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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the no-fly-zones dept.

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.

19 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Obvious First Post by mykepredko · · Score: 4, Funny

    You have to do this to protect against illegal aliens.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re: Obvious First Post by youngone · · Score: 2

      Walls work great because a country is just like a golf course.
      If you go ahead and build the wall around all the ports and airports it will work great. Ports and airports are where the people and drugs come in.

    2. Re: Obvious First Post by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      That's only an issue now because of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re: Obvious First Post by sjames · · Score: 2

      The shutdown happened when the GOP controlled House, Senate, and the Oval office. It's the first single party shutdown in the history of the United States.

  2. twofer clickbait article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Trump and Musk in one story. This should bring out trolls and shills from every direction.

    1. Re:twofer clickbait article by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      If only there was a way to pay for the wall in Bitcoin the trifecta would be complete.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. OK, but why... by An+Ominous+Cow+Erred · · Score: 2

    ...is Elon Musk building his launchpads partly in Mexico/within feet of the border? Isn't that a security risk to the launchpad?

    1. Re:OK, but why... by Strider- · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a few miles away from the border. The dirty secret behind this stupid wall is that it's often several miles inland from the actual border due to practical construction considerations.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    2. Re:OK, but why... by dfm3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:OK, but why... by caseih · · Score: 3, Informative

      Correct. Most illegal aliens entered the country at a port of entry and overstayed their visa. In fact the country of origin with the most number of illegal aliens in the US is.... Canada.

      Most drugs come across ports of entry, or by boat. There was a major drug bust recently along the southern border at a port of entry that reinforced that fact.

      NPR did a story a while back on a bit of border wall (already funded, not part of the Trump demands) that will soon cut right through the middle of one of the US's only butterfly sanctuaries. This will not only inconvenience the land owners and the many thousands of people who visit this place (including campers), but it will also cut off many animals from their only source of water, and interfere withe the migratory paths of many species. And even stranger, there were not any existing problems with hordes of illegal aliens crossing over the frontier there or drugs. One wonders why the administration was so bent on pushing this wall through in this spot. Doesn't make any sense.

    4. Re:OK, but why... by rufey · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed. The SpaceX property, according to Google Maps (plus code: XRWV+X3 Port Isabel, Texas), is situated north of the Rio Grande river, which *is* the border between the US and Mexico. The terminus of the Rio Grande river where it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico is right there, and from satellite images, the ground looks kinda like wetlands.

      Its located at the mouth of the river where it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. The land looks like a mix of dry and marshy ground. The issue isn't that part of SpaceX's property is in Mexico (its not). Its that you can't build a wall like is being proposed in wet, marshy ground, so the actual wall will be north of the actual border, which means you can be on the south side of the wall and yet be standing on ground belonging to the US.

    5. Re:OK, but why... by Highdude702 · · Score: 2

      You haven't apparently been paying attention to drug prices. good weed(nothing you would get from mexico) is about $2k/lb making a kilo about $5k and cocaine and heroin are $20k+ per kilo and its been a while but I would assume meth is still around $15-16k/kilo. So the monetary value of drugs somebody can carry across the border unless talking about weed.... Well I'm sure you know math.

  4. Re:Floodplains & new borders? by tomhath · · Score: 2

    If I was to build a fence inside my property, after a number of years the land would become legally my neighbours

    Not true, presence of a wall somewhere on your property doesn't move the property line. Nor does the lack of a fence/wall prevent an adverse possession.

  5. There seem to be some disputed facts here? by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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.

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    -Styopa
    1. Re:There seem to be some disputed facts here? by quantaman · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      Yes, the currently proposed and constructed wall starts a dozen miles west of the SpaceX facility.

      Now DHS and CBP is proposing even more wall and fencing (after all, the usual narrative includes walling the entire border). And one of the proposed sections would go further east, through the SpaceX facility.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  6. Re:Floodplains & new borders? Asylum Corridor by charliemerritt03 · · Score: 2

    >> If I was to build a fence inside my property,
    >> after a number of years the land would
    >> become legally my neighbours

    Adverse Possession is what you refer to. In most states your neighbour has to possess that property, adversely. You can put a fence anywhere you want on your property without giving any land to anybody. However there is a problem for 45 with this - if an alien gets on USA property the alien can claim refugee status. Build that wall miles inside the USA then have border patrol agents mainly along the wall and not along the actual border seems like an invitation to asylum seekers. Screw the wall, patrol the border.

  7. Re:Floodplains & new borders? by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I was to build a fence inside my property, after a number of years the land would become legally my neighbours

    Not true, presence of a wall somewhere on your property doesn't move the property line. Nor does the lack of a fence/wall prevent an adverse possession.

    That depends on many factors. It depends on how well-defined the legal boundary is, on how long the adverse possession continues, on what use the other party makes of the bit of your property, and more.

    I doubt you could find any competent attorney who wouldn't counsel you to immediately raise a complaint about the location of the fence. You might not have to insist on it being moved, but you almost certainly want to make it abundantly clear to your neighbor that you know where the actual boundary is, and make sure they and the relevant land registrar do, too.

    I almost had to go to court over a misplaced fence once, but avoided the battle by quickly moving the fence to the correct location when the land changed hands. In my case the issue was further complicated by the fact that the adverse possession was incorporated into a right-of-way... but when the farmer who owned the field behind my house sold to a real-estate developer the right-of-way was removed anyway; it became part of the backyards of a row of homes and a new right-of-way, on a paved suburban street, was added. My attorney counseled me to quickly move the fence after the property changed hands and before construction started. The developer still might have tried to dispute the change, but it put them in the position of trying to move an established boundary marker that also matched the legal boundary -- an easy argument for me and hard for them. In any event the developer never contacted me and my new neighbor never knew there had been any dispute. Possibly the farmer never told the developer about it.

    If I'd waited until a house was built and sold and then tried to assert my ownership of part of my neighbor's backyard, my lawyer says I may well have lost, even though the legal description of the actual boundary was clear. The nature of the use of the adverse possession (right-of-way, at first, residential property, later) and the way you go about trying to fix it matter. Grabbing it back while it wasn't used at all was the ideal solution.

    In the case of a wall between the US and Mexico, that boundary has its own problems, but the wall clearly wouldn't change anything. In the area where the border is defined by the course of the Rio Grande, there have been many disputes over land that switched sides when the river moved. In 1970 a treaty was signed that settled all the previous disputes and established clear rules for addressing new changes in the river course. This is well settled, and the presence of a wall on US soil wouldn't change anything.

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  8. Re:Floodplains & new borders? Asylum Corridor by charliemerritt03 · · Score: 2

    As I understand the international law (IANAL) a person seeking refugee status can do it at any NON adjoining country. Mexicans can't claim refugee status in USA, Guatemalans can't claim in Mexico but they can here. Should Mexico allow them transit to the USA? I think not, but what will you do with a Guatemalan that is HERE claiming refugee status? You must let them in, while the validity of the claim is investigated. If you don't like that you must change international law and agreements.

  9. Re:Exactly. by Hall · · Score: 3, Informative

    Would someone PLEASE explain how a launch pad would be "cut in two" by a border wall that would sit on the US-Mexico border?

    I pay little to no attention to the subject of the proposed border wall but one part I understand is it won't be located exactly on the border. Two pretty simple reasons why it won't be - or can't be - are 1) physical barriers in the way. Part of the US-Mexico border is the Rio Grande River. Not going to build a wall in the middle of a river. 2) In order to build a fence, wall, etc, you have to work on both sides of the structure. That means workers would be in Mexico.