Ad Astra et Cymba! (To the Stars and fishing boats)
I’ve made two visits to Boca Chica aka Starbase, the location of Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch center. Boca Chica is at the extreme south of Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande, the Mexican border.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Last year’s visit to NASA Cape Canaveral was a major disappointment — nothing was actually happening, it was mostly a kid-centric museum of historic missions, but much less activity or sizzle than Houston. Essentially nothing about what NASA is doing now or in the near future. At the time, I told folks it seemed more like a Civil War museum than the center of America’s space programs. The multi-mile slow tram ride to the launch pads kept about a quarter mile away from anything interesting, no one was allowed off the tram, and there wasn’t much to see. Yawn.
Driving to Boca Chica is across miles of desolate, barren sandy marsh. This is the zone south and east of Brownsville, south of Brownsville Port, near the Rio Grande. Hasn’t changed much in a century and half, or longer.
I passed a Historical Marker for the Battle of Palmito Ranch. My Civil War history has gaps, so I thought the war ended at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865 with Traitor Robert Lee surrendering. Nope.
The last land battle was May 12-13, thirty four days later. Both commanders knew the surrender had been signed. The naive Union commander, Col. Barrett, commanding the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment, attacked the Confederate forces on May 12. This was Barrett’s first (and last) command and battle. Both sides called for and got reinforcements, and the battle resumed May 13. Barrett was flanked, lost eleven soldiers and four officers, and withdrew, defeated. No fatalities on the Confederate side.
All for a desolate piece of land that nobody lived on, then or now, after the surrender agreement. Historians do not agree why Barrett started the battle.
Traitor Jefferson Davis later wrote ”Though very small in comparison to its great battles, [Palmito Ranch] deserves notice as having closed the long struggle - as it opened - with a Confederate victory”
Fort Sumter to Palmito Ranch, bookends to the war that still is not over. Slavery did not even end in Texas until Juneteenth, the 19th June of 1865. Since the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not free any enslaved people in Union states, there were still some enslaved people in Kentucky and Delaware until the 13th Amendment was ratified December 6, 1865 -- eight months after the Confederate surrender. Yet slavery still did not end entirely in the US until the April 28th, 1866 Treaty with the Choctaw Indians, who had enslaved Africans and sided with the Confederates. A full year after "the end of the war" there were apparently still some enslaved people. The Choctaw, with a population of about 13,000, had enslaved about 3,000 people.
History in the Making
The goal of SpaceX is to settle Mars. Musk gets full credit for a bold, audacious, visionary Mission Statement. Boca Chica is the development site for the Starships, the rockets that will transport settlers to Mars. The Starships are still in development. The first orbital test is expected this March. (SpaceX is the world's largest launch company with its Falcon 9 rockets, which, while very big, are much smaller and very different than the Starships)
Continuing onwards, I see in the distance large shiny tubes. Better take a picture, don’t know how close I can get, security can often be paranoid.
The tubes I see must be the Superheavies, the first stage of the Starship. About 230 feet high, their unpainted bright stainless steel surfaces reflecting even on this overcast day. The large black rectangles must be the construction bays. Stacked with the upper stage, they are 400 feet high, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, even greater than the Saturn V (363 feet) which launched Apollo to the moon. They will also be larger and more powerful than the NASA-supervised "Space Launch System" aka SLS, system, which may transport the Artemis womanned (sp?) program to the moon sometime, eventually.
Musk has discussed he expects about 1,000 Starships will be needed to effectively settle Mars. His work on the prototypes is not just about getting it to fly, but how to manufacture huge rockets at scale effectively.
I drive farther. No real security except that some parking has semaphore gates. I park in the uncontrolled parking, basically an extra wide gravel shoulder with room for hundreds of cars.
The very first prototypes were built in open air. The later prototypes have been built in tents. SpaceX is now building large bays to build them vertically. This is an extremely busy work site. There are hundreds, maybe a thousand cars. Every piece of equipment (cranes, forklifts, trucks) appeared to be actively working. No apparent “sidewalk supervisors” or people waiting to do their little piece — just the opposite of a government highway project. No apparent chaos, shouting, or traffic jams either.
The 40 foot wide open gate had a single guard, who checked IDs of vehicles entering. No weaponry visible, no pseudo-military with personality defects, no “security” lounging in cop cars with flashing lights and idling engines all day.
We walked around the "town" of Boca Chica, adjacent to the Starbase. SpaceX has bought up essentially all the houses for employees. Also bought about 50 Airstreams.
This may be Musk's Tinyhouse (on the right). It was the only fenced house in the Boca Chica village.
No surprise, but many of the other houses had Teslas, charging stations, and Tesla solar roofs.
Not every house was owned by SpaceX.
About two miles down the road, at the beach, is the launch site. Literally on the beach, I parked on the sand.
The launch pad with service structure. The actual launch pad is behind, slightly to the right of the tall structure. The Heavy and the Starship will be stacked by the crane and put on the pad.
The upper and lower stage pictured will most likely be the first Starship to orbit. This is history in the making — the first rocket nominally capable of flying people to Mars — and it is right in front of me! The orbital test flight, expected in March, will be autonomous, of course. Later flights are expected to carry 100 people.
Before launch, the white vertical tanks will contain the liquid oxygen, and nitrogen for ullage. The horizontal white tanks will have the liquefied methane. The liquid methane fuel and oxidizer is pumped into the rocket just before launch.
Starhopper prototype - first to use a full flow methane engine
The Starhopper, now retired, was a single engine rocket with the new "Raptor" methane engine for testing controlled landings. It was the first prototype in the Starship development process.
Parking across the street was unregulated. I met one guy in a camper who said he had been there for a week.
As for a more traditional industry, we went by the commercial fishing harbor at the Port of Brownsville.
There were about 50+ boats, all rigged for shrimp. We bought a 5 lb bag of fresh-frozen right off the boat shrimp. Still working on it, made a shrimp scampi a night ago, will do something Cajun tonight. Yummers.
The Port is dredged to 41 feet (Panama canal is 40 feet), and there is planning to deepen it to over 50 feet. The depth is needed for LNG ships and offshore oil platforms. Fishing is a very small portion of the Port.
Happy trails,
Krem and Barbara
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