By Ana Kramer
Protocol.com
In Boca Chica, Texas, the coastal prairie stretches to the horizon on either side of the Gulf of Mexico, an endless sandbar topped with floating greenery, wheeling gulls and whipping gusts of wind.
Far above the sea on a foggy March day, the camera feed on the Starship jerked and then froze on an image of orange flames shooting into the gray. From the ground below, onlookers strained to see through the opaque sky. After a moment of quiet, jagged edges of steel started to rain from the clouds, battering the ground near the oceanside launch pad, ripping through the dunes, sinking deep into the sand and flats.
Yet again, a SpaceX rocket had exploded in a test flight over the empty miles of Boca Chica beach. For the people of Cameron County and the nearby city of Brownsville, the March explosion was the most apocalyptic of several in early 2021. For Elon Musk and SpaceX, it was a normal testing snafu in the necessary process to build a prototype for a rocket that they hope, one day, will carry 100 people to Mars. "A high production rate solves many ills," Musk tweeted at the time. "At least the crater is in the right place!"
SpaceX never replied to Protocol's numerous requests for comment on this story.
The single 20-mile stretch of road to the beach was closed on March 30, the day of the explosion. When the road reopened, the space fanatics who'd flocked to the launch facility at the southernmost tip of Texas swarmed down past the launch pad and over the dunes, searching for their own little memento — a piece of rocket debris.
"People circled back around from the beach and climbed over the dunes," said Stephanie Bilodeau, a conservation biologist who walks the dunes and coastal prairie for her research almost every other day. We had sheltered from the heat and wind in the front seat of her white pickup. In the back, her little dog panted quietly, nestled among the gear Bilodeau uses to count and tag the rare red knots and plovers that nest at the edge of the 91,000-acre wildlife refuge. On one side of our perch, the view stretched unbroken to the ocean; on the other side, the horizon was blocked by newly constructed letters, taller than us, that proclaimed we'd entered "STARBASE."
For SpaceX, cleaning up the debris wasn't a simple matter of loading it onto trucks and driving back to the facility. Driving heavy trucks out onto the flats and ripping out the chunks of steel would only cause more damage. The company had to come up with a way to cut the wreckage into smaller, lighter pieces to remove it.
The company ultimately completed most of the cleanup, but researchers like Bilodeau who work in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the local Cameron County residents were furious. The explosion had, at least temporarily, destroyed the delicate ecosystem in the area near the launch.
For Cameron County and Brownsville, Musk's money is a bit like his rockets. The Starship prototype was a gleaming vision for the future of space exploration, but its explosion was devastating to the natural environment. Musk's determination to build a spaceport and town that will one day launch hundreds of people to Mars has brought with it the promise of jobs, economic revitalization and an influx of wealth to one of the poorest and least-connected places in America.
In Boca Chica, Texas, the coastal prairie stretches to the horizon on either side of the Gulf of Mexico, an endless sandbar topped with floating greenery, wheeling gulls and whipping gusts of wind.
Far above the sea on a foggy March day, the camera feed on the Starship jerked and then froze on an image of orange flames shooting into the gray. From the ground below, onlookers strained to see through the opaque sky. After a moment of quiet, jagged edges of steel started to rain from the clouds, battering the ground near the oceanside launch pad, ripping through the dunes, sinking deep into the sand and flats.
Yet again, a SpaceX rocket had exploded in a test flight over the empty miles of Boca Chica beach. For the people of Cameron County and the nearby city of Brownsville, the March explosion was the most apocalyptic of several in early 2021. For Elon Musk and SpaceX, it was a normal testing snafu in the necessary process to build a prototype for a rocket that they hope, one day, will carry 100 people to Mars. "A high production rate solves many ills," Musk tweeted at the time. "At least the crater is in the right place!"
SpaceX never replied to Protocol's numerous requests for comment on this story.
The single 20-mile stretch of road to the beach was closed on March 30, the day of the explosion. When the road reopened, the space fanatics who'd flocked to the launch facility at the southernmost tip of Texas swarmed down past the launch pad and over the dunes, searching for their own little memento — a piece of rocket debris.
"People circled back around from the beach and climbed over the dunes," said Stephanie Bilodeau, a conservation biologist who walks the dunes and coastal prairie for her research almost every other day. We had sheltered from the heat and wind in the front seat of her white pickup. In the back, her little dog panted quietly, nestled among the gear Bilodeau uses to count and tag the rare red knots and plovers that nest at the edge of the 91,000-acre wildlife refuge. On one side of our perch, the view stretched unbroken to the ocean; on the other side, the horizon was blocked by newly constructed letters, taller than us, that proclaimed we'd entered "STARBASE."
For SpaceX, cleaning up the debris wasn't a simple matter of loading it onto trucks and driving back to the facility. Driving heavy trucks out onto the flats and ripping out the chunks of steel would only cause more damage. The company had to come up with a way to cut the wreckage into smaller, lighter pieces to remove it.
The company ultimately completed most of the cleanup, but researchers like Bilodeau who work in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the local Cameron County residents were furious. The explosion had, at least temporarily, destroyed the delicate ecosystem in the area near the launch.
Bilodeau had seen plovers nesting near the launch pad the week before, and now they were gone. A local entomologist was devastated by the destruction posed to the invertebrates that sustain the ecosystem. In certain areas, steel had sunk into the sand every couple of feet.
For Cameron County and Brownsville, Musk's money is a bit like his rockets. The Starship prototype was a gleaming vision for the future of space exploration, but its explosion was devastating to the natural environment. Musk's determination to build a spaceport and town that will one day launch hundreds of people to Mars has brought with it the promise of jobs, economic revitalization and an influx of wealth to one of the poorest and least-connected places in America.
But the investment will also bring wealthy outsiders to a culturally vibrant, family-oriented border town that is proud of its history and the people who've lived there for generations, a town full of people skeptical that the money and prestige Musk is offering might be anything more than a poison pill.
SpaceX's investment likely does mean a change in economic status and power for Brownsville. But the money and vision of the world's second-richest man could also upend the culture and values that make Brownsville special to its community, a fear that has riven the people of this usually quiet place.
SpaceX's investment likely does mean a change in economic status and power for Brownsville. But the money and vision of the world's second-richest man could also upend the culture and values that make Brownsville special to its community, a fear that has riven the people of this usually quiet place.
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13 comments:
Bitch, bitch, bitch. The song of Brownsville.
It's progress, people!
El Paya Jerry McHale is on another pro-Trump rampage.
His psycho blog is all about Trump and Republicans today. Que le pasa a ese guey?
Trae el dedo donde el sol no se ve, o que? No tiene juicio, ese vato palido.
Y tambien cree que le hacen caso! ja ja ja ja ja
Eres el pasado, Paya Jerry!
"Musk tweeted at the time. 'At least the crater is in the right place!'"
I can think of a better place for the crater.
It is really frustrating these outsiders writh dumb stories about our culture. They have no idea who we are. We are not idigent people that have no education and need someone from upnorth or some other part of the country coming to Brownsville,TX and telling us what we need to do and think and act. I was born and raised in Brownsville, TX. I don't need someone that thinks we are just poor dumb Mexicans that don't know what is good for us. These people that are writting this articles are becasue they are retired people that made their money from their hometown, then they come to Brownsville to retire becasue their retirement package allows them to live very comfortable here in south texas. Yet, they made their money up north and now can't afford to live in retirement luxury in their hometown so they come down here and look at us with pity because we don't have the ski scrapers, the large stadiums, the huge city life. Yes we are simple people that grew up with respect and honor. We are hard working people. BUT WE ARE VERY SMART. My kids and I don't need to be told what is good for us or not good for us. We are smart enough to know the difference. Please go back to your hometown where you probably don't matter or at least your opinion don't matter and quit being a pain in the ass to us. If you want to stay adapt to our culture and help us grow into a successful city not tear it down. If not don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you.
Diego "True Wimp" Garcia, III has a different, if naive, take on this story, Juan. He's green as a reporter and his writing is thick in the way of an amateur in need of an editor.
Ayudale al guey.
Pobre vato.
SpaceX it's a f****** joke
I’m almost certain that Mr. Musk has already devised a super duper magnet that will hover over the dunes and pluck those twisted pieces of metal and place them in the landfill right across the ditch. Tree huggers and their like will always find something to complain about. We need to exploit our natural resources forthright and locally before the rest of the country digs in and destroy our way of life. We’re getting sold out RGV. Do nothing, say nothing, our representatives count on us to fall in line.
I do admire SpaceX for taking full advantage of their site selection for this venture. Probably easier to negotiate in Brownsville, than the Ukraine or Costa Rica, or any other…….
Gotta go……RIP Pete
No pos esta cabron....
Comen santos los domingos y
Y cagan diablos toda la semana.
Donald Trump: Jan. 6 Cops Who Spoke to Congress Are "Pussies"
- Cheeto bravado.
No one thinks people here are dumb....but Cameron county remains one of the poorest counties in the Union....if you want to change that you are going to have to be open to innovation.....there are pros and cons to that and you won't have one without the other...
If you can't accept that get used to your young ppl leaving the Valley to make it where they CAN prosper....it happened in my home town when I was young.
We should start with our elected officials who have for many years lead or misled us to believe they were elected to bring change to our living area! We continue to elect the same idiots or idiots connected to idiots and the list goes on and on.
The fear is that Musk and his billions will upend the culture and values that make Brownsville a special place...did I get that right? You are talking about the same cultural values that make Brownsville a place filled with low education/ignorance, poverty and systemic public corruption.
Yes Browntown is special, in a short bus kind of way.
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