Deep Impact: SpaceX has economic promise, environmental concerns

From Brownsville Herald:  Deep Impact: SpaceX has economic promise, environmental concerns

EDITOR’S NOTE: In this eight-day series beginning today and ending Sunday, Sept. 9, Valley Morning Star and The Brownsville Herald examine how a rocket launch site proposed by Space Explorations Technologies Corp. could carry Brownsville, Harlingen, South Padre Island and Cameron County as a whole, into a new frontier. Our focus is on the potential impact to the local economy, education and the environment.
For an area like Cameron County, supported by unique ecological assets yet historically plagued by economic and cultural obstacles, the possibility of space exploration as an industry poses a bittersweet dilemma: disrupt paradise, or feed the populace?
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX — a Hawthorne, Calif.-based space transport company that earlier this year became the first commercial enterprise to complete a supply mission to the International Space Station — has announced its interest in building a rocket launch site on Boca Chica Beach. Remote yet not inaccessible, the beach is home to the piping plover, the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and other unique fauna and flora that have drawn the attention of ecologists committed to maintenance and protection. This, for many, is paradise.
The isolated beach area has little commercial or residential development, but surrounding cities like South Padre Island, Brownsville and Harlingen all have taken a keen interest in every move SpaceX makes.
In the lower Cameron County area, 30 percent of families last year had an income below poverty level. If the company does build at Boca Chica, it would create hundreds of jobs with an annual salary of no less than $55,000. That is well above the county’s average household income of $15,000 to $24,999, according to five-year estimates from the Census Bureau. And those jobs, along with actual construction of the site and the proposed $80 million capital investment, would bring widespread spinoff prosperity for the county.
So, the dilemma now for many is how to reconcile the need for economic opportunity with the need to protect our natural resources. About the reconciled destination, there is no doubt. It is the journey that presents the challenges.
In an attempt to explore both the economic and environmental concerns spurred by such development, the staffs of The Brownsville Herald and the Valley Morning Star have undertaken a cooperative project to examine the benefits and drawbacks in many of the individual communities that could feel an impact from SpaceX development. What resulted is this series, “Frontiers,” an eight-day look at what could happen. In large part, there is much speculation, with both sides weighing in with what they want and need to happen.
Many questions remain unanswered, pending the federal government’s release of its Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. Many of the participants in SpaceX negotiations, including SpaceX representatives and local negotiators and officials, are restricted from commenting publicly until the statement is released.
Maneuvering the rollout of such a critical project may require a precision similar to the scientific calculations the company uses to launch its rockets. The area is largely Hispanic and historically underserved, making any economic boost crucial. School of Business Dean Mark Kroll, of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, cited a number of factors that could be significant for the area.
“I think it would also have a material impact upon the position of the community, vis-a-vis the rest of the country. It would give a cachet that it hasn’t had before,” he said. “Anytime you’re shooting rockets into outer space, that’s getting recognized. It’s just one of those things that’s hard to miss.”
Kroll said it is possible a launch site would mean an influx of new people moving to the area.
“We don’t have that many aerospace engineers running around Brownsville,” he said, noting that a concentration of well-paid residents would be an “economic multiplier.”
He likened SpaceX to a smaller version of the Keppel AmFELS shipyard, which counts Brownsville as one of its sites and is a business with significant impact here.
“There’s no question when they started opening casinos in Vegas it changed Vegas forever,” he said. “When Boeing first started building military aircraft in Washington state, that changed that area forever.”
What really remains to be seen, Kroll said, is the future of the commercial space business.
“I think we have to keep it in perspective,” he said. “This may or may not be a growth industry.”
Local officials are banking on the new industry raising the area’s profile internationally.
Currently, the largest industries here are educational services, health care and social assistance, followed by retail, then arts, entertainment and recreation, presumably heavily linked to South Padre Island.
SpaceX is watching, local officials say. The company already has met with Brownsville school district and university officials to connect with science, technology, engineering and math educators here.
The company’s CEO and chief designer is Elon Musk, the colorful entrepreneur who co-founded the Internet payment system called PayPal, created Tesla Motors (which builds electric cars) and Solar City (which builds solar panels), and who in 2002 made no secret of his intention to revolutionize space travel with his new company, Space Exploration Technologies. His ultimate goal: make life on other planets possible for humans.
“Our growing launch manifest has led us to look for additional sites,” Musk said last November in a statement announcing the location search. “We’re considering several states and territories. I envision this site functioning like a commercial Cape Canaveral.”
At this point, Brownsville is in competition with Florida and Puerto Rico for the new vertical launch area and control center. The site being considered here is near Boca Chica Beach, just a few miles from the major tourism hub of South Padre Island and a neighboring federal wildlife reserve.
Nearby is Boca Chica Village, a small residential neighborhood that acts as an example of the infrastructure the proposed launch site currently lacks. Residents have their water trucked in, and the access road is narrow. Many of the homes are seasonal, or completely shuttered. Some of the residents are thrilled about the prospect of watching a rocket launch from the backyard; others say, there goes the neighborhood.
SpaceX already has launch facilities at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as well as a rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.
This summer, NASA said it is not involved in SpaceX’s launch facility initiative and would not officially comment on the matter. However, a Houston-based spokesman from Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center explained there are several programs in which SpaceX is involved. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program allows for payments to SpaceX for the building of spacecraft, which is different from the contracts awarded to them for supply missions to the International Space Station.
And in August, SpaceX also was granted a $440 million contract from NASA under the Commercial Crew Development program to further develop its hardware. The end goal of the program is to create shuttles that would carry astronauts to and from the space station using U.S. companies, instead of hardware from foreign countries.
The COTS program, which began in 2006, allows NASA to invest financial and technical resources in the private sector to help develop space transportation. SpaceX and another company will be paid incrementally as they reach certain milestones.
In May, SpaceX became the first commercial company in history to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station. And with more than $3 billion of revenue set through 2017, Musk’s vision seems increasingly closer on the horizon. What remains to be seen is whether that horizon will be viewed by space tourists at Boca Chica Beach, or whether the panorama will remain the purview of the piping plover and its friends.