NEWS & D I S P AT C H by Christopher Hooks • photographs by Eli Durst

POLITICS

Flight Risks
Elon Musk is turning the tiny beach town of Boca Chica into
On March 30, the fourth test didn’t
even make it back to the pad: near
the apogee of its flight, it blew up
with a calamitous boom, spread-
ing shrapnel more than five miles
a launchpad for space travel. But not everyone is starstruck. afield. “Looks like we’ve had an-
other exciting test,” announced
the sheepish narrator on SpaceX’s
official livestream. “Flying debris
and pieces of Starship; there’s stuff
smoking on the ground in front of
the camera!” said the host of a pri-
vately run livestream, one of many
catering to the company’s fans, its
lens pointed at the landing pad in
the town of Boca Chica as steel
chunks rained down with fright-
ening velocity. Oh, the humanity!
A little more than two weeks
after the last catastrophic failure,
NASA officials—those dinosaurs
at the federal space program—an-
nounced a $2.9 billion contract
with SpaceX to use a variant of
the Starship as the landing vehicle
for NASA’s future missions to the
moon. Elon Musk, the company’s
brilliant and eccentric founder and
CEO—and since December 2020,
a resident, at least for tax purpos-
es, of Austin—has long described
the Starship tests as an iterative
process. SpaceX expects failures,
and it hopes to learn from them.
On May 5 the Starship finally had

P
a soft landing—though a fire, suc-
cessfully extinguished, broke out
on the landing pad. Still, Musk has
a history of overpromising. In Sep-
tember 2019, for example, he pre-
tionally) reusable rocket offered dicted that the Starship would be
by the SpaceX corporation and flying earthlings into orbit by the
Laughing gulls
launched from the southern tip end of 2020. Now, NASA expects
on the beach
of the Lone Star State, took place him to have the rocket ready to
near the SpaceX
on December 9, 2020. The rocket launch site in
touch down on the lunar surface
climbed some 41,000 feet, halted Boca Chica. with astronauts on board within
erhaps in the distant future his- as it was supposed to, and returned the next few years.
torians in far-flung corners of the to its landing pad—much too rap- Musk has never been to space,
solar system will note that the idly. Crunch. but he seems curiously unbounded
twenty-first-century Texas space The second test, in February, by the laws of gravity. In the past
program did not get off to a partic- crunched too. The next, on March decade he has been at the center
ularly strong start. The first proper 3, appeared to land mostly intact of a succession of stories —ex-
test of the Starship, the (aspira- but exploded eight minutes later. ploding rockets, spontaneously

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combusting Teslas, U.S. Securities them to sell their homes. Local Chica to Brownsville. I’ve come to
and Exchange Commission inves- bird populations are under strain meet Stephanie Bilodeau, a biol-
tigations, and a defamation case A trailer park as human activity ramps up. During ogist with the nonprofit Coastal
owned by
brought by the hero of the 2018 tests, public beaches are frequently Bend Bays and Estuaries Program.
SpaceX on
Thai cave rescue, whom Musk closed with little warning or notice. “I used to love coming to work here,
the west side
baselessly called a pedophile— of Boca Chica
In exchange, Cameron County before all of this started happening.
from which he only emerges stron- village; Celia is becoming a mecca for Musk fans It was so pristine out in the flats,”
ger. He has an army of passionate Garcia outside and space enthusiasts from around she tells me. “There was never any-
fans and an army of passionate de- her home; a the world—and may, indeed, have body out here. Now people come
tractors, both of which he enjoys yellow-headed become an unlikely launchpad to out just to see this,” she says, indi-
juicing up. He is—on some days, de- blackbird the solar system. Many local elect- cating SpaceX’s latest rocket, which
pending on Tesla’s stock price—the spotted in Boca ed officials and business leaders in looms over the landscape.
world’s richest man, and he warps Chica. Brownsville see SpaceX as a way to Originally from Vermont and
time and space around him like a give one of the poorest counties now based in Harlingen, Bilodeau
bowling ball on a trampoline. in the state a future. A mural with has spent nearly every week since
There is perhaps no place where Musk’s face adorns Brownsville’s 2017 at Boca Chica, surveying the
his weight is felt more than in Boca downtown, and the city is begin- populations of birds that depend
Chica, the unincorporated bayside ning to see the benefits of his pa- on the mud flats, beaches, and wet-
community just north of where the tronage. About an hour after the lands here to feed, breed, or rest
Rio Grande trickles into the Gulf explosion on March 30, Musk during migration. “Elon always said
of Mexico. Before Musk arrived tweeted that he was donating $20 this was the place to launch rock-
in 2014, Boca Chica was home to million to area schools and $10 ets because there’s nothing here,
some of the most unspoiled beach- million to the city of Brownsville. that it’s just a big wasteland,” she
es in Texas, along with a wide vari- For better or worse, Boca Chi- says. “But that’s just not true. It’s an
ety of threatened and endangered ca belongs to Elon now. He’s even amazing place for shorebirds. It’s
species and a modest community come up with a new name for the got to be one of the best places for
of some forty homes. In just a few town. “Creating the city of Star- shorebirds in the country.”
years, a small SpaceX launchpad base, Texas,” he tweeted in March, Glance at a map, and it’s not
built near the beach, amid a wildlife “From thence to Mars, and hence immediately clear why this place
refuge, has turned into a sprawling the stars.” Local officials gently re- is special. As the sandpiper flies,
compound with hundreds of work- minded the billionaire that he had it’s not far from the bustling Port
ers, assembly facilities, and rocket to ask for permission first. of Brownsville and South Padre’s
fuel storage tanks. In Boca Chica hotels, kitschy shops, and beach
village, the company ushered out It’s a gray day in April, and the bars. But the port’s long ship chan-
residents, many of them retirees, wind is whipping so hard the surf nel cuts off Boca Chica from the
with what some locals claim were has surged over State Highway 4, north, while the Rio Grande cuts
heavy-handed tactics, pressuring the only road that connects Boca it off from the south. In between

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is a wedge of land accessible by the

two-lane State Highway 4, which is
guarded by a Border Patrol check-
point. It can feel very remote.
Much of the land here is part of
the 10,680-acre Boca Chica tract
of the Lower Rio Grande Nation-
al Wildlife Refuge. Kemp’s ridley
turtles, the most endangered sea
turtles in the world, nest on the
beaches; dolphins swim in the
nearby Laguna Madre. The only
remaining breeding population
of ocelots in the United States lives
here. The last confirmed sighting of
a jaguarundi in the U.S. happened
nearby, in 1986, and there are ru-
mors some may remain.
It is the birds, though, that set Heavy configuration. The FAA ap- falling quickly. “In the general vi-
Boca Chica apart: egrets, falcons, proved the company’s expanded cinity of the launchpad, we’ve seen a
Many visitors
pelicans, plovers, sandpipers, spar- operations, though it is now con- decline in the number of nests,” Bi-
travel long
rows, and warblers, among others. sidering whether a new environ- lodeau says. Where she used to find
distances to
There are many species of birds in see the SpaceX
mental study is required. dozens, she has this year found just
the Rio Grande Valley that can’t Starship. If the Falcon is a cigarette, the one, far down the beach from the
be found anywhere else in the U.S. Starship is a Churchill cigar. The launchpad. It’s not just the rocket
But it’s a hard time for shorebirds Falcon Heavy puts out about 5.1 launches that are disrupting wild-
up and down the Gulf Coast. Too million pounds of thrust; the life, she says, but also the attendant
much development, too many vehi- Starship Super Heavy is project- “traffic, the construction, the pres-
cles, a changing climate. The Boca ed to have more than 16 million ence of people, the noise.”
Chica portion of the wildlife refuge pounds of thrust. Even when the Birding is big business in the Rio
is intended to provide a sanctuary. Starship doesn’t blow up, it shakes Grande Valley, an international
When SpaceX first proposed a the ground for miles in every di- destination for avian aficionados.
launch site in Boca Chica, the com- rection. Scientists say the shock One estimate has it that birding
pany suggested that its footprint waves could potentially cause adds about $460 million to the
would be minimal. After buying deafness or brain damage in birds; local economy every year. Bilo-
up tracts of private land amid the the rocket engines spit out com- deau knows many in Brownsville
wildlife refuge, SpaceX told reg- busted chemicals. In the after- are thrilled to have SpaceX here
ulatory agencies that it planned math of the March 30 test, there and may not even be aware of the
to launch its proven Falcon rock- were “a couple hundred people on birds. But it’s hard for her not to
ets at the site, along with the Fal- foot picking up debris,” Bilodeau be emotionally invested. A few
con Heavy, the same rocket, with told me, but there was still a lot of years ago, before SpaceX activity
boosters attached. An environ- junk around two weeks later when picked up, she watched one snowy
mental impact review conducted I toured the area with her. Large plover try, and fail, to build a nest
by the Federal Aviation Admin- chunks of twisted steel littered the and produce hatchlings six times.
istration found that the project tidal flats, some of them sticking “It was hard not to be rooting for
was “not likely to jeopardize the out of the water. Heavy equipment her to succeed,” she says. Though
continued existence” of sea tur- may be needed to remove some of the nest failures were due to nat-
tles, ocelots, and other species. But the bigger pieces. ural causes, she worries about all
after federal and state authorities This time of year, Bilodeau is the new threats.
gave their approval and construc- looking for snowy plovers, wading SpaceX has plans to expand its
tion began, SpaceX changed its birds that stand six inches tall and facilities and launch rockets more
plans. Instead of launching the weigh little more than an ounce. frequently. The company is build-
Falcon, the company would use Their young are speckled puffballs ing an orbital launchpad, which
the site as a test facility to devel- whose bodies are barely bigger than will be the tallest building in the
op its much larger and louder their legs. They’re not yet endan- region. Musk envisions Starbase,
Starship and the Starship Super gered, but their numbers have been Texas, as a much larger company

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 D I S P AT C H MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

town to support his projects—with

more workers, more housing, more
traffic, more visitors. “I just don’t
see how they can build a city here.
There’s not enough room,” Bilo-
deau says.
It’s unclear whether Musk is
aware of any of the complaints,
but he has offered a solution. The
night before I walked the beach
with Bilodeau, Musk tweeted: “If
we make life multiplanetary, there
may come a day when some plants
& animals die out on Earth, but are
still alive on Mars.” I ask Bilodeau
if she can foresee the snowy plover
nesting on the red planet. “Proba-
bly not,” she says. A traveler at Houston’s Hobby Airport
Boca Chica village sits in the shad-
was caught trying to hide crystal . . .
ow of the SpaceX compound. Just a
. . . meth inside a breakfast taco. Animal shelter volunteers found a poodle
few years ago the village was little
roaming the streets of Corpus Christi and returned him to his owners
more than two streets of a few doz-
in New Mexico—four years after he went missing. A 53-year-old man
en one-story houses and a shrine
allegedly stabbed, nonfatally, the manager of a Jack in the Box in League
to the Virgin Mary. Celia Garcia, a
City who asked him to put on a mask. A woman whose Guinness World
retiree in her seventies, bought two
Record–breaking fingernails were a combined 24 feet long went to a
houses in Boca Chica in 1992 and
Fort Worth dermatologist to have them cut for the first time in nearly
2003. She moved into one in 2019,
thirty years. A man in Temple allegedly tried to run over a woman with
intending to spend her retirement
whom he was arguing but instead crashed his car into a Discount Tire
there, and planned to use the other
store. Nine students, each with a 5.0 GPA, will graduate from Harris
as a rental home to supplement her
County’s Bellaire High School as valedictorians—a record number
social security checks.
to do so from one school in the district. A Bexar County motorist
“It was our heaven, our little
accused of hitting and killing a bicyclist and then fleeing the scene
piece of heaven that God gave us,”
asked authorities to return her BMW, which they were keeping as
she said. “And then with SpaceX, ev-
evidence. After being separated from her for a year because of the
erything changed.” Before SpaceX
pandemic, a husband in Georgetown was reunited with his wife, who
barreled into town, Garcia’s house,
lives in a nursing and rehabilitation center, for their fiftieth wedding
which looks out over South Bay a
anniversary. — S I E R R A J U A R E Z
mile and a half from the beach, was
part of a place with a strong sense of
community and abundant wildlife.
Today, she said, “you’ll see more
roadkill than you see animals that
are alive roaming the area.” not generous, though they were attempts to reach County Judge
After 2018 the company built in- coming, indirectly, from one of the Eddie Treviño Jr. and county com-
frastructure on all three sides of the richest men on the planet. Some ac- missioner Sofia Benavides, who
village: a solar farm to the south, a cepted the buyouts because living represents Boca Chica on the
company-run RV park with chic under the shadow of the company Cameron County Commissioners
Airstream trailers to the west, and had become so onerous. “It was as Court, were unsuccessful.
storage facilities to the east, behind if I didn’t own my own home,” said Each launch is preceded by a
the shrine to the Virgin. Agents for Cheryl Stevens, who sold her house series of tests, which are often an-
SpaceX urged the villagers to sell in 2019. Garcia says she will only nounced on short notice and then
quickly while the county officials accept a buyout if it’s sufficient for delayed. For safety reasons, the
publicly warned that eminent do- her to buy replacement homes near county orders residents to evac-
main could be used if they refused. the water. SpaceX declined to com- uate their homes and closes State
Some residents say the offers were ment for this article. My multiple Highway 4, along with the public

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beach. The tests, and explosions, of- might have guessed. Mejia, who grew
ten break windows in the village. And up in Brownsville but left as an adult
because the county government was to pursue opportunities elsewhere,
so steadfastly behind SpaceX, Stevens hopes the boom will help reverse the
said, “there was absolutely nobody region’s brain drain. There are the
that wanted to hear” about what the jobs, of course, but also the sense of
villagers were going through, “nobody possibility SpaceX brings. In Decem-
that cared.” ber, he watched with awe from the
Today, what’s left of the town exists roof of city hall as the Starship took
in a strange kind of superposition be- off for the first time. “To see that shim-
tween the old and the new, Boca Chica mery rocket go up, and to even see it
village and Starbase. Some houses— blow up, from as far away as we were,
eleven, by Garcia’s count—are still it was a sight to see,” he said.
owned by the old residents, gently It is also bringing a new kind of vis-
worn and painted in earth tones. The itor to the area. Among the trickle of
rest have been repainted black and gawkers and picture-takers on the day
white and gray. All the new homes I visit are Frank Gugliuzzi, of Canada,
sport Tesla chargers in front. and Noé Bugmann, of Switzerland.
The two men recently met by chance
Though Texas is strongly identified at the construction site of Tesla’s new
with the space program, it only got Gigafactory, outside Austin. Bugmann
one piece of the pie when NASA doled is quiet and pensive, Gugliuzzi giddy
out patronage in its early years: the with excitement. Having bonded over
Manned Spacecraft Center in Hous- enthusiasm for Musk and his prod-
ton, now the Johnson Space Center. ucts, they decided to caravan together
Alabama designed the rockets, Louisi- to Boca Chica (Gugliuzzi drove his
ana built them, and Florida launched Ontario-plated Tesla Model 3). Their
them. SpaceX, on the other hand, tests week in South Texas has been thrill-
its engines in McGregor, near Waco, ing; last night, Musk responded to one
and assembles and launches rock- of Gugliuzzi’s tweets, a video of the Gi-
ets in Boca Chica. And someday, per- gafactory, shot from a drone. Guliuz-
haps, astronauts launched from South zi is considering moving to Texas.
Texas will take orders from Houston The pair stare up at the rocket on
again. There’s also Blue Origin, a lag- its pad. It is a handsome ship, made
ging competitor of SpaceX owned by from shiny stainless steel. Its broad
Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, which is fins make it look like a spaceship that
testing rockets near Van Horn, 120 a comic book artist in the fifties might
miles east of El Paso. After a decade have drawn, phallic in an uncompli-
of doldrums following the end of the cated way. The facility is thick with
space shuttle program, Texas is back tanks and silos of liquid oxygen and
in the business of space. methane. Gizmos spin and whir. Gu-
And so, perhaps, is Cameron Coun- gliuzzi says they may stay in Browns-
ty, where more than a third of the chil- ville until this Starship launches,
dren live in poverty. Josh Mejia, the which could be more than a week
executive director of the Brownsville away. “I wish I could stand right here
Community Investment Corpora- when it launches,” he says. “It would
tion, says the economic benefits of probably be pretty hot.” Nearby, an-
SpaceX have helped insulate the city other group of onlookers clambers
from the COVID-19-related reces- out of their car. What does this place
sion. UT–Rio Grande Valley has its mean to Gugliuzzi and Bugmann, I
own building at the SpaceX com- ask? What could draw these two so
pound, where researchers work on far from home? Gugliuzzi laughs and
a project called STARGATE—that’s shrugs, as if the answer is obvious. “It’s
Spacecraft Tracking and Astronom- the future.” T
ical Research into Gigahertz Astro-
physical Transient Emission, as you

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