BEDC CONTINUES TO TEMPT RESIDENTS WITH SPACEX CANDY

By Juan Montoya
The banner headline in today's newspaper shouts at the reader that "NASA backs SpaceX," and just underneath it are listed three figures of contracts issued by the government for $440 million, $460 million, and $212 million.
"Company might provide manned flights to space station," says the smaller headline under the Big Money.
However, it isn't until six paragraphs from the bottom of the story and on Page 8 that the reader is let down gently by the small qualifier of all the Big Dough we might get if millionaire Elon Musk gets more federal funds.
"If SpaceX does come to Cameron County, the facility here would be only for launching rockets, company officials have said."
In other words, none of those millions mentioned in the front page banner are coming to Brownsville. And neither, by the way, are manned flights planned for Boca Chica.
But that doesn't stop huckster extraordinaire Gilbert Salinas of the BEDC from using the SpaceX NASA contract to justify the hyperbole-filled pitch that his organization and supporters of the rocket launch facility have foisted upon the people.

During the FAA hearing for the SpaceX Environmental Impact Statement held in Brownsville, the nature of the event was transformed into a pep rally for the company's possible arrival in the area. At the time, Brownsville was said to be one of three (and still is) sites competing for the facility. The others were Puerto Rico and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

You remember. All of the city officials and supporters were put at the front of the speaker line and by the time anyone with any concerns about the environmental impact and potential disruption of endangered wildlife were shunted to the rear. You did not hear them speak if you only waited for an hour or two before you left.

SpaceX had generously lent the city, county and state officials patches of their logos which they proudly wore during the hearing. In other words, it wasn't a hearing at all, rather it was an orchestrated rally of support for the company.

Still, Salinas and the other cheerleaders of BEDC, GBIC, United Brownsville, etc., choose to continue beguiling a city desperate for jobs and new industry with visions of astronauts and space odysseys launching off from right here in our own backyard. As Gomer Pyle used to say: Gaaaahlly!

Actually the word Salinas now uses is "validates," a curious choice of words that seeks to "justify" the whoppers he told when he was drumming up support for SpaceX before the "hearing."

You remember. He said the Boca Chica site was preferable to the other sites because we're closer to the equator, while deliberately ignoring the fact that the Puerto Rico site was way closer to the middle of the planet than we ever will be.

Then he said that launches from Boca Chica would make it easier to reach the International Space Station because of the "slingshot effect" of out geographic location. That turned out to be wrong, too, and he doesn;t mention that either now that it's been disproved by SpaceX principals themselves. There are no launches to be made from Boca Chica with the ISS as its destination. It's physically and scientifically impossible.

Then the other was that the RP1 fuel that was going to be used to launch the SpaceX rockets into orbit were going to be propelled by kerosene, "such as the one you use in your campfire." Well, that might have been the biggest fib out intrepid Mr. Salinas told. It turns out that highly-refined kerosene used as rocket fuel is nothing at all like you would use in a campfire. In fact, if you tried to use that in a campfire, you might end up blown to bits and end up washed up on the beach as fodder for the crabs and sea gulls.

The next one was that there was a "lot of nothing" out there on Boca Chica. That was blown out of the water by the documentation provided the Federal Aviation Administration by the State of Texas that affirms that, aside form numerous endangered species such as the sea turtles, ocelot, jaguarandi, Piping Plovers, etc, there were scores of endangered flora in the "lot of nothing" around the site.

So now that SpaceX and Musk have netted another government subsidy that has nothng to do with Brownsville, Salinas says it "validates" the BEDC hype for the rocket launch site. Maybe he was misquoted. Perhaps the thing it does "validate" is the amount of public money BEDC is spending on the SpaceX campaign and the salaries of its bureaucrats.