WILL BROWNTOWN BE KNOWN AS SPACEY BROWNSVILLE?

By Juan Montoya

Those of our three readers who have kept up with this blog know that we are constantly intrigued by the science of space and man's exploration of it.
We've told you of our friend Rick Sanchez who grew up on East Monroe Street and went on to become a rocket propulsion engineer with NASA and was payload chief for some of the space shuttle launches. Rick is about to retire from NASA and will probably return to his hometown if everything goes well.
He, along with us as kids, used to be transfixed by the Star Trek series with Captain Kirk and Spock, Scotty and the rest.
(That's Rick at work on a shuttle before the program was retired.)
That's why we look at some of the local occurrences dealing even remotely with space exploration with more than passing curiosity.
We have learned today from none other than Emma Perez-Treviño that SpaceX has bought up 37 acres of undeveloped tracts of land in the Boca Chica beach area in addition to the 56.5 acres is has leased for its proposed commercial launch site.

To many this would mean that billionaire Elon Musk is really serious about putting the launch pad there.

However, pending a final decision on the company's FAA's Environmental Impact Statement, these purchases should not be seen as what they are, speculative purchases of undeveloped real estate. There isn't even any running water out there.

Emma's coverage indicates that the price paid for these tracts are nothing to crow about. The company first purchased one lot during a delinquent tax auction for a bid of $3,280, which also is the property’s appraised value. The land had owed taxes since 1988.

Likewise, she reports that the second lot had a minimum bid of $5,780, and it sold for $22,000. Taxes on that had not been paid since 1987.

Three lots also in the Spanish Dagger Subdivision were bought under the firm's Dogleg Park LLC.One measures 0.5739 of an acre and was bought for $2,500 from Cameron County and the Point Isabel Independent School District.

Another two in Spanish Dagger Subdivision were purchased at auction Sept. 4 for $6,400 and $15,000
The California-based firm also has developed a subdivision called “Mars Crossing.
Musk has been deftly playing the bidding game between Georgia, Florida and Puerto Rico. Already, all these states have promised him millions in "incentives" to bring his commercial launch site there. And even though he has made it clear that there will be no manned spacecraft launches from Boca Chica, the hype persists that launches will be made to the International Space Station on behalf of NASA.
Still, the lure of millions coming into the local economy and the carrot of sending men to Mars from Boca Chica has the nation's poorest community offering to shut down public access to Boca Chica Beach and to offer millions to the billionaire to set up shop here.
In fact, Musk's plans call for a monthly launch of commercial payloads for private customers and – despite the hype from local economic development hacks of 600 jobs at $55,000 – the firm told the federal government it plans to hire only about 150 to 200 permanent employees by the year 2024.
The space craze has extended to the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College who submitted a proposal to observe two pulsars through the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
That's right.  Rick Jenet, associate professor of physics and astronomy, said that students enrolled at the Arecibo Remote Command Center Scholars Program at the university discovered two pulsars in deep space.
A pulsar is a type of spinning neutron star, the remnant of a star that has exploded and then left behind a dense core. Radio pulsars can be between six and 12 miles in size. They can be accurately timed and can be used to detect gravitational waves. Radio pulsars can aid astronomers and astrophysicists learning about the Earth’s motion, sky location and star systems. About 1,850 pulsars have been discovered worldwide.
The ARCC program submitted the proposal for the follow-up observations through Arecibo by remote control from UTB-TSC.
According to a story in the Brownsville Herald, within hours of announcing the discovery, emails began "flying back and forth" between astronomers around the world, said Anthony Ford, one of the students who helped discover the two pulsars.
"Within 24 hours of us confirming them it had already been reobserved by an observatory in France and then I think within another 12 hours it had been observed for a third time at Jodrell Bank Observatory in England," Ford told the daily.
Well, Ford will be interested to know that even the barrio residents of Southmost are also interested in watching the stars, and we're not talking about those in the telenovelas. The City of Brownsville, in its Spring 2014 issue of Brownsville City Hall, says that a new 14-inch Meade telescope will be in operation by the end of this month. It is a complement to the planetary program at the Southmost Library.
Funded by grants from the Community Development Block Grant Program, the telescope will cost $180,000 and its images will be projected on two 55-inch screens. People will be able to sit on the benches placed around the telescope and observe the images generated by the telescope.
We can imagine looking at nearby planets and the moon on clear summer nights. Perhaps – like Musk's SpaceX launchpad – it won't result in sending men to the moon or make anyone rich or an astronaut, but it is certain to fire up the imagination of the kids and adults who see it.
The Exploration Theater presents two shows a month at the Southmost Branch Library on the first and third Tuesday of the month. Each show seats 50 people at a time and repeats up to three (3) times on the day of its showing depending on its length. When the show repeats, it runs concurrently with the Stellar Sessions and Telescope Viewings.
To register for any show, please contact the Children's Desk at either the Southmost Branch or Main Branch Library up to a day prior to the show. You may stop by to register or by calling (956) 548-1055 at extensions 2114 or 2204. Between Musk's launch pad, spinning pulsars in deep space, and the new Southmost telescope, will Brownsville be known like Star Trek as "Browntown, the Last Frontier?"