Update on SpaceX launchpad upgrades at Boca Chica
Link here.
Lots of work on going, all aimed at not only getting ready for the next test flight of Starship/Superheavy, but to make the facility capable of regular and frequent launches, including construction of a facility that will be able to produce the oxygen and nitrogen needed for the rocket, rather than having to depend on numerous truck shipments.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here.
Lots of work on going, all aimed at not only getting ready for the next test flight of Starship/Superheavy, but to make the facility capable of regular and frequent launches, including construction of a facility that will be able to produce the oxygen and nitrogen needed for the rocket, rather than having to depend on numerous truck shipments.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I can tell you from first-hand observation that the amount of construction ongoing along Boca Chica Highway (Route 4) is exceptionally impressive. Not just for the launch facility, but also the softer variety of residential and light commercial. It’s been a very lonely stretch of road before, now it’s really booming.
I’d also note that the boom in the area is not limited to SpaceX. Just across the ship channel a YUGE LNG port is going up, with 5,000+ people working there, which kind of puts the SpaceX construction operations in 2nd place for scale.
What the area really needs is an improved highway system. Money has been spent (SpaceX or Cameron County, I can’t say) on the stretch of road from the Massey test site to the beach to make it operable for ship/booster transport, but the segment from Brownsville to the test site is sorely lacking.
Not withstanding that, I’d agree that it’s taking on a similar, if smaller, feel comparable to KSC. With more of a “cowboy” flair.
With SpaceX now pretty much committed to major industrialization projects on both the Moon and Mars, even the current Starship-related projects underway will need expansion. On-site natural gas liquefaction and refining capability is also needed, both at Starbase and in FL.
It sounds as though the Linde air liquefaction facility under construction in Brownsville may have more to do with the Mexican LNG terminal just across the border than with Starbase, but it could also serve both.
The problem would be transport of bulk cryogens from Brownsville to Starbase. Going back to trucks on Hwy. 4 seems retrogressive. I’m dubious about the practicality of building cryo pipelines of 30 miles length too. Maybe the optimal solution would be to bring in The Boring Company to build a private 30 mile tunnel pair between the Linde plant and Starbase with unmanned Tesla Semis pulling full cryogen trailers from Brownsville to Starbase through one tunnel and returning the empties via the other.
Given the level of Starship launch activity that will be required to launch the refill prop needed to support dozens, then hundreds, of lunar crew and cargo missions per year – plus Mars armada departures at 26-month intervals – SpaceX is going to need not only the five Starship pads it is currently cleared to construct, but more besides. It occurs to me that SpaceX might petition for clearance to construct an additional Starship launch facility on the side of LC-39A opposite where its current one is going up and to build two additional such pads flanking the current SLS-Orion pad at LC-39B. That would double the currently authorized Starship pad count in FL from three to six.
The currently active launch facilities at both LC-39A & B have limited futures anyway. SLS-Orion may have only one or two launches left before cancellation and the Falcon facilities will likely be idled by sometime in the early 2030s. SLC-40 could then be converted to one, or another pair, of Starship pads as could SLC-41 once ULA finally fades away – also in the early 2030s by my estimate. I don’t think Vulcan is going to be competitive with New Glenn, long-term, for either War Dept. missions or for maintenance deployments for Amazon Leo. Absent those, it has no market at all.