Elon Musk is in the news every day for one reason or another, whether he is sending astronauts
to the space station, manipulating the cryptocurrency market with his tweets, or creating the fastest
production car on earth that also happens to be electric, there is no doubt everyone
has heard of him. Musk is also making headlines for other projects as well in particularly
his Starbase city in Texas. In this video, we will take a look inside Starbase, Elon
Musk's very own city! Before we start the video, please take a few
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The Origins of Space X Space Exploration Technologies Corporation
or Space X is an American aerospace company founded in 2002 that helped usher in the era
of commercial spaceflight. It was the first private company to successfully launch and
return a spacecraft from Earth orbit and the first to launch a crewed spacecraft and dock
it with the International Space Station (ISS). Headquarters are in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX was formed by entrepreneur Elon Musk in the hopes of revolutionizing the aerospace
industry and making affordable spaceflight a reality. The company entered the arena with
the Falcon 1 rocket, a two-stage liquid-fueled craft designed to send small satellites into
orbit. Falcon 1 Launch
The Falcon 1 was vastly cheaper to build and operate than its competitors, a field largely
populated by spacecraft built by publicly owned and government-funded companies such
as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Part of the rocket’s cost-effectiveness was made possible
by the SpaceX-developed Merlin engine, a cheaper alternative to those used by other companies.
SpaceX also focused on making reusable rockets to bring launch cost down as traditional rockets
can only be used once. In March 2006 SpaceX made its first Falcon
1 launch, which began successfully but ended prematurely because of a fuel leak and fire.
By this time, however, the company had already earned millions of dollars in launching orders,
many of them from the U.S. government. In August of that year, SpaceX was a winner of
a NASA competition for funds to build and demonstrate spacecraft that could potentially
service the ISS after the decommissioning of the space shuttle.
Falcon 1 launches that failed to attain Earth orbit followed in March 2007 and August 2008,
but in September 2008 SpaceX became the first privately owned company to send a liquid-fueled
rocket into orbit. Three months later it won a NASA
contract for servicing the ISS that was worth more than $1 billion.
Falcon 9 In 2010 SpaceX first launched its Falcon 9,
a bigger craft so named for its use of nine engines, and the following year it broke ground
on a launch site for the Falcon Heavy, a craft the company hoped would be the first to break
the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit cost barrier and that might one day be used to transport
astronauts into deep space. In December 2010 the company reached another milestone, becoming
the first commercial company to release a spacecraft—the Dragon capsule—into orbit
and successfully return it to Earth. Dragon again made history on May 25, 2012,
when it became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the ISS, to which it successfully
delivered cargo. In August that year, SpaceX announced that it had won a contract from
NASA to develop a successor to the space shuttle that would transport astronauts into space.
The Falcon 9 was designed so that its first stage could be reused. In 2015 a Falcon 9
first stage successfully returned to Earth near its launch site. Beginning in 2016, SpaceX
also began using drone ships for rocket stage landings. A rocket stage that had returned
to Earth was successfully reused in a 2017 launch. That same year, a Dragon capsule was
reused on a flight to the ISS. The Falcon Heavy rocket had its first test flight in
2018. Two of the three first stages landed successfully; the third hit the water near
the drone ship. That Falcon Heavy did not carry a satellite but instead placed into
orbit around the Sun a Tesla Roadster with a mannequin in a spacesuit buckled into the
driver’s seat. The first crewed flight of a Dragon capsule
to the ISS launched on May 30, 2020, with astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken.
SpaceX also announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–Starship
system originally called the BFR Big Falcon Rocket. The Super Heavy first stage would
be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would
be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for several purposes, including providing fast
transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars. SpaceX
planned to use the Starship for a flight around the Moon carrying Japanese businessman Maezawa
Yusaku and several artists in 2023 and to launch settlers to Mars in the mid-2020s.
The Space Race Competition With SpaceX growing Musk needed to find a
place where he could develop his rocket technology away from the prying eyes of competitors such
as Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. That is when Elon found the tiny town of Boca Chica
Texas right on the Gulf Of Mexico and a stone's throw from the Mexico border. With a population
of 26 and being in an ideal location, Musk moved in and started building what will possibly
be the world's first commercial spaceport. Whether residents like it or not Boca Chica
belongs to Elon now. Musk has even unofficially changed the name of the town when he tweeted
“Creating the city of Starbase, Texas,” “From thence to Mars, and hence the stars.”
Town officials did gently reminded the billionaire that he had to ask for permission before changing
the name but added they would be ok with it if official channels were taken to pursue
the name change. Now the sprawling complex at SpaceX Boca Chica
looks more like a city than anything else and to a local community that mostly lives
at or below the poverty line that is a good thing.
SpaceX has plans to expand its facilities and launch rockets more frequently. The company
is building an orbital launchpad, which will be the tallest building in the region. Musk
envisions Starbase, Texas, as a much larger company town to support his projects—with
more workers, more housing, more traffic, more visitors.
Texas is strongly identified with the space program, it only got one piece of the pie
when NASA doled out patronage in its early years: the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston,
now the Johnson Space Center. Alabama designed the rockets, Louisiana built them, and Florida
launched them. SpaceX, on the other hand, tests its engines in McGregor, near Waco,
and assembles and launches rockets in Boca Chica. And someday, perhaps, astronauts launched
from South Texas will take orders from Houston again. There’s also Blue Origin, a lagging
competitor of SpaceX owned by Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, which is testing rockets near
Van Horn, 120 miles east of El Paso. After a decade of doldrums following the end of
the space shuttle program, Texas is back in the business of space.
The economic benefits of SpaceX making Boca Chica it's home are apparent Josh Mejia, the
executive director of the Brownsville Community Investment Corporation, says the economic
benefits of SpaceX have helped insulate the city from the COVID-19-related recession.
Space X Tourism Space X is also bringing tourists to the region,
a region where tourism has never been an economic draw. Frank Gugliuzzi, of Canada, and Noé
Bugmann, of Switzerland, met recently by chance at the construction site of Tesla’s new
Gigafactory, outside Austin. Bugmann is quiet and pensive, Gugliuzzi giddy with excitement.
Having bonded over-enthusiasm for Musk and his products, they decided to caravan together
to Boca Chica. One thing is for sure Musk has pinned Boca
Chica for his base of operations for Space X so you can expect a lot of changes in that
sleepy town as time goes on. Thank you for checking out our video. Drop
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