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SpaceX Brownsville Space Port Opposed By Texas Environmentalists
MarkWhittington writes "The proposed SpaceX space port in Brownsville, Texas, has run into opposition from an environmental group. Environment Texas is conducting a petition drive to stop the project. According to a news release by the group, the proposed space port, which would include a launch pad and control and spacecraft processing facilities, would be 'almost surrounded' by a park and wildlife refuge. Environment Texas claims the launching of rockets would 'scare the heck' out of every creature in the area and would 'spray noxious chemicals all over the place.' The petition will demand SpaceX build the space port elsewhere." I suspect a lot of people in Brownsville are instead looking forward to the jobs, tourists and excitement that a spaceport would bring.
Having an environmental group in Texas? How is that even real? I don't believe Environment Texas actually exists. It is contrary to everything Texans stand for.
Really, why do people think "Because...Jobs!!" is a good way to make an argument?
Do you think it trumps the other concerns?
Maybe the problem is deeper than just one employer, maybe there are values other than just employment.
I know, putting people to work is the Holy Grail of society, but didn't we learn not to choose poorly?
'scare the heck' out of every creature in the area and would 'spray noxious chemicals all over the place.'
Yeah, that fairly describes anywhere hosting a spring break.
Oh, and Texas vermints and critters don't scare that easily. They won't give a hoot about no spaceman rockets.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Mojave is only certified for horizontal launch of spacecraft, such as Scaled Composite's White Knight/SpaceShip1 combo. SpaceX is launching rockets. Doesn't really fly to launch those over land. People tend to complain. That's why they are all located on coasts. Kennedy, Wallops, Vandenberg... Brownsville is an ideal location. Now, Kennedy is also in the middle of a wildlife preserve, as is the Stennis Space Center where they do engine testing. Animals don't have the heck scared out of them at either location. Nor are their noxious chemicals spread all over.
There's nothing wrong with treating most of the planet like a national park, IMO. The problem is that ecosystems aren't as fragile as these idiots think. Just spraying "chemicals" all over the place isn't going to hurt anything, nor will some extremely occasional noises scare any animals or plants into oblivion. Different ecosystems may have achille's heels. Science will help to identify those and other issues.
What definitely kills animals and plants is deforestation and destruction of the landscape, mostly (excluding extractive industries) committed by poor and indigent people all around the world because of lack of alternative economic opportunities.
The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida doesn't seem to be an issue - pretty much everything Nasa has had in its arsenal has been launched from within it at some point or another, and we haven't seen any animals with nervous breakdowns...
as demonstrated by the Merrit Island National Wildlife Refuge (http://kennedyspacecenter.com/wildlife-refuge.aspx), which includes Kennedy Space Center. Gotta say, when I watched the SpaceX launch last week, I didn't notice any 'gators running away in panic. Five minutes after the launch, the frogs were ribbiting just as loudly as before liftoff. In TX I suppose it will be 'dillos, and I doubt they'll notice launch operations any more than KSC's wildlife has over the decades of launch operations there.
I have. For all intents and purposes, it is desert. You might scare some rattle snakes and a few cactus. It really is one of the few places I would say sure, dump the nuclear waste here.
Science!
The mohave is hundreds of miles further away from the equator than Brownsville. The closer to the equator, the lower amount of fuel you need to reach certain orbits. The rotation of the earth adds to your relative speed, and this amount of speed provided increases the closer to the equator you get.
Why is it better to launch a spaceship from near the equator?
Escape to where, exactly? Alarmist as they may be at times, environmentalists have a point: we all live here, and we haven't found anywhere else to populate. Evacuating the Earth is a fantasy even more remote from reality than the most extreme environmentalist solutions.
Stop pissing in my Cheerios. I was raised on Star Trek, and won't take reality for an answer to faith in Scientism.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
My understanding is that they want to be able to land the first stage for reuse, and if they launch from eastern Texas, then Florida is just about the right distance to provide a convenient landing point. If they launch from Florida, they don't have that.
What noxious chemicals are they talking about? Somehow I suspect they lack the technical expertise accurately assess the environmental impact if they will make a ridiculous claim like that. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the technologies used in SpaceX rockets.
if you actually read what you linked to you would realized that the main problem had nothing to do with the shuttle or even the rocket launches them selves but rather a 50's-60's-70's NASA that was operating without any environmental regulation. SpaceX uses LOX / RP-1 which has about the same by products as Jets. While yes it will put more soot into the air per flight than a jet, i have a sneaking feeling that it will be no where near the total amount over time that is put into the air of normal large airport.
Again the cleanup you linked to was for a chemical that isn't used much any more and is a problem because they where pouring it into the ground when they where done because at the time no one knew any better.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is adjacent to Kennedy Space Center and in fact, part of the refuge is also controlled by KSC. They have not experienced gloom nor doom there, and in fact, quite the contrary: Brevard County is one of the most biodiverse areas in the United States.
That's after launching 135 Space Shuttles, multiple Saturn rockets, as well as other programs that litter American history. And next to KSC is the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch area, a place that has seen too many rocket launches to mention.
One has to wonder what makes the Brownsville area so much more at risk.
Timothy's post linked to a partisan blogger. Here are the threats, per Environment Texas:
--- "According to a 2011 Texas A&M study, nature tourism generates about $300 million a year in the Rio Grande Valley, created 4,407 full- and part-time jobs and $2.6 million in sales taxes and $7.26 million in hotel taxes."
--- "The Rio Grande Valley has been named the number two destination in North America for birdwatching and attracts visitors from all over the world to view almost 500 species of bird."
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has many objections:
--- "noise, heat, vibration, fencing and hazardous material spills" from the project could harm endangered and threatened species and diminish the value of Boca Chica State Park (near Brownsville) and the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge
--- TPWD previously declined SpaceX's request about "leasing parkland for the project"
--- "potential for significant contamination of very senstive resources in the event of a catastrophic event (i.e., hurricane)"
--- the area is "extremely susceptible to wildfires" which could result from launch failures and accidental fires
--- concern "with the loss of the function and value of all wetlands"
--- "recreational use of the TPWD lands as currently planned would need to be revised"
--- "the proposed project area is within the Central Flyway, a route through which over 500 species of birds migrate annually
All from:
http://www.environmenttexas.org/news/txe/spacex-attempting-launch-rockets-near-texas-wildlife-refuge
What's the condition of Merritt? Before and after NASA? Is it affected the same way as Brownsville would be?
It is, was and will be a pestilential swamp. Mosquitoes, alligators and snakes don't much mind rocket launches. There are a bunch of birds there as well but they seem pretty happy. The launch facilities really just take up a small strip of land right on the coast. Given the requirement to have lots of space around each launcher it's easy to go off a main road and end up in the bush and think you're in the middle of nowhere.
There was a fair amount of hazmat stuff from the 50's and 60's lying around but that's mostly been cleaned up now.
A bigger issue would be frequency of launches. The Cape really isn't very active these days and hasn't been for a long time. If SpaceX was pushing hundreds of launches per year, that might affect wildlife. OTOH, armadillos are pretty damned stupid. Not much bothers them. Not even Texans.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So you are saying that industrial and other economic activity by rich economies isn't the major source of environmental degradation? Really?
You know how I can tell you're not very familiar with the former Soviet republics?
"Scare the heck out of wildlife?" What does that mean in real actual sciencey terms? Because in five minutes I learned that they've got a decent-sized airport in the city, and the city scored the theoretical worst score on a scale of human impact on the environment, according to some arbitrary rating system invented by treehugging luddites. After about ten more minutes, I found that the actual site is so close to Mexico you'd need a passport if you tripped over a branch, and while the area is indeed known for its birdwatching potential, the only endangered thing even nearby is the ocelot, and that's well away from the site. The word "desolate" kept coming up, and this was in Texas tourism ad copy. Not "wild, windswept shores unsullied by the hand of Man." Just "ain't shit here; good fishin' though." So there's already frequent air traffic, and the area isn't exactly pristine wilderness. It's a rocket pad, not a strip mine. How much damage could it actually do to what appears to be a mile and a half of sand?
Meanwhile, it looks like the overwhelming majority of Brownsvillians not only want the site, but could use the revenue. Not to diminish the environmentalists' argument overly much, but from a distance this sure looks like a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing Austin treehuggers minding other people's business for them. I'll hazard a guess that Austin doesn't really need the money like Brownsville does, which makes it much easier for the Austin-based group to tell Brownsville that they ought to turn SpaceX (and any potential revenue) away.
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Rocket launching is far more dangerous to humans than to wildlife.
The wildlife at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral seems not too spooked by anything short of an actual launch, and then only briefly.
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=27
I specially like the shot of the Osprey nesting on the parking lot sign.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The thing I don't understand is why they absolutely want this location despite the risk to the environment it would have. Isn't there plenty of suitable locations in the USA that aren't literally surrounded by a state park?
There are three things to note here. First, as AC noted, Brownsville is as far south as you can get in the lower 48. Closer to the equator means more delta v and more payload to orbit. Second, as has been noted elsewhere, JFK Space Center is downrange from Brownsville and allows SpaceX a convenient place for their reusable first stages to land.
Third, being surrounded by a refuge is a feature not a bug. Rockets have a risk of not going where they're supposed to. It's better to create a crater in a refuge than a crater in a town, as the Chinese found out.
First, you keep posting a link to the group's own press release. That's not exactly an unbiased source. But let's just go ahead and use their numbers, because they're still very obviously wrong about the overall argument.
Second, the Rio Grande Valley is much bigger than the 49 acres of land SpaceX is asking for, and the Boca Chica site is at the very farthest eastern end of the river. In fact, it's probably more accurate to think of Boca Chica as part of the Gulf Coast rather than part of the Rio Grande Valley. For reference, the Rio Grande Valley is the southern bottom of Texas, and Boca Chica is pretty much a dot on the Gulf Coast just above the Rio Grande. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd guess that it doesn't quite make up 1% of the land area of the RGV.
Third, Boca Chica State Park is completely undeveloped, and is only open during the day. There are no, repeat, no facilities in the park. The road doesn't even stay paved up to the beach. Your precious hotel taxes? Not from Boca Chica, because there are no hotels there. Sales taxes? Not from Boca Chica; there isn't so much as a lemonade stand. So the money that your group is mentioning does not even a little bit come from Boca Chica, unless you count any parking fees, of which there appear to be none, as there don't appear to be any parking spaces at the park. It is literally just a beach.
So, no, it doesn't affect jobs, and I wish you'd quit tossing out the same link to the same damn article from TFA above. Here, here's a link from Texas Parks and Wildlife: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wildlife/wildlife-trails/coastal/lower/boca-chica-loop. Boca Chica is #43 on the map.
Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boca_Chica_State_Park. You can see some pictures of the place. The only development appears to be two old wooden fenceposts which show where the road stops, and a rusted-out oil drum for trash. Unless Texas hired someone specifically to drive out, straighten the fenceposts, and empty the trash, Boca Chica does not currently offer any significant employment opportunities.
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Years ago they were worried that the launch facility in Florida would have a negative impact on the surrounding wildlife.
Turns out it was one of the best things that could have happened down there.
Besides, I've seen Texan deer, your dog is probably bigger.
We have pretty good amount of space here on earth too. We can colonise the sea for instance, or build down instead of up. There is lots of space available before we even come up with crazy plans to build O'Neil colonies in space.
Building into the ocean is much harder than it looks. It would be seriously cheaper to build at L-5 than to build a floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico (where the climate is at least fairly agreeable). If you could seastead in a fairly economical manner, it would be done in a serious way right now.
Antarctica is often suggested as a place you can go that is more hospitable to life than Mars, and I'd have to agree. The problem with Antarctica is that politically you can't do anything there because of the various treaties and a very real concern that a major colonization effort in Antarctica would result in a major world conflict like World War II over who owns what on that continent. Treating the place as a playground by scientists is one way to diffuse the issue and kick the can down the road for another century or more, where hopefully resources from space will make anything that can be obtained from Antarctica irrelevant.
Digging down is just plain stupid. Again, it would be done much more than it is if it was so easy. Most of the time people are digging up into the sky, which is something that has been happening for a couple of centuries and the last century in particular. While the very tall skyscrapers have all of the headlines, there are a great many smaller buildings that still go over a dozen stories and include both residential, commercial, and industrial facilities. Digging up into the sky does cost money and is only done in urban centers where it makes sense.
I might agree that an archology could be built that could house up to a million people in a relatively small footprint of land and be able to be self-sufficient. These do require a substantial supply of raw materials and in order to get built require the urban services of a large metro area to at least get started until self-sufficiency is attained. For myself though, I think it will take building stuff like an O'Neill colony and learning how to manage resources effectively in space to be able to build proper archologies on the Earth. Furthermore, it will be from space where the raw materials to build stuff like that will come from rather than from digging stuff out of the ground here on the Earth.
Space is huge. So mingbogglingly huge that you can't possibly imagine just how much room you have to expand in space. The future of humanity is up there, not on this rock... which can be turned into an ecological reserve in due time. The only other end game if we stay here on the Earth is to do some sort of Malthusian genocide as the current growth of mankind can't survive on limited resources. In space there are more galaxies than people, and more stars in this galaxy than people. It will also take a long, long time before it can even be remotely considered to be crowded in this Solar System alone.
Yes, that's why Northern California never builds anything. And why you live inside a a coal plant.
You corporate power worshippers are suicidal.
--
make install -not war
Space exploration with today's technology might well be like trying to build a 747 in medieval times. It's not going to go any faster no matter how much money you pour into hot air balloon building. The best thing you could have done at the time was to fund research in physics.
If you really want to explore space, you probably need to invest in the LHC and similar fundamental research.