By Juan Montoya
With three potential bidders for his private commercial satellite launch site clamoring to shower him with millions in "incentives," billionaire Elon Musk is sitting in the catbird seat.
There's Space Florida with more than $20 million and a launch site next to Cape Canaveral making its offering. Then there's the State of Georgia and Puerto Rico offering their tribute.
Musk can now lay back and see which one will up the ante to entice him to go there.
The announcement that the Federal Aviation Administration’s Record of Decision will issue licenses and permits to consider allowing Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to build a rocket launch site in Cameron County, leaves it up to Musk to decide if he wants to build the launch pad here.
SpaceX can apply for those licenses and the FAA has 180 days to decide to approve or deny the proposal.
But SpaceX is playing coy with the suitors,much as Penelope did in the Odyssey.
“Brownsville remains a finalist for SpaceX’s development of a commercial orbital launch complex, and SpaceX appreciates the FAA’s commitment and work in developing today’s record of decision,” said SpaceX spokeswoman Hannah Post.“There remain several criteria that will need to be met before SpaceX makes a decision. We are hopeful that these will be complete in the near future.”
Fast forward to sometime in the future.
rocket launch goes bad and range directors decide to abort it. Fragments of the rocket crash into the LNG plant at the Port of Brownsville (we said future, remember?) and start a chain-reaction explosion that rocks the Port, spills over onto the chemical and oil storage tanks and gasoline-laden barges that have to dock pending the launch.
Traffic on the Intercoastal Waterway has to stop. No ships can sail or shrimp boats can go up and down the channel.
The explosion of oil, gasoline and chemicals stored at the port spill into the channel and are carried to the ecosensitive Laguna Madre through the Bahia and into the Gulf of Mexico. South Padre Island resembles post-Ixtoc. Toxic chemicals litter the pristine wildlife habitat of Boca Chica Beach and its surrounding wetlands that will take decades to clean.
Far-fetched, you say?
How many disasters occurred during NASA launches? Remember?
A pair of nitrogen tanks at SpaceX rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas, exploded late Nov. 26, local authorities reported then. It didn't even involve the Falcon 9 rocketsw that will be used here if the company deigns to take over Boca Chica.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket that was used to launch Thailand’s Thaicom 6 satellite had undergone testing at McGregor but was not at the site when the explosion occurred. The rocket had already been shipped to Cape Canaveral, Fla., in preparation for a scheduled Dec. 20 launch.
News reports at the time said that the explosion startled some nearby residents, who registered their surprise in Facebook posts of their own, and in comments below the sheriff’s post.
“I think I just felt my first earthquake!” Duane Price-Hannah wrote before reading the sheriff’s report. “You never know because we live close to SpaceX and also feel things when Fort Hood is playing in the field. This one scared me and was different!”
“I honestly thought it was Ft. Hood practicing a big bomb,” said a post by Kisha Hornung.
5 comments:
LNG is going to happen. Bank it, bro!
Another situation which reinforces the fact that our city officials and county officials think small and cannot see a "big picture". SpaceX was rejoiced by the city and then LNG popped up and BND officials started to promote the port. Is it possible that the Federal Energy Reg. Commission (FERC) was activated by either the LNG side or the SpaceX side to gain an advantage here. Again, we possibly lose because the local entities don't cooperate, are power mongers and tend to always lose new industries.
more bullshit, Juan? We need jobs. Yur too old to work, so you can criticize. I'd vote for a fuckin circus if it came here and offered me a job!
LNG IS A DONE DEAL, WORK, WORK, TO GET THOSE DEAD BEAT DAD'S TO WORK!!!
Jobs are important, but the health and safety of the entire community should have priority. For years we promoted Julieta Garcia and UTB-TSC, but she failed the community by not paying attention to the need for vocational (TSC) training for jobs, and putting the focus on promoting herself and posturing for UT System (Hispanic graduates, and other fake statistics). So, here we are...poorly prepared work force and still being misled by "promises" from Da Mayor, PUB and BND.
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