BOCA CHICA LAUNCH TO MARS HYPE CONTINUES UNABATED

By Juan Montoya
There has yet to be a launch – any type of launch – of any type of rocket from Boca Chica Beach since the announcement was made that billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX chose the desolate area to establish a vertical launch pad for commercial satellites.
Yet, even though no commercial payloads are scheduled to be launched until two years from now, there is already talk of launching manned space flights not to the moon – our nearest satellite – but to Mars, at a distance which varies at the closest approaches from 35 million to 60 million miles away.
The first time that SpaceX came to Brownsville for a Federal Aviation Administration public comment hearing on its Environmental Impact Statement (IES), its director of Advanced Projects Steven Davis disabused us of  the idea that the Boca Chica launch site would service the International Space Station (ISS).

He also said that there were no manned rocket launch plans for the site either.
He discounted the comments of  Bob Lancaster, President of the Texas Space Alliance who first broached the subject of a manned Mars launch here.
"It is exciting to think that you will be able to see the launch of a manned space mission to Mars," Lancaster said to wild applause.

These are the same kind of statements that are being made by Musk – the ultimate snake-oil salesman – whose entreaties bearing space technology gifts resulted in some $20 million in public subsidies for him to bring his show here.

Musk talks – and reporters eat it up – of launching manned spacecraft to mars from Boca Chica and the local politicians and bankers start salivating. It was the same with the "600 high-tech jobs at a minimum of $55,000" which set off the "fund-the-billionaire's-dream" stampede to bring him here.

Then we found out that after the first 10 years in operation, Musk's SpaceX told the government that at most, there would be 150 to 200 permanent jobs at most created at the launch site.

That didn't deter the SpaceX mania that has continued to gain traction among the local population hungry for something – anything – that will allay the 30 percent poverty rate in Cameron County.

There is profit to be made, Musk has discovered, in poverty.

Against the background of SpaceX government subsidies to develop a delivery system to the ISS, the readers of the local daily were fed a pie-in-the-sky vision that insinuated that the local site would have a share of it.

Well, we know that is not true, despite the barrage of hype emanating from Austin, SpaceX headquarters, the Brownsville Economic Development Council (BEDC), and local politicians. 

Well, here's what SpaceX is not.
SpaceX's Brownsvile 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 Lancaster or Musk for that matter.
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 non-no in FAA regulations. Unless Musk has found the the alchemist's stone of space engineering, it is deemed highly improbable for that to happen.
Not to be.
Instead, the Boca Chica site 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.

All the talk by BEDC spokesmen about Brownsville being the ideal location because of our geography makes little sense. The location of the competing site in Puerto Rico was closer to the equator. In fact, Cape Canaveral, the other competitor, is less than three degrees higher in latitude than Brownsville (25.9014 to 28.4556) , a negligible difference.
In New Mexico, which spent more than $200 million to entice the establishment of a space tourism spaceport, there has not been one launch yet. Instead, there was a crash of one of the craft and the death of a pilot. State officials have commented that the $200 million may have gone up in smoke.
BEDC's executive vice president Gilbert Salinas continues to espouse the "let's fly to Mars" dream at public expense "because it's Elon Musk."
Locally, we have bought into Musk's pitch hook line and sinker. Servicing the ISS is one thing. Sending manned spacecraft to Mars from Boca Chica is quite another. No one in his right mind believes it. Maybe that's the difference between us and them. We have proven we are quite willing to bite and swallow another big one once again.