SpaceX gets approval to build oxygen plant at Boca ChicaSpaceX today received the okay from Cameron County to build a plant at Boca Chica to produce oxygen from the atmosphere for use in its Superheavy/Starship rocket.
The commissioners voted, 3-1, to give Elon Musk’s rocket company a beachfront construction certificate and dune protection permit, allowing the company to build a modern-day factory akin to an oil refinery to produce gases needed for space flight launches.
The plant will consist of 20 structures on 1.66 acres. The enclosed site will include a tower that will reach 159 feet, or about 15 stories high, much shorter than the nearby launch tower, which stretches 480 feet high. It is set to be built about 280 feet inland from the line of vegetation, which is where the dunes begin. The factory will separate air into nitrogen and oxygen. SpaceX utilizes liquid oxygen as a propellant and liquid nitrogen for testing and operations.
By having the facility on site, SpaceX hopes to make the delivery of those gases more efficient by eliminating the need to have dozens of trucks deliver them from Brownsville. The company says they need more than 200 trucks of liquid nitrogen and oxygen delivered for each launch, a SpaceX engineer told the county during a meeting last week.
As usual, the same cranks who always complain about this stuff are given space by this news outlet to whine, but the truth is that the commission’s vote well reflects the attitude of the local community. It supports what SpaceX is doing, because of the prosperity the company is bringing to this formerly depressed region.
Moreover, this facility will not only save SpaceX money and make it easier to launch more frequently, it is likely environmentally beneficial. I suspect the facility will be relatively clean compared to the truck convoys it will replace.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
SpaceX today received the okay from Cameron County to build a plant at Boca Chica to produce oxygen from the atmosphere for use in its Superheavy/Starship rocket.
The commissioners voted, 3-1, to give Elon Musk’s rocket company a beachfront construction certificate and dune protection permit, allowing the company to build a modern-day factory akin to an oil refinery to produce gases needed for space flight launches.
The plant will consist of 20 structures on 1.66 acres. The enclosed site will include a tower that will reach 159 feet, or about 15 stories high, much shorter than the nearby launch tower, which stretches 480 feet high. It is set to be built about 280 feet inland from the line of vegetation, which is where the dunes begin. The factory will separate air into nitrogen and oxygen. SpaceX utilizes liquid oxygen as a propellant and liquid nitrogen for testing and operations.
By having the facility on site, SpaceX hopes to make the delivery of those gases more efficient by eliminating the need to have dozens of trucks deliver them from Brownsville. The company says they need more than 200 trucks of liquid nitrogen and oxygen delivered for each launch, a SpaceX engineer told the county during a meeting last week.
As usual, the same cranks who always complain about this stuff are given space by this news outlet to whine, but the truth is that the commission’s vote well reflects the attitude of the local community. It supports what SpaceX is doing, because of the prosperity the company is bringing to this formerly depressed region.
Moreover, this facility will not only save SpaceX money and make it easier to launch more frequently, it is likely environmentally beneficial. I suspect the facility will be relatively clean compared to the truck convoys it will replace.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
The nitrogen he could sell to LINDE….or…he could have a distant facility use that for hexanitrogen research.
The liquidation of atmosphere will also supply him with argon for welding and CO2 for sequestering credits… or dry ice. It was about time for this to happen, perhaps it hinged on having enough power? Did they build a new power supply? Is it too early to ask for permits for a nuclear power station?
Research for nuclear power in space should start sooner than later so why not start with their own facility? (yes, this would cause the natives to go crazy)
Now he needs a pipeline for methane. The purification plant from natural gas doesn’t have to be at Boca Chica, it can be closer to the gas source.
The on site methane can generate power for the LOx plant too.
NASP was to require argon for titanium welding? Good for teslabots.
Some YouTubes are hinting at Dream Chaser riding atop a Falcon Heavy with the extended fairing. Anything to that.
I know LockMart had the concept of the
Large Asymmetric Payload Fairing
Jeff Wright,
The liquid nitrogen produced by this plant won’t be sold or going anywhere. SpaceX uses liquid nitrogen to super-cool and densify both the LOX and the liquid methane used for Starship launches.
Yes, argon is a welding gas and there’s a lot of welding at Starbase. But most of it is stick welding in ambient atmosphere – no argon required. Starship fabrication probably requires some inert gas welding. But argon produced at Starbase could also be – and likely will be – shipped out for use as thruster propellant for Starlink satellites.