Trump's Border Wall Could Split SpaceX's Texas Launchpad In Two (latimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times A launchpad on the U.S.-Mexico border, which it plans to use for rockets carrying humans around the world and eventually to Mars, could be split in two by the Trump administration's planned wall... Lawmakers said they were concerned about the effect on the company's 50-acre facility after seeing a Department of Homeland Security map showing a barrier running through what they described as a launchpad...

James Gleeson, a SpaceX spokesman, declined to provide details on how the fence would affect the facility. "The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently requested SpaceX permit access to our South Texas Launch site to conduct a site survey," he said in a statement. "At this time, SpaceX is evaluating the request and is in communication with DHS to further understand their plans...." Musk is working on a new, more powerful vehicle known as Starship to eventually ferry humans to Mars. SpaceX recently announced that it would test the Starship test vehicle at the site in south Texas.

Comments

Re:OK, but why...

[dfm3]

I actually visited the site last year...

Someone once explained the physics to me, and from what I understand it's advantageous to launch a rocket eastward, and as close to the equator as possible, because you're using the earth's spin to give you a little extra speed. Otherwise you have to expend more fuel to generate enough speed for low earth orbit.

Now, you don't want to build your facility in a location where if a rocket fails, pieces could fall onto populated areas, so you want to build near water. And most of the lower Rio Grande valley is either agricultural land, developed suburbs, or is marshy and easily flooded, so those make poor locations to build a launch facility. But there's a large river delta east of Brownsville that is undeveloped, has areas of relatively "high ground" (low gravel sandbars a few feet above sea level) and is not suitable for agriculture, so land is fairly cheap.

As for security? A CBP agent stationed there told me that although you could wade across the Rio Grande (it's 50 feet wide and very shallow), almost nobody wants to... they'd have to cross miles of marshland north of Playa Bagdad and then bushwhack across a heavily monitored wildlife refuge, and nobody wants to do that. Somebody who is trying to cross the border outside of a port of entry (which is actually how most people with illegal intent enter the US) will generally avoid facilities with chain link fences and surveillance, because they don't want to draw attention to themselves... they just go to Matamoros and find an easier crossing close to the city where they can quickly disappear into the suburbs.

There seem to be some disputed facts here?

[argStyopa]

"Lawmakers said they were concerned about the effect on the company's 50-acre facility after seeing a Department of Homeland Security map showing a barrier running through what they described as a launchpad..."
Does it? Let's check this out: As you can see on the wiki about the South Texas site ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) and a map of the site from SpaceX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... show that the launch sites (ostensibly the "pads") are just south of Brazos Island State Park pretty much right on the coast, with the control center buildings almost directly west of them. The launch area is about 2.8 miles north of the Rio Grande, which is actually the border (but the Trump wall wouldn't of course be precisely in the river, it would logically be set back somewhat).

Yet https://www.usatoday.com/borde... USA today says:

The Texas fencing is full of gaps.
The border fence begins in Texas, but it's miles inland from the border's edge at the Gulf of Mexico. Elsewhere, fences start and stop with huge gaps in between. This is all pedestrian fencing, pictured in red on the map, designed to stop people from crossing

...with the diagrammed fence just east of Brownsville, complaining that the proposed fence starts "miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico"...ie 10-12 miles from the SpaceX site, and nearly 15 miles from the pads themselves.

So the USA today map and overflight show that the proposed border wall starts at least a dozen miles from the plotted site of the SpaceX facility.

Someone's astonishingly wrong or lying deliberately.