ANNOYED ELON MUSK THREATENS TO MOVE SPACE OPERATION TO FLORIDA

 

SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy rocket stacked for the first time at  Starbase in Boca Chica, TX. August 6, 2021. The first stage, Super Heavy, is silver. The second stage, Starship, is covered in black thermal protection tiles. The two stages combined also are referred to as Starship.
Photo Credit: SpaceX

The most recent hiccup at SpaceX Boca Chica was the withdrawal of SpaceX's application by the Army Corp of Engineers to expand their test site at Boca Chica to include an additional 10.94 acres of mudflats, 5.94 acres of estuarine wetlands and .28 acres of non-tidal wetlands.

The Army C of E pulled SpaceX's application because SpaceX had ignored certain requests for information.

The Federal Aviation Agency's P.E.A. or Preliminary Endangerment Assessment is due for release April 29.

Elon Musk's response to these governmental agency attempts to protect our air, land and water is to threaten to take his ball and go home, that is to move the whole operation to Cape Canaveral, Florida.(Ten years ago Musk used a similar approach to gain original approval, pretending that Brownsville was in competition with Puerto Rico and Florida for the project, prompting local politicals to do somersaults to approve.)

Musk has also been coy about plans to build a 250 megawatt LNG power plant at Boca Chica that would be fed by a 10-inch pressurized natural gas pipeline.

Former County Judge Cascos

While originally supportive, former Cameron County Judge and current candidate for that office, Carlos Cascos, had this to say:  "I have been suggesting for quite some time that I believed the contract entered into with SpaceX was not being adhered to.  The county has been aware of these issues and failed to enforce the contract.  It is my understanding there are no amendments to the contract.  Thank you to "Save RGV" and DA Luis Saenz for bringing this to the forefront."

The group mentioned by Cascos, "Save RGV," headed by Bill Berg and John Young, found SpaceX to be in gross violation of the Memorandum of Understanding drafted 9/01/2013, finally signed by Space Exploration Technologies(SpaceX) and five governmental agencies in 2014/15.

They approached Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz, who, in turn, sent a letter to SpaceX detailing the violations.

Although, as Cascos stated, the original MOE allowed for no amendments, Musk bypassed the agreement, going directly to the FAA to get adjustments to beach closing requirements.  

While those noncontractual adjustments effectively doubled the allowed annual time for beach closings, Musk has not even honored those adjustments.

SpaceX Founder Elon Musk, Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez

Giddily onboard from the get-go, although not legally in control of Boca Chica, has been the city government of Brownsville, including Mayor Trey Mendez and the City Commission. 

$10 million was donated by SpaceX to the city for downtown improvements and another $20 million promised to the Brownsville Independent School District, likely influencing the city's perception.

Meanwhile, the second stage of Starship has been launched a total of five times; the first four launches failed while the fifth launch proved successful.