SPACEX PROJECT HERE NOT LINKED TO NASA

By Juan Montoya

It doesn't matter how many times we repeat it here, but since the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation, United Brownsville and the rest of the lambiscones associated with the Sunshine Boys at the Chamber of Commerce will not clarify the very limited parameters of SpaceX's project here, it falls to our lot and we welcome the opportunity to do it.

First of all, no matter what people like retired Herald advertising executive Hector Solis tells those who will listen at a his favorite local watering hole, the firm's contract with NASA to ferry supplies to the International Space Station is not related to the firms' efforts to set up a satellite launch pad at Boca Chica.

We will not launch astronauts from Boca Chica, or for that matter, any manned space missions anywhere else.

SpaceX's Brownsville operation will not be related (at all) to the company's operations in Cape Canaveral or to NASA.

It is not related (at all) to the December 2008 NASA announcement that SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon Spacecraft were contracted to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion."
In fact, NASA has nothing to do with the local project. SpaceX will not fire NASA missions from Brownsville, despite the pipe dreams of BEDC gurus.
It also will not send manned spacecraft to the ISS, the moon, or for that matter, Mars, despite the comments of Bob Lancaster, President of the Texas Space Alliance.

The reason is simple. In order to reach the ISS whose orbit is inclined at 51.6 degrees, the launch azimuth from Brownsville would be approximately 42 degrees, which would take the craft over populated land masses, a no-no in FAA regulations.
"It is exciting to think that you will be able to see the launch of a manned space misson to Mars," Lancaster said to wild applause.
Not to be.
Instead, it is to be a minor launch site where SpaceX will program launches of limited commercial payloads (communications, weather satellites, etc.) for private customers that could include foreign states or other businesses.

SpaceX fired its two-stage, nine-engine Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. earlier this month which is now docked to the space station.
In addition to being the first privately funded launch to the space station, it could help cement a $1.6 billion contract SpaceX has with NASA for 12 flights to the ISS as a replacement for the space shuttle program, which ended last year.

Again, none of them are from Boca Chica.

If and when – and we won't know until more than a year from now – after the appropriate government agencies approve SpaceX's plans for Boca Chica, we still don't know whether the Brownsville site will be chosen over the other two sites in Florida and Puerto Rico by the company to begin with.

So hold off enrolling the kids in a propulsion engineering course or getting them fitted out for a NASA jumpsuit. Let's not give away the farm (or lomas out in the wetlands and tidal flats), until we know the specific details of what we are getting in return for allowing an industrialization of the area.

If we don't and we end up with a bare-bones concrete pad and an occasional launch (once a month) by technicians who alight on our town for the firing and then leave, then we might have second thoughts about our investment.

And, as an economist-philosopher once said: "A nation (in this case, community) and a woman are not forgiven the unguarded hour in which the first adventurer that came along could violate them..."