Category Archives: Boca Chica Texas

A view of the natural terrain along Texas State Highway 4 near the SpaceX facility and Boca Chica Beach. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

Cameron County Commissioners Court will meet Tuesday where commissioners will consider adopting a resolution in support of SpaceXs Starship/Super Heavy Program.

This is the third time the resolution has been placed on the agenda. It was tabled twice before with the latter occurring July 5 after it was recommended that the public have access to review the resolution before the commission voted on it.

The background/back up information for the resolution had not been provided at the earlier meetings.

The Commissioners Court meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. inside the Historic Dancy Building, located at 1100 E. Monroe St. The public can attend in person or by videoconference.

Individuals who would like to comment during the public comments period must submit their comments no later than 8:45 a.m. Tuesday to [emailprotected]

Portions of the resolution include that SpaceX has invested over a billion dollars in the Boca Chica launch site, providing economic benefits for Cameron County, Texas, and its residents; SpaceX activity in Cameron County has had a tremendous positive impact on job creation and economic growth in the region, to the direct benefits of residents of Cameron County; SpaceXs Boca Chica facility creates more than 1,600 SpaceX jobs, as well as hundreds of contract positions, and 71% of those residents reside in Cameron County; SpaceX has generated and supported an estimated 6,185 jobs across Cameron County as a result of investments.

The resolution also reads that in 2021 the aggregate market value of goods and services produced in the U.S. economy from SpaceX activities in Cameron County amounts to about $900 million, its anticipated that SpaceX activities in the Cameron County will generate more than $880 million in gross economic output and more than $640 million in gross county output for 2022 and more than $900 million in gross economic output and more than $640 million in gross county output for the year 2023.

The resolution further states that SpaceX has worked closely with federal, state, and local stakeholders to minimize environmental impacts of its activities; partnered with Sea Turtle Inc. in undertaking efforts to protect and conserve the Kemps ridley sea turtle and other sea turtle species; and that the FAA published a Programmatic Environmental Assessment and a Finding of No Significant Impact related to the SpaceXs Starship/Super Heavy Program.

It also states that SpaceX will undertake several measures to schedule launch operations and associated temporary access restrictions so as to avoid and minimize disruption to the public.

Several temporary road closures on Highway 4 near Boca Chica Beach have occurred during this month as testing was to have taken place at the launch site with the most recent scheduled for last Thursday. Testing is scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 10 pm. Tuesday.

On July 11, a Starship pressure test at the site ended with an explosion with smoke from the pressure test being seen as far away as South Padre Island with some visitors saying they heard what sounded like a boom.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk had said in a tweet testing was going on at the site and that what happened at the site was not actually good.

The resolution also states SpaceX will undertake numerous measures to enhance recreation, mitigate environmental impacts, and conserve environmental resources around Boca Chica.

The resolution reads that Commissioners Court supports the expansion of commercial space activities of SpaceX and other companies in and around the county while preserving and protecting public safety and reasonable public access to our beaches, and it supports the Starship/Super Heavy Project at SpaceXs Boca Chica launch site.

Commissioners Court will also vote on whether to abandon several portions of roads near the Boca Chica launch site that include Annette, Joanna and Remedios roads to support spaceport and economic development, background information on the agenda items state. They will also vote on the full abandonment of Lucero Court for the same reasons.

At a previous meeting, Alex Dominguez, a state representative and former Cameron County commissioner, who owns lands on Remedios Avenue, said he was at Boca Chica Beach about two weeks ago and when he was driving by Remedios he noticed trash on his property and that SpaceX had already taken over a part of the road.

If the county decides to abandon this road, that is what I expect to happen to the rest of the property there, in fact I think that would be the type of taking and I think that this frustrates landowners who still own land there and perhaps want to develop land, Dominguez said.

He said if the county plans to abandon the land it would be up to the property owners to not only maintain it but to provide access to the road as well.

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Commissioners Court expected to vote on resolution in support of SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy project - Brownsville Herald

Elon Musk is attempting to build the worlds most powerful rocket to take human passengers and cargo to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

The Starship is close to making its first orbital test flight, and if successful, will move the rocket a step closer to launching missions.

Two billionaires have already bought tickets for a ride on the 120-metre-tall Starship, which is being developed by SpaceX.

American Jared Isaacman has a seat on the first crewed flight.

And Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa has bought tickets for the first crewed flight to the Moon.

SpaceX is also building a Starship Human Lander that would be used by Nasa for its crewed flights to the Moon as part of the Artemis programme.

The National looks at eight key things to know about the rocket.

Three Starship rockets alongside a heavy loft booster. The reusable rockets are at the centre of SpaceX's plans for the future. Willy Lowry / The National

Starship is a two-stage rocket system that includes a booster and a Starship spacecraft.

It has been in development for many years at the Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.

The rocket has completed high-altitude tests, but it is yet to perform an orbital flight.

Mr Musk is building it to carry satellites into low-Earth orbit, astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station and uncrewed and crewed missions to the Moon.

But his ultimate goal is to use Starship to send people and cargo to Mars to eventually build a colony there.

SpaceX has built a Super Heavy Launch vehicle, or booster rocket, that the Starship will launch atop of.

The launch vehicle will be the worlds most powerful, producing 3,991 tonnes of thrust, 15 per cent more than Nasas Apollo Moon rocket Saturn V.

Starship has been designed to deliver 100 tonnes of payload to low-Earth orbit, but then will have to refuel while in orbit to reach destinations that are farther away.

SpaceX is reportedly looking to use a repurposed Starship to act as a fuel station in orbit. Several refuel rockets would launch and dock with the station, where a rocket bound for deep space could refuel.

The Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster.

To power the booster and Starship spacecraft, SpaceX is using powerful Raptor engines that can produce 230 tonnes of thrust.

That is slightly more than the RS-25 engines that Nasas new Moon rocket Space Launch System will use.

Six raptor engines will be used in the Starship spacecraft and 33 in the booster.

The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket have been designed to be fully reusable.

The booster lands back on the ground after the Starship spacecraft separates from it, and the spacecraft can also land back after delivering the payload.

SpaceXs Falcon 9 rockets are also reusable. Nasa uses them and the Crew Dragon spacecraft to launch their astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Other billionaires have also built reusable rockets. Jeff Bezoss New Shepard rocket is used for sub-orbital space tourism flights after which it lands back on ground after the crew capsule separates from it.

There is no launch date yet, because the rocket has to first prove it can fly to orbit.

Mr Musk has said if testing goes well Starship would be ready next month for an orbital test flight.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently released details of what the test flight would involve.

The rocket will launch from Starbase and then the booster will separate from the spacecraft at about 170 seconds into the flight.

The booster will then perform a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 32 kilometres from the shore.

The orbital Starship will continue flying between the Florida Straits.

It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100km off the north-west coast of Kauai, a Hawaiian island, in a soft ocean landing.

But before SpaceX can go ahead with any orbital flights, it will have to get a launch licence from the FAA.

The authority has allowed the company to carry out its work on Starbase, but it will have to meet 75 conditions to continue operations.

Some of these include reducing the environmental effects and lowering the number of road closures.

In future, however, SpaceX will use Florida's Kennedy Space Centre to launch its Starship missions.

This week, a booster rocket went up in flames after an explosion during a ground test on Monday. The test was taking place to prepare for an orbital test flight of the booster 7 and Starship 24, prototypes of the rocket.

The rocket was moved back to the garage for assessment and Mr Musk said the damage was minor.

Mr Musks long-term goal is to make life multi-planetary.

He is working towards sending a million people to Mars by 2050 using his Starship fleets.

He hopes to send the first uncrewed cargo flight to the planet this decade.

But his plans are often criticised by experts in the science community, because Mars has a notoriously hostile environment.

Updated: July 15, 2022, 3:30 AM

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Elon Musk and Starship: eight things to know about the Mars rocket - The National

Tesla is asking its customers in Texas to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak times in order to prevent overtaxing the states power grid. The alerts come as Texas grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOT, is calling on residents to conserve electricity during the recent heatwave, as the system is being pushed to near-emergency conditions.

Tesla sent an alert to customers in-car screens advising them to avoid charging their vehicles from 3PM8PM. A heat wave is expected to impact the grid in Texas over the next few days, the alert reads, according to Electrek. The grid operator recommends to avoid charging during peak hours between 3pm and 8pm, if possible, to help statewide efforts to manage demand.

(Thats a different time range than the one highlighted by ERCOT, which recommended that Texans avoid running major appliances from 2PM8PM.)

Keeping an EV unplugged during peak times can help Texas grid avoid blackouts. Triple-digit temperatures typically place more pressure on electrical systems as customers are more likely to blast their air conditioners. The heat dome fueling the heatwave is also depriving Texas of its wind power, which typically generates about a quarter of its electricity.

This is the second time this year that Tesla has encouraged off-peak charging during a Texas heatwave. The company pushed a similar alert in May 2022, when temperatures soared into the upper 90s over Mothers Day weekend.

Tesla moved its headquarters to Texas from California last year. In addition to the new Gigafactory built outside of Austin, Musk also operates a SpaceX facility in Brownsville, Texas, and he reportedly has been living at the multimillion-dollar home of a friend along a lake in Austin. (Musk denied that report, claiming he currently resides in a tiny home in Boca Chica.)

Tesla owners arent the only ones being asked to help conserve energy. Bitcoin miners in Texas are also winding down some of their operations in response to the spiking temperatures.

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Tesla asks Texans to avoid charging their EVs during peak times because of the heatwave - The Verge

Republican inroads into Texas Democratic Hispanic strongholds continue apace.

According to unofficial results, Republican Mayra Flores has won the special election to represent Texas 34th Congressional District, anchored in Cameron County.

The 34th is a sprawling district that includes a lot of rural southern Texas between San Antonio and the Gulf Coast. Cameron County is where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and includes Brownsville, Harlingen and South Padre Island.

Its an 85% Hispanic district that went for Obama by 61% in 2012, but for Biden by only 51% in 2020, an indication of the steady erosion of Democratic support among Texas Hispanics. And its also a district that suffers greatly under the Biden Administrations continued refusal to deport illegal aliens.

Its also where Elon Musks SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica is located. A small house Boca Chica is also Musks legal residence, and Musk announced on Twitter that he voted for Flores.

Flores victory represents a major upset for the historically Democratic seat.

A Republican has not won the seat since the district was drawn in the last redistricting cycle 10 years ago. In fact, over the past forty years, a Republican has only won the seat once, in 2010.

Flores squeaked past the 50 percent mark just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. At the time, runner-up Dan Sanchez, a Democrat, had just over 43 percent of the vote.

Flores enjoyed a clear advantage over Sanchez in the election day vote count. Among early voters only, the gap between the two candidates was fewer than 300 votes. Election day voters preferred Flores to Sanchez by well over a thousand votes.

The special election pitted candidates from both parties in a four-way race on the same ballot. However, party leaders largely rallied behind Flores and Sanchez.

Flores, a respiratory care practitioner, had already won the Republican primary in March before the incumbent Filemon Vela (D-TX-34) announced his retirement. Flores enjoyed the endorsements of Governor Greg Abbott and Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15), who currently represents a neighboring congressional district in South Texas, won the Democratic nomination on March 1. However, Velas abrupt resignation announcement meant that Gonzalez would have had to leave his current seat to run for the 34th district instead of waiting for a regular transition in November.

Gonzalez decided not to leave his current seat, endorsing Sanchez in his stead.

Sanchez also nabbed Velas endorsement among other prominent Democrats, such as attorney general candidate Rochelle Garza.

However, theres a caveat:

Bolstered by ongoing political trends in South Texas, timing gave Republicans an advantage.

The voting population included in District 34 under the current map leans 54 percent Democratic based on data from the past two general elections. But the voting population of the newly adopted district map leans 63 percent Democratic.

In other words, if Vela had not retired and triggered a special election, his replacement would have been decided in November by a more Democratic voting population than what the district currently includes.

Flores may face a greater challenge in November when the regular election takes place under the new map with a more Democratic voting population.

Between the impact of the Biden Recession and the continued flight of Hispanics from the Democratic Party, if ever there were a year for Republicans to defend a marginal seat, 2022 is it. Expect Flores to get all the help she needs from the state and national party to hold the seat.

Can Republicans trust her to not go squishy on border security once in office? Since shes married to a border patrol agent, Im go to go with Yes

Tags: 2022 Election, Boca Chica, Cameron County, Dan Sanchez, Elon Musk, Filemon Vela, Harlingen, Mayra Flores, Rio Grande Valley, SpaceX, Texas, Texas 34th Congressional District

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2022 at 12:19 PM and is filed under Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Republicans Flip Another Hispanic Texas House Seat

Alibaba is following in the footsteps of larger rivals by launching a tool that customers can use to measure and manage the carbon emissions of their business with the aim of lowering their environmental impact.

Energy Expert is a SaaS-based platform developed and operated by Alibaba Cloud, the computing services arm of China-based Alibaba Group. It is described as a sustainability platform to help organizations measure, analyse and manage the carbon emissions of their commercial activities.

Pricing details were not available, although Alibaba told us: "Energy Expert is a paid service, based on customers' specific requirements."

Although this is the global launch of the platform, Alibaba said it was operating in China since February and so far more than 2,000 customers have signed up. It is claimed to have delivered energy savings of in excess of 2 million kilowatt hours per day, or a reduction of 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions during this period.

According to Alibaba, Energy Expert enables users to put in place an automated carbon accounting and reporting process at both a corporate and product level. It is intended to give companies a way to identify the sources of carbon emissions from their daily business activities, as well as the full life cycle of their products, based on the internationally recognised ISO 14064 standard for carbon footprint verification and the PAS 2060 specifications for carbon neutrality.

Energy Expert gets its analytics on energy efficiency and emission forecasts through deep learning models that are hosted on Alibaba Cloud.

With Energy Expert, organizations can monitor the progress of their sustainability performance through visualisations on dashboards and online reports, designed to provide visibility into real-time carbon dioxide emission patterns.

The platform also features optimisation plans with recommendations to help balance business growth and environmental impacts, according to Alibaba. These may cover increasing the use of clean energy, reducing electricity consumption during peak times and ways of optimising an organizations supply chain.

Alibaba said that it used Energy Expert itself to implement sustainability measures at its Xixi campus in Hangzhou. It claims to have reduced power consumption at the site by 30 percent by following recommendations that included intelligent control of the air-conditioning system and the installation of roof-top solar energy panels.

Alibaba is not the only cloud giant offering to help customers monitor and reduce their carbon footprint. In October, Microsoft released the Emissions Impact Dashboard and Google rolled out a tool to measure the damage customers' compute workloads are doing to the world.

More recently, Amazon unveiled its Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, available to all AWS customers at no cost. In this case, however, the tool is designed to analyze the carbon dioxide emissions being generated by the infrastructure resources AWS is using, rather than those generated by the customer themselves.

Earlier this year, Alibaba joined a coalition of companies agreeing to open up access to energy efficient and green technologies by making relevant patents available as part of the Low Carbon Patent Pledge (LCPP). One such patent covers a liquid immersion cooling system developed in 2015 that Alibaba claims reduced its datacenter energy expenditure by 70 percent.

According to research by Greenpeace, the tech industry will use 20 percent of the world's electricity by 2025 up from 7 percent in 2020. The jump is is being attributed in part to the jump in cloud computing, where global revenues generated by use of public infrastructure clouds have grown by arounde a third each quarter since the pandemic.

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Alibaba joins rivals in offering tool for those under pressure to reduce carbon emissions - The Register

A deep-blue House district in South Texas turned bright red following a special election Tuesday suggesting Novembers midterms could be even more successful for Republicans than previously thought.

Mexico-born GOPer Mayra Flores stormed to victory with 51% of the vote in the four-person race to succeed outgoing Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela. Democrat Dan Sanchez, Velas pick to follow him in Congress, came in second with just 43.3% of the vote.

The outcome in a district where 85% of the residents are Latino and which Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton won by more than 20 percentage points in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, respectively sent shockwaves through the political landscape.

This is sort of how I felt seeing some of the shifts in Appalachia in 2010, or blue collar areas in 2016, RealClearPolitics senior elections analyst Sean Trende tweeted as the results rolled in Tuesday night. Except this I genuinely didnt think Id see for another 20 years or so. Just astonishing.

Signs of a rightward shift in the district appeared in the 2020 election, when President Biden only defeated Donald Trump by four percentage points, and Flores paid tribute to the 45th president in her victory speech.

We cannot accept the increase [in the price] of gas, of food, of medication, we cannot accept that. And we have to state the facts, that under President Trump, we did not have this mess in this country, she told a cheering crowd.

Flores, who is married to a Border Patrol agent, ran heavily on border security and was strongly backed by the Republican National Committee spending more than $1 million on TV ads introducing herself to voters, according to the Texas Tribune. As a result, she became the first Republican to represent any part of the Rio Grande Valley since 1870.

Congratulations to Mayra Flores, the next Congresswoman for TX-34! Mayra is leading the charge for Republicans who are working to flip South Texas red, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. She is a fierce conservative who will make the RGV proud, and we will continue working to reelect her in November.

Flores also earned the support of her most famous new constituent, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who owns a home in in Boca Chica part of the district that snakes up the Gulf coast between Brownsville and Corpus Christi before turning inward into rural South Texas.

I woke up this morning still feeling surreal from everything thats happened over the last 24 hours, Flores tweeted Wednesday. Earning Elon Musks vote was just the icing on the cake and I cant wait to work with his team! The American Dream is worth fighting for.

Flores wont have long to serve in Congress. As she finishes the remainder of Velas term, she will have to run to keep her seat against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. The redrawn 34th District will be more friendly to Democrats, who cited the low-turnout nature of Tuesdays special election and the money behind Flores to downplay her victory.

Based on the results, we came up short tonight despite being outspent by millions of dollars from out of state interests and the entire Republican machine, Sanchez said in his concession statement. Too many factors were against us, including little to no support from the National Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

But with Republicans on the attack in this midterm season, Tuesdays victory is a sign of whats possible for them on Nov. 8.

The new reality is much more Biden +4 than Clinton +21 or even Vela +13 (which happened in 2020), elections analyst Kyle Kondik tweeted Tuesday night. Some caveats tiny turnout, R candidate much better funded. But to me those are things that only explain so much these days.

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Shock GOP House win in Texas suggests big red wave in November - New York Post

Cayla Harris,Austin Bureau

June 15, 2022Updated: June 15, 2022 11:41a.m.

CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party, in Austin, Texas, on April 7, 2022.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, said he voted Republican for the first time on Tuesday and it was in a South Texas special election.

I voted for Mayra Flores - first time I ever voted Republican, Musk tweeted. Massive red wave in 2022.

Flores made history on Tuesday when she won the special election for the 34th Congressional District, flipping a longtime Democratic stronghold and soon becoming the first congresswoman born in Mexico. She is the first Republican elected to represent that area of the Rio Grande Valley in more than 150 years.

A HISTORIC WIN: Republican Mayra Flores flips South Texas district to become first Mexican-born congresswoman

Welcome to the Republican Party! Flores replied. We welcome all walk aways from all walks of life. The party of opportunity, prosperity, and freedom is here to stay. We look forward to working together and building a better future for all of America.

Musk, who is registered to vote in Cameron County, has become increasingly involved in Texas affairs in recent years. He moved Teslas corporate headquarters to Austin last year, while SpaceX has a facility in Boca Chica and The Boring Company Musks infrastructure and tunnel construction business is based in Pflugerville.

Welcome to the party! Attorney General Ken Paxton replied to Musks tweet. Keep Texas Bright Red!

cayla.harris@express-news.net

Featured Texas Politics Stories

Cayla Harris covers state politics out of Hearst's Austin bureau. She previously covered New York state government for the Albany Times Union. She is a 2019 graduate of the George Washington University, where she studied journalism and Spanish. During her time in D.C., she interned for the Hearst Washington bureau.

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Elon Musk says he voted Republican for the first time in Mayra Flores' Texas special election - Houston Chronicle

SpaceXs massive and totally-reusable launch vehicle, the Starship and Super Heavy, is getting closer to its first orbital test flight! According to the flight plan filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), this will consist of a fully-stacked spacecraft and booster prototype (SN24 and BN7) taking off from the SpaceX Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas. The booster element will separate at suborbital altitude and land off the coast of Texas, while the Starship will carry on to an altitude of 200 km (125 mi), placing it in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

With this milestone in its rearview, SpaceX will have fully validated its super-heavy launch system and be ready to conduct crewed flights. According to previous statements by Musk, these flights will include payloads and crews destined for the Moon and Mars. During the SpaceX All-Hands Meeting which took place on Sunday, June 5th Musk showed how the Starship will also be used to deploy Starlink satellites like a Pez dispenser. This announcement and the slideshow presented at the meeting were shared by Musk via Twitter shortly thereafter.

As indicated in the slideshow, SpaceX has had a banner year on top of banner years! Among its accomplishments, the company has come a long way in terms of launches and retrievals, human spaceflight, the deployment of its Starlink broadband satellite constellation, the development of the Starship, and the construction of the Starbase factory facility at Boca Chica. But it was perhaps the animation of the Starship deploying Starlink satellites that was particularly attention-grabbing.

In what appeared as an emphatic illustration, the animation shows a Starship deploying next-generation Starlink satellites in orbit above Earth. A cutaway reveals that its forward payload section is loaded with Starlink satellites, captioned by the words V2.0 Satellite Production. This section comes after slides that recap the companys success with the broadband internet service to date, which includes the over 500,000 users worldwide, and the fact that the meeting coincided with the third anniversary of the deployment of the first batches (V0.9).

In the animation, we see the satellites stacked inside the spacecraft in their folded-flat configuration and spat out through a slender aperture in the side. The Pez comparison is quite apt (as would the term machine gun) as the satellites are vertically stacked, and a new one is loaded the moment the one beneath it is fired. Another key detail is the top-mounted solar panels that begin to glow after the perspective shifts and the satellites are hit by direct sunlight. Interestingly, this segment accounts for roughly a quarter of the videos overall runtime 42 seconds from just over 2 minutes.

This would appear to indicate that this aspect of the companys future, where the Starship is committed to deploying Starlinks V2.0s, is one that Musk is particularly concerned with right now. Musk spoke about this next-generation satellite on a recent episode of Everyday Astronaut (uploaded on May 26th) and how the development of the Starship was crucial to their deployment:

Its the only thing that can carry the Starlink Two satellites. Weve already produced the first, and we have on-site, the first Starlink Two and its seven meters long (23 ft). [The] Falcon [9] has neither the volume nor the mass-to-orbit capability required for Starlink Two. So even if we shrunk the Starlink Two down, the total upmass of Falcon is not nearly enough to do Starlink Two.

The Starlink V2.0 weights 1,250 kg (2,760 lb), about four times the mass of the operational V1.0 and 1.5 versions. Musk also explained in the episode that the Starlink V2.0 would be almost an order of magnitude more capable than V1.0 in terms of communications bandwidth. Its little wonder why this aspect of the companys future was so heavily featured in the slideshow, as it involves two key SpaceX programs. Similarly, according to a recent CNBC article that cited SpaceX employees, Musk pushed the date for a Starlink IPO down the road again (likely 2025 or later).

This occurred during a company meeting that reportedly took place on Thursday, June 2nd (just three days before the All-Hands Meeting). Basically, the success of the Starship and Starlink are interconnected, and Musk is faced with the tough question of when to take the latter public. Given the importance of Starlink for SpaceXs long-term vision (financing missions to Mars), Musk appears to be taking the cautious approach i.e. holding off on an IPO until the Starship can show it can rapidly replace lost satellites and patch holes in coverage.

Other accomplishments were highlighted during the slideshow. First, theres how SpaceX has managed to establish a launch cadence that is the envy of every other commercial space company on the planet averaging one launch per week. Theyve also established a highly respectable launch and recovery record, with 160 successful flights, 122 successful retrievals, and 98 reflights (where retrieved boosters were reused). They also established a record for turnaround time between launches (21 hours) and managed to conduct four flights with the Falcon Heavy in 2022 alone.

In terms of human spaceflight, the slideshow lauded the companys many strides. Of course, these included the decade-worth of payload deliveries to the International Space Station (ISS) using the Dragon spacecraft, the first all-civilian flight to the ISS (Axiom-1). Curiously, there was no mention of the Crew Dragon (Dragon 2) missions that brought astronauts to the ISS as part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and effectively restored domestic launch capability to the U.S. (What gives Elon? That was huge!). However, there was a teaser slide that mentioned the proposed commercial spacewalk aka. the Polaris Dawn mission.

Last, but not least, the slideshow features the milestones achieved with the Starship and Super Heavy launch system, which include the completion of the Ship 24 and Booster 7 prototypes (aka. SN24 and BN7) and the Raptor 2.0 engine that will take both of them to space. We also see the giant mechanical arm (Mechazilla) stacking the SN24 on top of BN7, which will also be responsible for catching boosters upon their return to the launch facility. The last slide shows the upgraded and expanded Starbase Factory where Starships will be assembled en masse in the near future.

Regardless of public opinion over Musks recent activities (the Twitter deal and his public statements on wokeism come to mind!), there is no doubt that the company he built has had a long and fruitful history. And while the timelines he has provided in the past have always been on the optimistic side, he has a demonstrable aptitude for getting things done. Since its inception in 2001, SpaceX has made some very impressive strides, become the leading innovator of the NewSpace industry, and accomplished what many said could not be done.

Theyve also blazed a trail that many have followed, bringing new ideas and innovation to a burgeoning marketplace that is ensuring humanitys future in space. It will be very exciting to see what comes of it in the next twenty years. Grab some popcorn and take a seat because its all happening soon!

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Starship Will Spit out Starlinks Like a Candy Dispenser - Universe Today

Summer has arrived along with the hot and long days. With the temperatures rising in the cities, maybe its time to plan a beach day.

1. Galveston

Galveston, oh, Galveston, I still hear your sea winds blowing I still see her dark eyes glowing, says the song of the celebrated songwriter and performer Glen Campbell. Located an hour south of Houston, this is probably the most popular town beach in Texas. Art, food, culture, and entertainment are some of the things that Galveston has to offer. It also has amusement parks and museums such as The Bryan Museum and Galveston Railroad Museum. Its very crowded on the weekends and if you are looking for a relaxing beach spot, this may not be it.

2. Boca Chica

This laid black beach is located in Northern Mexico. The ambiance is familiar and quiet, perfect for bringing a book or laying on the sand. Boca Chica differs from other Texas beaches because of the villages lack of activities. Although this is a benefit for some: its not usually crowded and fits best to do fishing, swimming, surfing, and snorkeling, according to the website Upgrade Points. The sunsets in Boca Chica are long and colorful in the summer.

3. Padre Island National Seashore

Fun fact: Padre Island is the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, according to Upgrade Points. This Texan beach stands out from the others because of the crossing dunes and sandy landscapes. Padre Island National Seashore is also a park recognized for its wild nature, it covers more than 66 miles of seashore and the Laguna Madre. It has more than 380 bird species and its a safe nest for the Kemps ridley sea turtle. If you are looking to connect with nature, this is the place.

4. South Padre Island

Food Courts, various affordable accommodations, a turtle rehabilitation center South Padre Island is one of the most touristic beaches in Texas according to USN News. Once it was a Spring Break destination. It has amazing views of the Gulf of Mexico and a very busy nightlife. South Padre Island is located in southern Texas, near Aransas bay.

5. Mustang Island

This is the perfect location for families and campers. White sand and clear skies are everyday things. The best attraction of this place is the Mustang Island State Park Paddling Trail, a 20-mile series of shallow-water canals that you can move through paddle, kayak, or canoe. Located east of Corpus Christi.

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5 Beaches In Texas You Have To Visit This Summer - Reform Austin

Parts of the Starship Heavy Lift Vehicle stand waiting at the SpaceX Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Expansion plans for the site have been frustrated by delayed approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. But that approval could come soon enough to allow a Starship test later this month. Image via Wikipedia.SpaceX Starship ready to fly in May?

An optimistic tweet in March from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expressing hope the company can fly the Starship Heavy Lift Vehicle into orbit as soon as this month might have been based on more than just wishful thinking. Musks declaration coincided with the FAA receiving a favorable environmental report on SpaceXs plans to expand the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

The tweet, which Musk posted March 21, 2022, described the extreme power of the companys new generation of rocket motors and announced enough units were completed to send Starship on a test flight out of Earths atmosphere:

Musks announcement came three weeks after the U.S. Department of the Interiors Fish and Wildlife Service which conducted a detailed 141-page environmental review of SpaceXs plans to expand launches in Texas sent the document to the FAA for review. News that the draft BCO (Biological and Conference Opinion) was in the FAAs hands came via an exclusive report from the broadcast network CNBC, which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The report deals mainly with a group of endangered species living on the Starbase property and in the coastal wetlands surrounding it. The area is home to two species of endangered wildcats, the ocelot and the jaguarundi; as well as the northern Aplomado falcon; a pair of shorebirds, the piping plover and the red knot; and four species of sea turtles, the Kemps ridley, loggerhead, hawksbill, green and leatherback.

The Kemps ridley is the worlds rarest and most endangered sea turtle. Yet, risk to the Kemps ridley and other endangered species in the area can be mitigated by simple actions if expansion plans are approved, the report said. According to the Fish and Games cover letter for the BCO:

In the accompanying BCO, the Service determined that the action, as proposed, is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the species listed above. The action area encompasses a relative small portion of the rangewide habitat of each of the species addressed in this opinion and small portion of each species population.

Actions to lessen impacts on the at-risk species includes SpaceX-funded conservation of similar habitat elsewhere, fewer lights and less noise, monitoring how the species react to the upcoming changes and making sure anomalies in the form of crashed spacecraft and the resulting debris removal disturb the local wildlife as little as possible.

The species with the most to lose as SpaceX reaches for the moon and Mars is the piping plover. From the BCO:

The proposed action will result in the direct loss of 446.27 acres of piping plover habitat and critical habitat from construction and operation and the corresponding conversion of wind tidal flats. The proposed action will also result in an impact to 903.67 acres of occupied piping plover habitat and critical habitat in Critical Habitat Units TX-1.

The red knot also stands to see a large portion of its local habitat impacted by the proposed expansion. However, the 446.27 acres of red knot habitat that will be affected should be offset by Fish and Games plan to designate more than 680,000 acres elsewhere as critical habitat for the bird. The BCO describes a similar offset to protect the piper plover, which will see just 0.4 percent of its total habitat affected by SpaceXs plans.

Perhaps most concerning is the reports prediction of the impact to the extremely endangered Kemps ridley sea turtle, which could see the death of up to eight adults annually and the loss of three nests, along with as many as 330 hatchlings and eggs.

Either the FAA or the Fish and Game Service could initiate a new environmental review of the Starbase site at Boca Chica if certain conditions arise, chief among them being the death of too many individual animals from the various species listed in the BCO.

A renewed environmental review could also be started if new negative effects on the at-risk animals are discovered, if new species are discovered to be affected by SpaceXs operations or if the scope of review is modified in the future.

Should the number of endangered animals killed or harmed known as the take becomes too large, the controlling agencies will bring things to a halt. From the BCO:

In instances where the amount or extent of incidental take is exceeded, any operations causing such take must cease pending reinitiation.

Finally, the BCO could be the final biological report needed for SpaceX to fully begin upgrades at Starbase. From the BCOs closing pages:

If the Service determines there have been no significant changes in the action as planned or in the information used during the conference, the Service will confirm the conference opinion as the biological opinion for the project and no further section 7 consultation will be necessary.

Bottom line: FAA environmental approval for expansion of SpaceXs Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, could allow a test flight this month.

Award-winning reporter and editor Dave Adalian's love affair with the cosmos began during a long-ago summer school trip to the storied and venerable Lick Observatory atop California's Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose in the foggy Diablos Mountain Range and far above Monterey Bay at the edge of the endless blue Pacific Ocean. That field trip goes on today, as Dave still pursues his nocturnal adventures, perched in the darkness at his telescope's eyepiece or chasing wandering stars through the fields of night as a naked-eye observer.A lifelong resident of California's Tulare County - an agricultural paradise where the Great San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada in endless miles of grass-covered foothills - Dave grew up in a wilderness larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, one choked with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna in the US, one which passes its nights beneath pitch black skies rising over the some of highest mountain peaks and greatest roadless areas on the North American continent.Dave studied English, American literature and mass communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a number of news publications on- and offline during a career spanning nearly 30 years so far. His fondest literary hope is to share his passion for astronomy and all things cosmic with anyone who wants to join in the adventure and explore the universe's past, present and future.

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SpaceX might be back on target with Starship in Texas - EarthSky