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By Juan Montoya
Why is everyone so surprised?
Oh, admittedly, the fireball that obliterated the Starship prototype out at Boca Chica was quite a blast. It has so far beat anything that Elon Musks' outfit has put together out in the mud flats.
And you should get used to it. That is about as good as it's going to get.
Why do we say that?
You see, despite the hype put out by the shovel full by former Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez and ex-Brownsville Economic Development Corporation huckster Gilbert Salinas, the vaunted vertical commercial satellite launch site that would being 600 good-paying jobs at $75,000 each and scientific knowledge that will uplift the masses in Las Prietas, Southmost and even Laureles, is never coming.
And despite the fact that the facts on the ground shown them to have been wrong, both are still dishing out the hype. Martinez told Border Report that:"The City of Brownsville put up $5 million, the State of Texas put in $15 million, 5 acres of land was donated from the nearby port, and the University of Texas Rio-Grande Valley added $10 million to begin a STARGATE program, which stands for Spacecraft Tracking and Astronomical Research facility. That facility is located about one mile from the launch pad.
'It was a community effect of everybody putting into this and that’s the beauty of the deal because everybody is now invested in this,'Martinez said.
"Gilberto Salinas, who was the executive vice president of the BEDC at the time they were trying to get SpaceX here, said Friday that the company created 500 jobs (where?) for the region and paid back the $5 million to the City of Brownsville in less than four years. He said the economic prospects the facility brings are as limitless as the stars in the sky."Beto and Tone, pleeeeze! SpaceX abandoned that idea when they got an alternate land-use plan approved by the FAA to build a test facility instead.
![EL RRUN RRUN: NASA'S SPACEX CHOICE DOES NOT INCLUDE BOCA CHICA]()
So don't start saving your pennies to purchase your kid a space suit so he and future Brownsville generations will star hop through the galaxies. It ain't gonna happen.
In fact, it was never meant to happen.
What SpaceX and Musk wanted – and got – was a backwater engine test site where they can fail on land so that when they put together their invention on a launch pad in at Cape Canaveral it will have a better than average chance that it won't go up in flames there.
In fact, it is an engine test site much like a junkyard of spare parts where Musk can put together engines under a strong mesquite and see if it will run. If it works, good. If it doesn't, well that's good too. If it breaks apart, well, now you know what won't work and you don't repeat the mistake.
That, in a nutshell, is all Boca Chica will amount to. That, is fact, is all that SpaceX and Musk wanted: a place where they can try stuff out and if it doesn't work, try something else. By this measure, the explosion that obliterated the prototype there was a complete success. Now they know that what they had wasn't going to work.
“We've got a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool,” Musk said
You see, the local yokels plunked down good bond money (which local taxpayers will keep paying for years to come) for an amphitheater and infrastructure across the ship channel to view the fireworks in the mistaken notion that they would be able to cash in on the tourists coming to watch satellites being launched step by step until Musk could start colonizing Mars. From Boca Chica.
Space.com puts it this way: "The company's first prototype, the Starship Mk1, was destroyed during a pressure test in November 2019. Its successor SN1 was lost in a similar test in February. The next iteration, SN2, successfully passed the pressure test in March. The SN3 prototype, meanwhile, collapsed during testing in April. Musk later said that leaky valves were the culprit and that it would be fixed on the next vehicle.
The Starship SN4 was by far the longest-lived and most-tested Starship prototype to date. (Yesterday's) static-fire engine test was the fifth for the vehicle, the most of any to date.
SpaceX was already building another Starship prototype, the SN5, at the time of the SN4 failure. That vehicle will likely take center stage for the company's next round of tests."
TechCrunch concurs: "This is why space companies test frequently and stress test vehicles during development — to ensure that the final operational vehicles are incredibly safe and reliable when they need to be.
SpaceX is already working on additional prototypes, including assembling SN5 nearby in Boca Chica, so it’s likely to resume its testing program quickly once it can clear the test stand and move in the newest prototype."
Boca Chica has become what your shade tree mechanics needs: a site for the trial and error necessary to make a working space ship. Not to launch one, mind you. But to see what works and what will explode or collapse.
What would space tourist see if they came in by the thousands generating million for the local economy and putting "heads in beds," thrusting a Southmost scientist toward Mars, etc... and putting Brownsville on the technological frontiers? If SpaceX is successful in its tests (of whatever nature it is) the gawkers will see nothing.
There will be no launch, and no rocket disappearing into the clouds. Nada. Noting. Zilch. That's because the part being tested survived and passed the test successfully. The only thing visible through their binoculars will be an upright craft.
The final pieces of the eventual craft will be assembled somewhere else and placed on a launch pad in Florida after all the parts have been put together and put men on the space station, around the moon, or – and this is the Musk pie-in-the sky – Mars.
So get used to the fact that Boca Chica is like the very tip of the Musk's SpaceX coat tails. Failures like the one here yesterday assures success over there.
So don't start saving your pennies to purchase your kid a space suit so he and future Brownsville generations will star hop through the galaxies. It ain't gonna happen.
In fact, it was never meant to happen.
What SpaceX and Musk wanted – and got – was a backwater engine test site where they can fail on land so that when they put together their invention on a launch pad in at Cape Canaveral it will have a better than average chance that it won't go up in flames there.
In fact, it is an engine test site much like a junkyard of spare parts where Musk can put together engines under a strong mesquite and see if it will run. If it works, good. If it doesn't, well that's good too. If it breaks apart, well, now you know what won't work and you don't repeat the mistake.
That, in a nutshell, is all Boca Chica will amount to. That, is fact, is all that SpaceX and Musk wanted: a place where they can try stuff out and if it doesn't work, try something else. By this measure, the explosion that obliterated the prototype there was a complete success. Now they know that what they had wasn't going to work.
“We've got a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool,” Musk said
You see, the local yokels plunked down good bond money (which local taxpayers will keep paying for years to come) for an amphitheater and infrastructure across the ship channel to view the fireworks in the mistaken notion that they would be able to cash in on the tourists coming to watch satellites being launched step by step until Musk could start colonizing Mars. From Boca Chica.
Space.com puts it this way: "The company's first prototype, the Starship Mk1, was destroyed during a pressure test in November 2019. Its successor SN1 was lost in a similar test in February. The next iteration, SN2, successfully passed the pressure test in March. The SN3 prototype, meanwhile, collapsed during testing in April. Musk later said that leaky valves were the culprit and that it would be fixed on the next vehicle.
The Starship SN4 was by far the longest-lived and most-tested Starship prototype to date. (Yesterday's) static-fire engine test was the fifth for the vehicle, the most of any to date.
SpaceX was already building another Starship prototype, the SN5, at the time of the SN4 failure. That vehicle will likely take center stage for the company's next round of tests."
TechCrunch concurs: "This is why space companies test frequently and stress test vehicles during development — to ensure that the final operational vehicles are incredibly safe and reliable when they need to be.
SpaceX is already working on additional prototypes, including assembling SN5 nearby in Boca Chica, so it’s likely to resume its testing program quickly once it can clear the test stand and move in the newest prototype."
Boca Chica has become what your shade tree mechanics needs: a site for the trial and error necessary to make a working space ship. Not to launch one, mind you. But to see what works and what will explode or collapse.
What would space tourist see if they came in by the thousands generating million for the local economy and putting "heads in beds," thrusting a Southmost scientist toward Mars, etc... and putting Brownsville on the technological frontiers? If SpaceX is successful in its tests (of whatever nature it is) the gawkers will see nothing.
There will be no launch, and no rocket disappearing into the clouds. Nada. Noting. Zilch. That's because the part being tested survived and passed the test successfully. The only thing visible through their binoculars will be an upright craft.
The final pieces of the eventual craft will be assembled somewhere else and placed on a launch pad in Florida after all the parts have been put together and put men on the space station, around the moon, or – and this is the Musk pie-in-the sky – Mars.
So get used to the fact that Boca Chica is like the very tip of the Musk's SpaceX coat tails. Failures like the one here yesterday assures success over there.