaceship sitting on a powerful reusable propeller. If all goes as planned, the launch system could reach nearly 400 feet tall, reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of 10 and allow humanity to march on Mars in the mid-2020s and build a sustainable city in the 2050s.
The SpaceX launch site is unique for other reasons, including the fact that a small village of people live there. Some residents may see this futuristic vision of spaceflight being built and tested from the windows of their homes.
To better understand the site and its future, Business Insider traveled to Boca Chica, met with residents, spoke with local experts and took a look. We even witnessed the very first "jump" of a steel stubby craft prototype called Starhopper.
This is what the SpaceX launch site in South Texas looks like, what we saw there and some of the things we heard.
Boca Chica is one of the southernmost points in the United States, which is useful for launching rockets. Closer to the Earth's equator, the rotation of the planet can add a valuable speed, which saves fuel.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Google Earth; Landsat / Copernicus
Getting to the SpaceX site requires some effort, about 20 km from the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport, which can only handle about 0.1% of the volume at an airport like LAX can handle.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Highway 4 takes you to the site. The drive crosses mainly wild and uninhabited landscapes. In some places, the Rio Grande is not more than 300 meters from the road.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The US-Mexican border wall is just south of the highway. A few kilometers into the reader, it ends abruptly.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
A border patrol checkpoint is waiting for anyone on the road. Airplanes, balloons and drones also fly over the area, looking for undocumented migrants who have been there.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
SpaceX's facilities are located 17 miles east of Brownsville, which has a population of approximately 420,000 (combined with the nearby city of Harlingen). It is often ranked among the poorest cities in the United States and yet among the fastest growing urban areas in the country.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Sources: Census Reporter, 24/7 Wall St., The Brownsville Herald
But closer to the SpaceX site is a very open wilderness: the Boca Chica National Park and the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The wetlands host swarms of birds during migrations, and mounds of clay called lomas harbor a diversity of native and often endangered species. Even ocelots are sometimes seen walking around the area.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Getty Images
Stargate is one of the first and most obvious signs of a spaceship: it's a two-storey, multi-million dollar complex built by the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. SpaceX uses it as a control center during test launches.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company is known for establishing a "Rocket Rd" sign in each of its facilities in the United States.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
A handful of people live in Boca Chica all year, but most residents work part time. Many come from northern Texas, while others come from distant states. Sam Clauson, presented below, lives primarily in South Dakota.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Bright sunsets, abundant birds, warm weather, relative isolation and natural calm have been a great attraction for many residents.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Life in Boca Chica is not always easy. In 1967, Hurricane Beulah, a Category 5 storm, rocked and flooded the area, which was home to a newly created Polish community called Kennedy Shores.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The storm destroyed buildings, fouled utilities and washed away many dishes. Mayor Stanley Piotrowicz later renamed the Kopernik Shores community, named after Nikolai Kopernik (or Nicolaus Copernicus), a Polish astronomer known for placing the sun, not the Earth, at the center of the universe.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Source: FAA
After the death of Piotrowicz, the hamlet was informally renamed Village of Boca Chica.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Source: Texas Monthly Source: Texas State Historical Association
In addition to braving the bad weather, the inhabitants of the Boca Chica region have to fetch their water by truck, because no distribution network flows into the region.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Drinking water is stored in large cisterns, like these two houses located between Weems Road.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Summers are also stuffy. Residents say it's hard to do anything outside except in the morning and at night.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Muddy ruts on unpaved roads can easily trap unsuspecting vehicles driving into the village of Boca Chica.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Despite these challenges, SpaceX viewed the region as a promising location for a private spaceport. The company used a subsidiary called Dogleg Park LLC (a "dogleg" is a rocket maneuver with a change of direction) to buy properties like this one.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company has sent letters to some owners asking them to buy them back. Many have retained their properties; some residents said the offers were mediocre, others had no interest in leaving.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
In 2014, SpaceX had enough land and government stakeholder approval to formally announce its intention to turn Boca Chica into a spaceport.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company has embarked on two large spacecraft tracking antennas that she had purchased from NASA.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
She also built a 632 kilowatt solar farm to power the operations of her site.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Sources: Electrek, Energysage
But SpaceX had problems trying to build a launch pad near the beach of Boca Chica, a hilly recreation area. The beach is popular with four-wheelers, fishermen, tourists and SpaceX fans.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The soil of the area is porous, allowing water to infiltrate and destabilize heavy and tall structures like those that SpaceX intended to build.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company was hoping to find a bedrock capable of supporting a launch pad, lighting towers and lighting towers, as well as other heavy structures. But he said that he found none.
BusinessInsider USA Images
SpaceX via the FAA
SpaceX's vision for its Texas site was to pitch a Falcon-clbad rocket to Boca Chica a month: about 10 missions on its Falcon 9 and two on its Falcon Heavy vehicles.
BusinessInsider USA Images
SpaceX / Flickr (public domain)
In the hope of making this possible, the company dumped 310,000 cubic meters of soil on the ground, a load of 22,000 trucks, to compact or "overload" it in order to prevent launch site to sag and bend over.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Despite the buildup of land, SpaceX suffered two rocket explosions in Florida: one in 2015 during a cargo launch and another in 2016 during a ground test. The incidents consumed resources and moved further south of Texas.
BusinessInsider USA Images
USLaunchReport / YouTube
In early 2018, after years of waiting in Boca Chica to wait for the arrival of additional land, Mr Musk said the company would no longer use the spaceport to launch Falcon 9 rockets. and Falcon Heavy.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Instead, the company would dedicate its South Texas site to developing a new spacecraft capable of sending people to Mars: Starship (at the time called Big Falcon Rocket).
BusinessInsider USA Images
Kimi Talvitie
Workers began to invade the region Some were trucked into huge tanks to store liquid methane. That's the fuel that the Starship Raptor engines use. (SpaceX hopes to one day make methane from existing resources on Mars.)
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company also carried huge tanks of liquid oxygen (to burn methane) and nitrogen to keep liquids cool before they were launched.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Shortly after, the welders badembled polished stainless steel cylinders of a width of 30 feet.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
In early January, SpaceX had built a rocket ship called Starhopper, a prototype of the full Mars spacecraft in Boca Chica. It was not designed to fly in space, but to complete jumps not exceeding about 3 miles high.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Elon Musk / SpaceX via Twitter
The company has also erected this tent-shaped onion in its yard, where Starhopper was built.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Gale force winds blew over Starhopper's nose in late January, but Musk suggested that it was not serious. The workers then crawled the 60-foot-high vehicle on Highway 4.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Maria Pointer (bocachicaMaria)
Source: Business Insider
Then they transported it to the top of the giant mound where SpaceX had built a rudimentary launch pad.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Engineers badociated a new Raptor rocket engine with the Starhopper and submitted it to a series of tests.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The company "jumped" on the Starhopper for the first time on April 3, sending it a few steps from the launch pad. It was relaunched on April 6 and even rose.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Elon Musk / SpaceX via Twitter
Sources: Business Insider, Twitter ( 1 , 2 )
At the first "jump", Business Insider was on the property of Maria and Ray Pointer, who are on the east side of the SpaceX shipyard and west of the village of Boca Chica.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Their house is about 2 km from the dashboard. The roar of the Raptor motor engine was so loud that it rattled the walls and knocked off some of the window treatment.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The sight of their front and back yards showed Starhopper. They can now see the next prototype SpaceX spacecraft: a vehicle that can launch into orbit around the Earth.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
The prototypes built by SpaceX are also visible through the windows of the couple's bedroom.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Maria said the sunrise was sometimes reflected on the surface of polished-mirror rocket bodies in the morning. She often admires the scene when extracting oranges, she added.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
But the close point of view of their colleagues and neighbors on the future of spaceflight is not always pleasant. Sometimes, they say, construction noises and spotlights create a nuisance all night long.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
They also had problems with intruders, some looking for jobs in building with SpaceX, others simply wanting an unobstructed view.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
During the launch and engine tests, incumbent police officers engaged by SpaceX closed the road to the launch pad and Boca Chica Beach, courtesy of the Cameron County Judge. In addition, SpaceX frequently closes the road so workers can move equipment.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Residents can move freely when closing these roads, but their visitors and guests can not. This has sometimes led to heated clashes between villagers and the police.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
However, SpaceX seems determined to write history on its unique (and often difficult) basis in South Texas. More and more "jumps" are planned for this month and the company could soon finalize its orbital prototype.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Dave Mosher / Business Insider
Musk also said that he could provide an update of the Starship program as early as June 20th.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Kimi Talvitie; The NASA; Mark Brake / Getty Images; Samantha Lee / Business Insider
Source: Twitter
Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, recently said that a large-scale spacecraft is expected to be launched in 2020, followed by a Mars cargo mission in 2024. Missions with Crew will come a little later, making Boca Chica perhaps the last place where an astronaut will stand up to the red planet.
BusinessInsider USA Images
Copyright Jaime Almaguer
Source: Twitter
See also:
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk has just revealed 5 major updates on the SpaceX spacecraft project, Mars. Here is what we learned.
NOT TO BE MISSED: "All Ecological Systems": SpaceX launched its prototype Mars spacecraft for the first time, thrilling homes for miles around
[ad_2]
Source link
