SpaceX Is Studying Site For 'Commercial Cape Canaveral' Near Brownsville, Texas 69
New submitter RealTime writes "SpaceX filed a notice with the FAA (PDF) that it is preparing an environmental impact study in consideration of a site in Texas for use as a commercial spaceport. 'The site in question is in the southern tip of the state of Texas, just outside Brownsville in Cameron County, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, over which SpaceX's launches would fly.' The proposed site would handle up to 12 commercial launches per year. 'There's plenty of red tape associated with Kennedy Space Center, and the center is often reserved for large blocks of time by other launchers. If SpaceX had its own pad, it wouldn't have to share.'"
Politics (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully, this may get Texas' congressmen to abandon their opposition to NASA's commercial space initiatives.
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Hopefully, this may get Texas' congressmen to abandon their opposition to NASA's commercial space initiatives.
Since when have Texas congresspeople opposed anything NASA?
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This may be a reference to Texas legislators pushing for more Texas NASA dollars. They don't directly oppose privatization, but they do talk about it dismissively in their quest for pork [chron.com].
Obama’s “reliance on a promising, yet still fledgling commercial space industry” combined with retiring the space shuttle and canceling the back-to-the-moon Constellation “will severely diminish the manned space flight program and provide the JSC with no true mission objective,” the lawmakers cautioned.
Re:Politics (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't Jeff Bezos also buy land nearby? (Score:5, Interesting)
While Elon Musk is certainly one to stay in the limelight more than some of the other rocket builders, it seems like Jeff Bezos either was looking at or purchased land in the general region of Texas. Yes, I know Bezos has his test facility in west Texas, which is also licensed by the FAA-AST as a spaceport, so perhaps I'm mistaken.
If it wasn't Bezos, it seems like it was another group of commercial rocket developers. Benson Space Company perhaps?
Regardless, I would have to agree that some place other than KSC is going to be needed if SpaceX has anything close to the launch rates that Elon Musk is promising. While SpaceX doesn't need to compete against Shuttle launches any more, there still are all of the D.O.D. payloads that usually get higher priority over commercial flights. KSC can be a rather busy place from time to time.
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Re:Didn't Jeff Bezos also buy land nearby? (Score:5, Funny)
No, if you read the claims of that patent, the stage lands on the barge neatly and does not bounce.. essentially, its a one click transaction, just NOT on the internet.
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Article misses the point (Score:5, Interesting)
I predict the next announcement will be a landing site in Puerto Rico for recovery of the first stage. My question is, does he even need permission to land in Puerto Rico? Can't he just get permission to land at an airfield? We aren't talking about a launch, just a powered landing. I'm sure there would be regulatory hurdles, but nothing like that needed to build a launch site.
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I would guess that the answer is no for landing at an airfield. They are going to need a fair amount of infrastructure to get a reusable first stage back to its launch site again. Not a vast amount, but enough that you might as well build it on fresh ground rather than trying to argue with airport authorities and cramming it in with all their stuff.
I will note that I have very serious doubts about their ability to get a fully reusable launcher on their current path, because the engineering difficulties in t
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Vieques would be likely - Navy controlled territory in PR.
"Go" signals (Score:2)
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Their biggest risk isn't economic, but technical. Don't forget that they've had only two successful flights with the Falcon 9, and the now abandoned Falcon 1 (development stopped due to lack of interest from the market) had far more failed flights than successes.
It is true that their most recent flights have had a better success rate than their early failures, and nobody should dismiss them because some test flights blew up, but don't underestimate how important reliability is in the launch market.
A failed
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However, you are correct in your last paragraph.
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I was pretty surprised by the low number as well, but it's possible that they're currently only planning on doing equatorial and low-inclination launches from there. Polar and high-inclination launches will probably still be from Vandenberg AFB and Cape Canaveral. I suppose it's also potentially easier to get a permit for a lower flight rate for now, and then ask for a separate permit for the increased flight rate at a later date.
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I am hoping that Bezo will consider working with musk on this. It would be useful to all to increase our flight rates at the major launch sites. That low
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I am hoping that Bezo will consider [...]
OK, just because you keep calling him that in multiple posts:
The man's name is Bezos. Jeff Bezos [wikipedia.org]. Sheesh.
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No, "From the Earth to the Moon" had a launch facility in Florida, not too far from the Cape.
Location, Location, Location (Score:4, Interesting)
There's the obvious low latitude (for the US) advantage to this location, but I see other advantages. Texas is relatively centrally located in the US, especially compared to Florida. This, and if they need any internationally sourced parts, their stated choice of location is relatively close to Houston, and Houston has plenty of infrastructure in place for getting stuff moved off of ships and onto rail. Houston already has a big shipping port.
For latitude, Florida always seemed like a great option, but for shipping parts and materials, it seemed like a very inefficient choice.
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Florida had Port Canaveral which is a large port. Also you have direct barge access to most of the launch sites. That's how the External Tank got from Louisiana to Kennedy Space Center.
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I was told once that the original design for the Shuttle's SRBs did not call for segmentation. It was supposed to be on once piece shipped by boat. But because the manufacturing for contracted elsewhere for political reasons, it required a redesign of the SRBs to be segmented for cargo rail placement.
That's true [astronautix.com] (not even a boat needed, probably - just built more or less on site).
There was however no way to ship single-body SRBs from Utah.
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While the *state* of Texas is (more-or-less) centrally located -
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Nor is it "relatively" close to Houston in any useful sense of the term - it's 300 miles away.
And? I'd call it close in an absolute sense not a relative sense. The closest similar industrial center to JFK Space Center is Atlanta at about 450 miles. Both locations are well connected to the industrial base of the US.
It's also worth noting that Brownsville is a significant trade hub with Mexico and a sea port. There are slight pros and cons to each from their access to the transportation systems,but the big differences come from the actual launch scenarios for these locations.
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Since industrial base wasn't a point discussed in either the original post, or my reply, or a big issue in the original site selection [for Cape Canaveral] - I'm not sure what your point is.
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Since industrial base wasn't a point discussed in either the original post, or my reply, or a big issue in the original site selection [for Cape Canaveral] - I'm not sure what your point is.
Industrial base was implied when I started discussing parts. And when you started discussing mining.
Honestly, what I was thinking about was pretty much around how so much of the shuttle was built from all over the place. That might be due to pork barrel, and that might not be as much of a problem for SpaceX, but for NASA, or anything else funded by the government, it's likely to come up. California is a huge producer/manufacturer in the US, and it's about as far from Florida as you can be, without involv
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If you meant apples, why mention oranges? One doesn't even remotely imply the other. Not to mention, if you read the context, you'd note that I (barely) mentioned mining so that you'd understand that Florida was far bett
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If you meant apples, why mention oranges? One doesn't even remotely imply the other. Not to mention, if you read the context, you'd note that I (barely) mentioned mining so that you'd understand that Florida was far better connected than you seemed to think - and why.
Honestly, I'm still wondering why you think "parts" doesn't tie in to "manufacturing". As for mining, you're actually trying to say that "apples" and "applesauce" aren't connected.
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Spaceport America is for air launched (and fairly small) sub-orbital space planes. They would never get approval to launch a multistage missile from there, when a downrange accident might take out, say, a good chunk of Houston or Dallas.
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Armadillo Aerospace has been doing quite a few launches in New Mexico, which are all ground-launched vehicles. They are sub-orbital though and their flight path does not take them over cities like you are suggesting, but my point here is that "Spaceport America" isn't strictly for air launched vehicles... unlike Mojave which really doesn't have the facilities for ground launched rockets and is also being used for aviation purposes.
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Most likely because the most "backward" parts of the US have people that pretty much mind their own business. How's that offshore wind farm project going in Massachusetts?
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No, it's because land is cheaper there, and people (i.e., people elsewhere) are less likely to notice if things get blown up.
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Why do you say Brownsville is backwards? Have you ever been there?
I suspect not. Just another AC who thinks he's smarter than others, but too much of a pussy to post under his real ID.
Brownsville and the rest of South Texas is populated by normal, hard working people.
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Probably because your idea of "backwards" equates to "red state" or "flyover". The problem with that is that the "advanced" blue-states are, by far, in the worst financial shape. If I was starting any business, much less a business with the potential to make billions of dollars, I'd be looking for a "backward" place to base it, too.
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Bahamas (Score:3)
If you look at the map (actually, a globe is easier for this), the minimum energy trajectory from Brownsville takes you through the Straits of Florida, and directly over the Bahamas, which would be a natural location to recover the first stage. (Anyone with the slightest knowledge of spacecraft dynamics knows that their video, which shows the first stage returning to Cape Canaveral, is disinformation. The first stage will be recovered downrange.)
That trajectory would avoid any inhabited land before the Bahamas, passing South of Miami and North of Havana, and could probably get FAA approval.
The Bahamas are not on the list of ITAR restricted countries [stanford.edu] and there are ~ 58 airstrips [wikipedia.org] there, including 3 closed ones, so SpaceX could presumably find somewhere suitable to land the first stage.
Another poster suggested Puerto Rico, which is unlikely as it would require both more energy and (worse) an overflight of Cuba. Soon after the revolution, an errant Atlas missile (launched from Cape Canaveral) landed in Cuba and killed a few cows. The Cuban government was, shall we say, unappreciative, and since then no missile trajectories have been permitted over Cuba. I don't see the FAA / Department of State making an exception for Space X, and I don't think ITAR regulations make it necessary.
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They have a launch pad in Kwajalein, and I have talked to Elon Musk about it. It is too far from the US (or anywhere else) and has too many security restrictions to be a good commercial spaceport.
Police Boxes (Score:2)
Yeah, but if I understand correctly, you got rid of all of your Police Boxes back in the 70’s. It would seem the loss of that particular technology is more important then zoning laws. Or was that just London? Does Cardif still have them?
They'd better make it bullet proof. (Score:3)
I lived in Brownsville a very short time. It's akin to living in my home town (Detroit) but with more bullets, less police and a complete media blackout. The Bush family has a home in the wealthy section of the subdivision so I suspect this has something to do with it. But I found it weird that grenade bombing of buildings in MX less than 1000ft from the border never hit the news. One spring when Brownsville campus of UofT had to be closed since the bullets from across the river were hitting cars and the classrooms the newspaper never ran an article on it. A few miles down the road duffel bags with human heads were found. National news never once said a word. The entire border seems to draw a dead zone of actual media events. The federal money that's pumped into Brownsville is staggering. Yet the crime is off the charts. I honestly found Detroit a less threatening and dangerous place to live.
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Mexican drug cartels regularly threaten & kill reporters who talk about cartel violence. That's why you don't here much about it:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/15/world/americas/mexico-journalist/index.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/16/world/la-fg-mexico-narco-censorship-20100816
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/23/140745739/mexican-drug-cartels-now-menace-social-media
http://www.chicagonow.com/chicanisima-latino-politics-news-and-culture/2011/09/mexican-journalist-killed-for-using-social-media/
http://www
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The federal money that's pumped into Brownsville is staggering. Yet the crime is off the charts.
These two factors may not be inversely related, but instead, may be directly related.
The Bush family has a home in the wealthy section of the subdivision so I suspect this has something to do with it.
I concur.
A few miles down the road duffel bags with human heads were found. National news never once said a word.
Not a word like "Iran-Contra" or "CIA" or "drug-smuggling". None of those words, I am certain. How thi
Elon Musk on the Daily Show (Score:1)