by If there’s a leader in the space industry, SpaceX is it. The company’s Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon spacecraft are the current go-to vehicles delivering astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.
NASA contracts awarded to SpaceX alone through 2030 are worth nearly US$5 billion and include research and development for the Artemis mission to return astronauts to the moon.
Over the past decade, SpaceX has also emerged as a major supplier to the U.S. Department of Defense, most recently seen with a $733.5 million contract for projects such as launching defense satellite networks and contributing to other U.S. goals. national security space.
As a human geographer, I am interested in how commercial space and defense companies impact the local communities where they conduct launches and testing.
For example, I spent more than two years in Kazakhstan investigating the privatization of the Soviet space program and the beginnings of a global commercial space industry.
The influence of Elon Musk and SpaceX
Politically, SpaceX is a huge boon to the United States.
As a U.S.-based defense supplier and contractor, the company’s technology has helped end a nearly two-decade dependence on the Russian Federation for access to the International Space Station. Billionaire CEO Elon Musk has even expressed plans to colonize Mars.
Musk’s decision to spend $250 million to help Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election is expected to lead to more support for SpaceX.
In the new administration, Musk is poised to lead a newly created advisory agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, which could lead to benefits for his company and boost his space ambitions.
Boca Chica, Texas, is home to SpaceX’s flagship assembly and test facility, Starbase. Since 2021, I have been conducting research with environmental groups and multigenerational community members of Latino and Indigenous descent in South Texas who view space exploration as a landscape-changing industry that impacts their well-being.
After Starbase development has continued since 2014, locals there said there is much unseen and unspoken about what happens on the ground as a space giant shoots for the stars.
Breaking eggs to make an omelet
Starbase is an industrial facility built by SpaceX to manufacture and test a number of the company’s rocket types.
The area around it is a unique and delicate ecosystem that includes estuaries and coastal grasslands, mudflats and more, where Falcons, Hawks, Ravens, Gulls and Songbirds live.
Since construction began, SpaceX engineers have had to drain, grade and pour water-logged soil to support the ground tracking stations, assembly buildings, engine test stands, a nearly 500-foot launch tower) and onsite fuel mixing and storage.
In a lengthy response to local environmental groups’ claims of environmental abuse, the company claims it is dedicated to environmental stewardship.
But rocket development is a dangerous and messy business. Sites chosen for this type of work are often, although not always, remote and highly secured installations.
Fiery explosions on the ground or in the air have not been unheard of in recent years. Rocket tests in Scotland, China and Japan have all ended in accidents.
In April 2023, one of SpaceX’s prototype Starship Rockets exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after launch.
This isn’t the only time a rocket has exploded in places where SpaceX works.
SpaceX has a compact though growing operation in Boca Chica that has transformed the area. The Hamlet was previously known as Kopernik Shores, and SpaceX purchased almost all of the area’s approximately 35 ranch homes. Some residents have reported pressure to sell their properties for suboptimal prices after rumors that the county would use eminent domain to seize their homes.
I spoke with Rebekah Hinojosa, a local activist and member of the Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, while he was researching the area. To many locals, including Hinojosa, it appears that Musk is so well connected that SpaceX has been insulated from public criticism.
In a 2018 press conference, Musk said, “We have a lot of land with no one around, and so if it blows up, it’s cool,” referring to a rocket he planned to test at Starbase.
Changes in the landscape
An installation Starbase’s size cannot prevent the wildlife in the four different state and federal wildlife areas surrounding it.
As you walk through the protected areas, you may see shrapnel, segments of missile chassis, and other random debris from some of the explosions – that is, if someone else didn’t pick them up first.
In December 2022 I visited a luxury campsite near Starbase. It showed several fragments of rocket debris, which they called memorabilia of the new space age throughout the site.
Within SpaceX, as well as NASA, the 2023 explosion was celebrated as a crucial step in developing the Starship Rocket. The event did provide valuable data on the Rocket’s performance – but it did little to tarnish the company’s reputation.
There is tremendous support for SpaceX in Texas. The company has pledged to boost high-tech industrial jobs in a region ranked among the poorest in the country.
SpaceX has created approximately 2,100 jobs. However, reporting shows that local and national politicians have seen more personal profit in their real estate holdings and campaign budgets than the region’s economy has overall.
A laboratory near the community
At the end of the day, to develop a rocket, you need a place to test your design.
“Our local beach is the laboratory,” local activist Hinojosa told me.
Resident coalitions of Native, Latino and Chicano people, as well as conservation groups, are suing the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and others to combat SpaceX.
These groups allege that SpaceX misled state and federal regulators about Starbase’s activities. They claim that SpaceX how often it planned to launch tests and built new facilities for different rocket types made the company’s original environmental impact statement for the area inaccurate.
Some key issues these groups are fighting include an attempt to expand Starbase into more protected areas. Another point of contention is the Flood system, which when tested creates thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater for cool launch pads and rocket engines.
Although the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have notified SpaceX of violations of the Clean Water Act, plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit allege that these agencies failed to hold the company accountable for violating the law. The company has denied wrongdoing and reflected claims of environmental damage.
“As we have built capacity to launch and develop new sites across the country, we are always committed to public safety and reducing environmental impacts,” reads a SpaceX statement. “The list of measures we are taking for Texas operations alone is more than two hundred items long, including constant monitoring and sampling of the short- and long-term health of local flora and fauna. The story that we are releasing or in violation of the environmental regulation is demonstrably incorrect. ”
So, what does the future hold? Many people from conservation agencies, activist groups and native communities in Texas want the company. Given the high public support for space exploration in the US and the budding friendship between Musk and Trump, a SpaceX evacuation from the area seems unlikely.
While there may be difficult negotiations that require concessions from each side, I hope there is a middle ground somewhere where space exploration and environmental protections can coexist.
This article was updated on January 17, 2024 to reflect the amount of money Musk spent to help Trump win the 2024 election as $250 million and the correct speed of light.
This article was originally published about the conversation by Robert A. Kopack at the University of South Carolina. Read the original article here.
