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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

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Planned Starhopper test shuts down Boca Chica

SpaceX’s planned next hop of its Starhopper test vehicle is apparently forcing local residents from their homes, as well as threatening damage to buildings as much as two miles away.

Those residents live in tiny Boca Chica Village, Texas, which sits less than 2 miles (3 km) from a SpaceX-operated launch site near the US-Mexico border along the Gulf Coast. SpaceX’s test of the so-called “Starhopper”—a prototype of a reusable shuttle meant for human transit—may well create an “overpressure event” capable of breaking glass in buildings nearby. The police-delivered warnings advise residents to, at a minimum, exit their homes when they hear police sirens around the 4pm launch window.

Comments posted under the Brownsville Herald article include, “Doesn’t sound good to me that they have to evacuate their homes all because Space X is testing” and “I think spacex should be prepared to pay for the window replacements.”

The test is also forcing the closure of roads required by residents to access or leave their neighborhoods.

It seems that SpaceX’s decision to conduct their Starhopper tests in Boca Chica rather than at their McGregor, Texas, engine test facility might have been a mistake. Unlike Boca Chica, McGregor is a much larger facility, which means tests are farther away from local residences. While Boca Chica gives SpaceX great visibility (hence some great publicity) for Starhopper, it appears to also be causing some bad press because of these negative impacts on the local community.

Either way, expect news of Starhopper’s biggest hop in the next day or so.

Genesis cover

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

9 comments

  • geoffc

    Reading the NSF forums, where a couple of the very few remaining residents post, it seems that they plan on staying. The cops are not forcing anyone out. It is just a precautionary warning that the FAA is requiring for the test.

  • David

    After they blew up their F9 hopper in a test at McGregor, their permission to do flight testing there was pulled, do that’s not an option.

  • David: This I had not known. Do you have a source?

  • David

    ‘Lost” is perhaps an overstatement. Their existing FAA license expired, and they have not applied for a new one. I’ve seen it stated that they were quietly told that a new permit application would not be endorsed by the local community or county officials.

  • mpthompson

    It is my understanding that there is only a handful (ie. less than 10) permanent residents left in the area that have not yet been bought out by SpaceX. Among the few are a number of SpaceX fans who love the spectacle and invite other SpaceX fans to their homes to watch the tests from their roofs. Those who have kept their home in Boca Chica Village are probably looking to make a small fortune via AirBnB if SpaceX continues to with Starship development there.

  • mpthompson

    BTW, reading the article, the reporting is based on selectively pulling comments from the original Brownsville Herald article. Pretty shabby reporting that probably doesn’t reflect the attitudes of the people that actually received the warning notice.

  • Diane Wilson

    This will probably be StarHopper’s last hop. The StarShip prototypes are apparently far enough along that they will be used for the first multi-engine tests. Also, the engine mounts for the hopper are three-in-a-row, but Starship will use a triangular arrangement, so Starship will be the better test vehicle.

  • David S

    I live 10 miles due west of McGregor, South Mountain area. Heard a test about 10 days ago.

  • Diane Wilson

    They still test engines, and do full-run static fires for completed first stages at McGregor. But no hops.

    Also, from NSF, FAA approval for hop is official now. 150 meters max altitude.

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