Evolving the Multi-User Spaceport
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
spacex.comTechstoryHigh profile
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SpacexStarshipLaunch Infrastructure
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Spacex
Starship
Launch Infrastructure
SpaceX is evolving its multi-user spaceport, with plans to increase launch frequency, sparking discussions about environmental impact, local concerns, and the future of their Texas Starbase.
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Sep 26, 2025 at 11:17 AM EDT
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ID: 45387494Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 6:24:41 PM
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Our non-disney cruise sailed out from there. There was lots of signage about how the waterways would be closed for the SpaceX launch the next day.
Because in this context, your question would squarly land around the time before STS-1 was launched in '81
For this to be about space x, you'd have to add some qualifiers - like "privately owned"
Shuttle was reüsable on paper. It couldn’t unlock high-cadence launch because it was not built on an assembly line and had long, manual and error-prone refurbishment requirements.
Put practically, one couldn’t build a LEO constellation like Starlink or aim for in-orbit refuelling with the Shuttle. One can do the former with Falcon 9. One can attempt the latter with Starship.
The qualifier is only semantically meaningful. The engineering benefits one gets from reusability--low costs and high cadence--weren't there for the Space Shuttle.
Well - yes :) That is what reusable actually means. Anything's "reusable" if you spend enough money. The idea is it's worth doing.
I don't see any reason why SpaceX should not continue to plan in such an agressive fashion, as there isn't really a clear reason that anybody can point out to about how its fundamentally impossible.
Its mostly competitors and activists trying to slow down SpaceX and post like this are trying to tell people 'look these are what we are planning and it will benefit everybody'.
The Soviets did it mostly be mass manufacture of 1960 technology and most launches still today use the same tech.
Can anyone point out where they previously read about these methane blast experiments and SpaceX sharing the raw data with regulators? This was news to me, and I follow SpaceX news pretty closely.
Oh how the times have changed. We went from waiting months from one Falcon 9 landing test to another and to the point where people are having to rethink how to run spaceports to be able to sustain SpaceX's insane "2.5 launches a week" cadence.
Of course the reality is that this tech won't ever see adoption used that widely, but where is the break-even point?
I think what they were trying to get at is GHG emissions in general which there are more of than just CO2.
Starship's operations in Boca Chica do emit methane during ground operations. The mitigation for that is to use a pipeline rather than trucks for delivery.
Solid rocket motors emit all sorts of nasty stuff, like aluminum particles.
But this is an insane scenario because there are about 100,000 commercial flights per day in the world. In all of 2024 there were ~250 orbital launches. So to hit the same rate as airplanes it would require a ~150,000x increase in the launch rate (or a ~15,000x increase to equal the CO2 emissions of airplanes).
The 737 is a much smaller plane, and its fuel capacity is near the ballpark of 10x smaller.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/theres-not-enough-room...
So this is basically SpaceX arguing back about how these concerns aren't valid or can be mitigated through more informed safety margins and co-operation between launch providers.
Not that it stopped Bezos from lobbying for a second round of HLS contracts and securing a contract for Blue Origin anyway. But at least that resulted in a second HLS - instead of SpaceX's contract being clawed back.
In truth, Starship needs orbital refueling to get to the Moon - but so does Blue Moon HLS. Artemis depends on someone being able to figure orbital propellant storage and fuel transfer either way.
Which may have been a conscious decision by NASA. Orbital propellant storage and refueling are technologies that unlock a lot of capabilities - so if you get into a silly race with China over who gets to reenact Apollo 11 first, you might as well get that out of it.
What may doom it is the fact that Elon Musk has pissed off basically everyone, because means that he and his businesses are running into a lot of political danger, so he may find his space stuff banned for non-technical reasons.
Previously, there were a few rather suspicious "environmental groups" hounding SpaceX - the understanding was that someone was funding them to try to throw a wrench in SpaceX's plans. This here looks like more of the same.
That would be quite an environmental impact!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45294806