‘WELCOME TO STARBASE’
Spacex’s station echoes the Apollo days of Florida
BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Brand new rocket facilities near a sleepy beachside city historically unfamiliar with all things space. Hundreds of workers rushing around production sites to meet the latest deadlines. The sounds of heavy machinery, chatter through hip-mounted radios, and trucks slowly navigating potholed roads reminiscent of the lunar surface.
And, on launch days, even the occasional explosion that scatters a test vehicle into countless pieces.
To some, all this might sound familiar, like a flashback to Florida’s Space Coast in the 1960s when thousands descended on cities like Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral to make the Apollo program a reality. But this isn’t Florida. Welcome to Starbase, Texas. There’s a camaraderie and sense of mission here – and a casualness – that resembles what life on the Space Coast was like nearly 60 years ago. One test at a time, the impossible is being made into the possible, and the workforce is growing. But it’s not just the fortunes of directly employed workers and the community that are being changed – almost anyone can drive up to flightready hardware and experience the thrill for themselves.
“I truly believe in five, 10, 20 years, they’re going to be making documentaries about this just like they make documentaries about Cape Canaveral,” said Nic Ansuini, an audio engineer and podcaster, who braves stifling heat to create content mere feet away from rocket hardware that compelled him to move hundreds of miles away from home.
A thousand miles west of Florida near the city of Brownsville is Starbase, an untamed area reminiscent of the nature preserves that dominate a swath of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Much like the Space Coast, satellite imagery paints the picture of a flat region dominated more by water features than usable land.
Here, Spacex founder Elon Musk operates in full-steam-ahead-mode. Not only does he visit often to oversee significant operations, but he has already kicked off a legal process to get the area officially renamed Starbase. One day, a small city – well, more of a spaceport town – could take shape from the wilderness and join Brownsville on this southernmost tip of Texas.
Musk and his teams are assembling, testing and launching the future of his company, a two-stage stainless steel vehicle known as the Starship system.
Those willing to put up with the overwhelming humidity and pockmarked roads can get surprisingly close to hardware that Musk says will someday take humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
Fans, journalists, and those simply looking to document Starship happenings are flocking here to see it for themselves.
Two Starship prototypes stand side-by-side at Spacex’s Starbase production facility near Brownsville, Texas, on July 22. And they get support directly from Spacex employees who wave, honk, and thank them in person for getting the word out about their accomplishments.
In Brownsville, country music wafts from bar radios. Hand-drawn signs in hotel lobbies welcome Spacex employees. The intense humidity hits you like a wall when you step outside.
Before Spacex came, this city of roughly 175,000 on the border with Mexico was best known for its role in international trade thanks to the Port of Brownsville. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley has a campus here, too.
Last week, a 400-foot accomplishment helped bring another sense of pride to this community that a few years ago likely never would have dreamed it would be involved in cutting-edge space technology: Spacex teams stacked Starship for the first time.
The combined vehicle – 230-foot Super Heavy booster below, 164-foot Starship above – stood on a platform at the launch pad and gleamed in the sunlight as dozens of visitors clapped and cheered just outside the gates.
Aside from previous test launches, most of which ended in fireballs, the stacking marked the most visual milestone to date for Starship and paved the way for a full-fledged orbital test flight.
“Dream come true,” Musk, who was here in person and helped direct the operation, said last Friday. “An honor to work with such a great team.”