San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
What’s in a name change for Boca Chica?
Elon Musk wants to create the city of Starbase at SpaceX’s Starship production and launch facility in South Texas.
The place is currently called Boca Chica.
Word of the plan came via Musk’s Twitter feed on March 2: “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas,” then “From thence to Mars, and hence the stars.” He added that the city will encompass “an area much larger than Boca Chica.”
The unincorporated coastal area, near the Mexico-U.S. border about 25 miles east of Brownsville, sits amid sand dunes and marshland. Its adjacent to a state park and a 10,680-acre tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The last land battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, occurred nearby.
Only a few holdouts remain in Boca Chica Village, a community of 30 homes built in the 1960s. SpaceX has bought out most who lived there. In October, VICE News published an email from David Finlay, SpaceX’s senior director of finance, offering the remaining residents “three times the appraised value of their homes — roughly $150,000.”
“The offer will expire on October 2, 2020,” Finlay wrote. “Please be advised that should this offer expire, SpaceX may need to pursue alternative approaches to ensuring that launch operations within the State-designated South Texas Spaceport at Boca Chica Beach can be conducted within all necessary public safety requirements.”
At least two of the holdouts declined the offer, according to the report. Maybe incorporating and launching eminent-domain proceedings are SpaceX’s “alternative approach” to booting those still living there.
Musk’s blunt tweets are the best sources for Starship news. The announcement came two days before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a public comment period on SpaceX’s proposed expansion plans at Boca Chica.
The Starbase news set SpaceX fans a flutter and energized critics who don’t want the name Boca Chica to fade into the history books. But the chatter largely faded on March 3 with Starship SN10’s precarious landing and Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, or RUD, Musk’s euphemism for rocket explosions.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. offered a nonstatement: “If SpaceX and Elon Musk would like to pursue down this path (of incorporating Starbase), they must abide by all state incorporation statutes. Cameron County will process any appropriate petitions in conformity with the applicable law.”
So all we know is the space
mogul wants to incorporate a city and the county will enforce the laws. Talk about a disappointing soft launch.
Neither SpaceX or Cameron County have said anything more on the matter. But it’s worth pausing a beat and nerding out on the potential place name Starbase — Musk’s latest salvo in his colonization of Texas.
Throughout history, naming or renaming places is often an act of conquest or colonization. New names frequently veil native histories and reframe narratives in favor of the conquerors. Naming a place is an emotional and politically charged topic that deserves input from locals and historians.
Yet it’s also a branding exercise, and that’s something Musk and his teams excel at. Their naming regime ranges from cool and aspirational to strange and
funny — Tesla, Boring Company (maker of tunnels and flamethrowers), Falcon, Dragon, Raptor, Starship, and his ships “Of Course I Still Love you,” “Just Read the Instructions,” “GO Ms. Tree” and “GO Ms. Chief,” to name a few.
But naming things is different than renaming places.
Consider how the U.S. military is grappling with installations named after Confederate generals. And many Air Force, Army and Marine Corps bases are given the names of military people — mainly white men — from decades or centuries ago. Are there any military posts or bases honoring women or nonwhite people?
The Space Force took the easy way out, changing its base names from Air Force Bases to Space Force Bases. For instance, Patrick Air Force Base became Patrick
Space Force Base. While the
Space Force missed an opportunity for a complete rebranding, it held onto some heritage.
Personally, I like the Navy and Coast Guard’s approach. They name facilities after their geographic location. That makes sense, especially for seafaring services. It must have something to do with a connection to their home port — a safe harbor after a long journey.
So let’s run with that.
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great — and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about,” Musk said. “It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past.”
Like maritime travelers, a “spacefaring civilization” needs a home port. So maybe Starbase should be Starport or Spaceport?
There are already spaceports around the country, like Spaceport America outside Truth or Consequences, N.M., but no starports or starbases as place names.
Starbase sounds cool, but it carries military baggage. Maybe SpaceX wants “Starbase” because it’s the home of Starship and the company has a star motif going with Starhopper and Starlink. Maybe there are plans to name subsequent Starship sites something different. We’ll have to keep checking Musk’s Twitter feed.
The debate highlights that it’s time we decide what we’ll call the places that’ll lob us into space.
Think about how “airport” is the gold standard for the places where airplanes land and takeoff. Every city’s plane place is called “airport.” There’s no San Antonio International Airstrip or Airbase. It’s not Dallas-Fort Worth International
Airpatch. In fact, airbase and airfield most often reference military installations.
“Spaceport” follows the concept of airports, so why confuse things with Starbase? Starbase is a spaceport, so is it the “Spaceport at Starbase, Texas” or “Starbase at Texas Spaceport”? Both of those sound like some kind of exclusive resort.
Oh, and about resorts. In August, SpaceX posted a job ad for a “Resort Development Manager” to “oversee the development of SpaceX’s first resort from inception to completion” to transform Boca Chica into a “21st century Spaceport.” The position is no longer listed, but SpaceX is still seeking baristas, cooks and porters for the “private restaurant” under construction.
Also, will there be more than one Starbase in Texas, the U.S., on Earth, the Moon, Mars, throughout the Galaxy and beyond?
If we become the spacefaring civilization that commercial space companies predict, then there’ll be many Starports, Spaceports and Starbases, and we’ll need to keep track of them.
Who wants boring names like Starbase 1, 2 or 3. “Star Wars” wouldn’t have been the same if Tattooine, Alderaan and Hoth had been dubbed Planets A, B and C.
Since we’re talking interplanetary travel, we should anchor space or starport names to their location … like airports. How about Starport Boca Chica or Boca Chica Starport? That’s no more difficult to say than any international airport.
Or maybe just incorporate
Boca Chica? After all, NASA didn’t rename Cape Canaveral or Houston, and now those names are synonymous with space exploration.
Same goes for Boca Chica.
Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. brandon.lingle@express-news.net