52 ms·
Starbase, LA
- jackhalford 22d ago> In Vermilion Parish, the shoreline is eroding between 3.3 and 23 feet per year What does this mean, how can a shoreline erode
- Brybry 22d agoGrade school level Louisiana info (probably somewhat wrong): It's generally brackish marsh/swamp land. Basically think silt/dirt with a bunch of plants evolved for this specific environment. Then you take a bunch of humans and you cut down all the really old cypress trees for lumber. To facilitate that process you cut channels through all the plants that are in the way so you can ship that lumber via new unobstructed waterways. You also do it for oil/gas exploitation. So now you have a lot of infiltration of saltier or fresher water and less protection during storm surge and such. Lots of plants die and these plants were holding the dirt/soil in place (and the storm surge helps wash that away). Also you re-engineer the original waterways that deposited silt/dirt and helped build these areas up so that they deposit silt/dirt in other places (also you harvest the silt/dirt for use in farming so it never even gets that far down the waterways in the first place).
- edg5000 22d agoIn the Netherlands we rely on beach grass, a type of grass that can root well in loose sand, to keep dunes together. This forms the main sea barrier. The grass has historically been replanted at least partially to maintain the protection. This spans back at least a few hundred years I believe. It's interesting that Lousisana works so differently. I always kind of assumed that dunes would always be needed to keep the sea out in low lying areas, but that's not the case at all.
- hadlock 22d agoMost of the erosion is due to oil and gas companies dredging poorly thought out canals to move drilling equipment through the marsh, causing unslowed erosion for ~70+ years.
- hadlock 22d agoThe oil and gas companies brought in huge massive drilling rigs in the 1930s-1960s. The marsh was too soft/soggy to bring in the equipment overland, so they just... dredged huge canals in the soggy marsh a couple feet deep. You can see this in the opening shot of the video with the boat in the narrow canal. Labor was cheap and they were making a ton of money. They would put the dredged mud on one side of the channel, at random, causing random tracts to flood and most of the plants died, and then the marshes slowly sank below the water. One EPA report says for every acre of dredging they did (and they did a LOT) cause 3 more additional acres of erosion. If you go zoom in on the area where they're building, there are big squares and rectangles of dredging material, surrounding what look like square lakes. The state has been trying to get the oil and gas companies to restore the land but not much luck. Part of this deal with SpaceX (allegedly) is to restore the land and close off the canals to prevent further erosion.
- 1auralynn 22d agoI mean, isn't the LA coast going to be underwater in 50 years?
- nxm 22d agoNope
- stronglikedan 22d ago[dead]
- chasd00 22d agoMan if this actually starts to happen it's a good time to be a welder, concrete worker, or any general contractor or tradesman in Louisiana. Coastal Louisiana is some of the poorest areas in the US even more so than the valley in Texas where Starbase Texas is located. Probably 10-20 years worth of solid work building out that site.
- swingandamiss 22d agoA lot of good, hard working people in that area that would love to have these jobs open up.
- ActorNightly 22d ago[flagged]
- pinkmuffinere 22d agosomewhat topical video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dSjY4j7Ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dSjY4j7Ak tl;dw -- louisiana has a ton of natural resources and wonderful harbors, but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes, cleaning up their waste, or generally being held accountable. And likely related, there is a long history of rampant corruption in the area. With sea levels rising and cancerous pollution filling densely populated areas, life in Louisiana has generally become very difficult :(
- gammarator 22d agoThe book “Strangers in Their Own Land” covers similar ground.
- pstuart 22d ago> but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes No doubt one of the more compelling reasons for SpaceX to do it there (along with their given reasoning).
- 22d ago
- BugsJustFindMe 22d ago> Building a new space coast But are they building it ghost to ghost?
- giancarlostoro 22d agoLol this is a reference to Florida (though I love your Space Ghost reference), we have the Kennedy Space Center, and an Airforce base (I guess its a Space Force base now) which has led to this area being referred to as "Space Coast" adding this in case anyone else might be unaware. Florida is more interesting than people realize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Coast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Coast
- jakeydus 22d agoOh, I've never thought that Florida was uninteresting. Florida is nothing but ~interesting~.
- giancarlostoro 22d agoI'm sort of projecting (I've been here most of my life, I got tired of it, now regaining appreciation for Florida the last few years), but I've also noticed others (not you) don't realize there's more to Florida than most people realize.
- FeloniousHam 22d agoI grew up in South Florida (not a native), and my experience of strip malls and ever widening highways is: if there was a state below Florida, that's where the desperate and unrooted migrants would have kept driving to. I spent my childhood fishing in a swimsuit every day I could. I loved it. But as an adult, any south of Ocala and east of Gainesville is a cultural wasteland (with cutouts for Miami and Tampa).
- GenerWork 22d agoRead "Building a new space coast" and I immediately wondered what our elected officials here in Florida must have felt when they saw that line. I'd love for SpaceX to greatly expand their presence here in Florida, but at the same time the coast is probably too built up here for SpaceX to have a facility like that unless they go into the panhandle.
- cwal37 22d agoI wonder if anyone read the copy on this page or if it mostly came out of an LLM. The "Restoring the shoreline" and Rebuilding the marshlands" paragraphs below the images are almost exactly the same. The first sentence is exactly the same.
- schiffern 22d agoFor me that makes it more likely to be human-generated. Seems like a "rushing person juggling revs and copy-pasting" mistake. FWIW, the writing style and tone match pre-LLM SpaceX writing. Of course you can prompt an LLM to mimic style, but somehow the regression-to-average blandness shines through. That can be hard to distinguish from bog standard corporate speak though.
- beerandt 22d agoMaybe, but there's some very specific legal language that cpra and the state requires everyone use in referring to some of these issues, and at least part of the land SpaceX is acquiring is involved in coastal restoration lawsuits or deep water horizon settlements or both. As an engineer working on cpra projects in the past, I've wanted to reword a variety things but was forced to use their legal language. It's mostly a good thing as it keeps things properly defined in a political context that are meant to have specific technical meanings (like marsh, beach, rebuild vs restore).
- cwal37 22d agoI did briefly consider something along those lines, but shoreline and marshlands are materially different, plus they've already changed the text.
- bobchadwick 22d agoMaybe the site developer saw your comment. They're different now.
- ceroxylon 22d agoGood thing the internet never forgets: https://web.archive.org/web/20260825163906/https://www.spacex.com/sites/starbase-la https://web.archive.org/web/20260825163906/https://www.space...
- ramesh31 22d agoAh, Louisiana — when even Texas won't let you pollute enough.
- syndacks 22d agohttps://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-shocking-hazards-of-louisianas-cancer-alley https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-shocking-hazards-of-lo...
- TripleTree 22d agoCan't launch south out of Texas
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- vel0city 22d agoSure you can. There's a lot of Texas coastline.
- kemotep 22d agoIt’s hard to imagine that Cocoa Beach/Titusville isn’t receptive to this. I guess it’s probably cheaper? They don’t have to share the airspace with NASA and other launch companies and it becomes a fully owned and operated Freeport for Musk’s ventures.
- jauntywundrkind 22d agoSeems geography constrained. There's wetlands sure but how much they re allowed to build that out, vs LA where any effort to keep the state from shrinking as it does seems fairly welcome.
- chasd00 22d ago> I guess it’s probably cheaper? State of Louisiana was probably on their hands and knees begging. The construction would last decades and anyone with a strong back that can be told what to do and do it will have a job. It would help lift a lot of people in that area out of poverty. logistically, i wonder how long it takes to ship from Starbase Texas to Louisiana via barge. It has to be easier to get Starships to Louisiana than the East side of Florida.
- randallsquared 22d agoThey may not have to ship many or any. The first launch of a Texas-constructed Starship could just land the booster in Louisiana for a small fuel penalty, and then ships could likewise land there.
- officeplant 22d ago> It would help lift a lot of people in that area out of poverty. It's not gonna help us do shit. It will line the pockets of the usual wealthy Louisiana oil barons and politicians similar to the Meta Datacenter that got backed door approved by our politicians.
- kulahan 22d agoCrazy how they’ll get you to work for free, but I guess that’s your prerogative. Most people charge for their labor, and money > no money, even if the money you do receive wasn’t equally distributed.
- timcobb 22d agoWhy does this need to be built on the beach?
- stronglikedan 22d agoPresumably so rockets can get out over water as quickly as possible in case they fail.
- jgdxno 22d agoit is to ensure that nothing fall on people's heads
- block_dagger 22d agoSo the (eastward) flight path isn't over populated land. Rapid disassembly and all that.
- Tuna-Fish 22d agoIn this case, southward.
- Tuna-Fish 22d agoBecause as China has shown, people get angry when you drop hundreds of tons of steel and propellant on people. Rockets sometimes fail. SpaceX has one of the lowest failure rates in the industry, but that's still ~0.5%. When they fail near launch, they cause humongous explosions. Because of this, anyone with even a tiny bit of care for people launches over the ocean, so that when it goes oops, it only harms some fish. The existing launch sites SpaceX uses are good for launching into prograde (Starbase, TX and Cape Canaveral, FL) and retrograde (Vandenberg SFB, CA) orbits, but they are all either unable or kind of marginal for launching into polar/very highly inclined orbits. (Starbase, TX cannot do it at all, Vandenberg SFB, CA has limitations on when you can launch, and Cape Canaveral, FL needs to fly a dogleg which reduces performance.) Part of their plans for the space datacenters involve launching a lot of mass into sun-synchronous (which is very highly inclined) orbits. For that, they need a launch site with the ocean either to the north or to the south.
- 22d ago
- MeetingsBrowser 22d ago> Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year. This self-sustaining spaceport will have propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and an airport. Sounds really neat, but "incredibly ambitious announcement" from an Elon Musk company is starting to wear thin. Is this real, or will it join the graveyard of other incredibly ambitious projects that were eventually abandoned to focus on the next incredibly ambitious project.
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- bhelkey 22d agoHe often promises incredibly ambitious things that don't happen. But, with a fairly reasonable frequency, he promises incredibly ambitious that do happen. For example, SpaceX is responsible for a massive spike in orbital launches [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-...
- MeetingsBrowser 22d agoSpaceX and Tesla are both successful companies doing really impressive things, but the more ambitious claims are almost always silently discarded. Including robotaxis, tesla semi-trucks, hyperloop, optimus, roadster 2.0, cheap whole home batteries, true FSD, Mars landing, nueralink, and more I'm sure. It is difficult for me to get excited about a decades long, ambitious project when the follow through rate is <10%.
- randallsquared 22d agoSeveral of these do exist already, and one of them was never a promised project. This objection seems like it's from 2016.
- mindwok 22d agoHe is definitely overly optimistic on timelines but pretty much all those things you mentioned are actually still happening, it's too early to say they haven't followed through.
- mrtnmcc 22d agoA way to get back at Texas for datacenter restrictions? Ten pads and thousands of flights per year sure will accelerate Golden Dome, err... I mean "going to Mars"
- zoomaboom 22d agoSpaceX just got $8B more for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- inemesitaffia 21d agoThat's just not true
- randallsquared 22d agoTerrestrial datacenter legal restrictions are how SpaceX expects to make a lot of its money in the next 10+ years, so I would be less surprised to find them lobbying for restrictions than against, presuming they spend at all on it.
- bpodgursky 22d agoIt's not a zero sum market, supply is nowhere near meeting demand, in the short term restrictions also hurt SpaceX because they are building out their own terrestrial datacenters in Memphis etc.
- thrance 22d agoIt's just a ploy anyway, to get billions from the government through no-bid contracts. Doesn't matter what they build. Or if it even gets built, which I doubt it ever will.
- ianm218 22d agoIt’s easy to be pessimistic about Musk timelines/ big tech but I am thrilled that ambitious, real world, hard projects are happening in the US again.
- adamtaylor_13 22d agoYou're being down-voted (and so shall I) but I think you're right. Despite all the animosity towards him, Musk is doing things that are economically meaningful for our nation. We'll need a few more of "him" to dig us out of this situation I reckon, but overall I still hope it's possible. (Anyone asking antagonistic questions can go ahead and save their fingers, I won't respond to the petty comments.)
- btmiller 22d agoDiscounting challenges to your beliefs by burying your head in the sand is certainly a choice.
- zoomaboom 22d agoGolden Dome might be "economically meaningful" but it will also lead to WWIII so, no thank you.
- ericmay 22d agoNo it won't. Separately other countries don't get to dictate our internal policies or whether we decide to build any sort of missile defense system. If we're going to be nuked over it, then oh well they'll get nuked too. Never can we live as hostages to wanna-be dictators and tyrants (Xi Jingping, Vladimir Putin, IRGC, &c.) and if they want to blow the whole world up then so be it but acquiescing to their bullying is simply not an option. If you think it's an option, then we should issue our own nuclear threats and take them hostage instead.
- potatototoo99 22d agoIs your cognitive dissonance that strong that you don't see that if all major countries follow that line of thought all have to have their own golden domes and invite WW3?
- johnyzee 22d ago"Watch Now" just shows a black screen with an audio track for me.
- xyst 22d agosame , you probably have ad blocking on and this video element has tracking/telemetry
- estearum 22d ago> Pecan Island and nearby wetlands are high-value habitat for migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and other coastal wildlife. SpaceX is not developing the full footprint of the land and will preserve wetlands and wildlife habitat. Pretty cynical corpo-ambiguity-speak, even by Musk standards. We're supposed to be happy they're promising not to develop one-hundred percent of the land footprint? They will leave at least 0.00001% of land area as wetlands and therefore we oughta be happy? Such empty bullshit it's more insulting they even put an environment-leaning section on the site. Just say "fuck it, our space fetish is more important than the wetlands."
- ceroxylon 22d agoI agree, and the premise is that we're supposed to believe the remaining waterfowl are going to coexist peacefully with... rocket launches? Evolution has done stranger things, but my bet is that the birds will find somewhere else to be over learning to not be startled by nearby earth-rumbling explosions.
- bryanlarsen 22d agoThe wetlands around Cape Canaveral/Kennedy are thriving. Men with guns prevent people from getting too close to the rockets, and people do far more damage to wetlands than a rocket launch once every few days. A rocket launch every hour or so as SpaceX is promising might be quite different.
- miltonlost 22d agoKennedy is also surrounded my federally protected land. SpaceX? Noooope. Never trust Elon.
- inemesitaffia 21d agoWhy don't you check a map of the area?
- ceroxylon 22d ago
- UltraSane 22d agoMusk has done a huge amount to put us INTO this situation.
- ericmay 22d agoWhich situation did Elon Musk put us in to? Can you elaborate? When did this situation start? What happened? What did he personally do that put us in the situation?
- chinathrow 22d agoFunding DJT while he was running for office?
- ericmay 22d agoI'm not sure what situation we're in (can someone describe it please?), but did that situation only start the day Trump took office again after being elected by the American people?
- chinathrow 22d agoWhat are you talking about?
- ericmay 22d agoPlease read the thread for context.
- watwut 22d agoAnd Musks money and twitter takeover did a lot of work to convince Americans vote for Trump. Then Musk joined the administration and continued digging the hole
- ericmay 22d agoOk. The OP wrote: > You're being down-voted (and so shall I) but I think you're right. Despite all the animosity towards him, Musk is doing things that are economically meaningful for our nation. In the context of the US building big things, ramping up manufacturing, doing Space exploration, &c. and the person I replied to wrote: > Musk has done a huge amount to put us INTO this situation What situation did he put us in to in this context? Did he put us in to the situation where we are building bigger things now? Are you saying that there was a situation that we were put in to and that situation only started when Trump was elected and prior to that we were... what? Building big things and trying to restore manufacturing and now we're also doing that under Trump? Someone here should be specific about what they're talking about instead of just "Musk bad Trump bad". Yea they're both morons or whatever but what exactly are we supposedly criticizing here? Just that Trump got elected? Ok that's a boring conversation let's switch back to talking about manufacturing and building big projects in America.
- krunck 22d agoI used to be interested in SpaceX development. Then I came to the realization that SpaceX is going to be used primarily for the militarization of space: hauling space based weaponry, weaponry drop ships, surveillance satellites, etc. I still feel glad for the SpaceX engineers and scientists who succeed and doing new and innovative stuff. But their employer is just like every other military contractor sucking on the unlimited teets of the US Government. What a waste of taxpayer money. I grew up in during the Cold War and I'm sick of this shit. America always thinking it has to dominate any country that doesn't bow down before it.
- mycodendral 22d agowhat's the alternative
- infamouscow 21d agoThe alternative is letting bad actors conquer and subjugate you. Unless you're a total pacifist, it's a genuinely stupid and unserious position that warrants invective ridicule and mockery. I mentioned this in another comment, but was downvoted rather than greeted with pushback from people volunteering to become my personal slaves. If that sounds ridiculous, please understand that's exactly what these retards (or bots) desire. That's what their position invites to happen. (I also can't change their mind, so might as well get some morally clean slaves out of it. I might even let them free if they realize the error of their ways, which is something a conquering force would never do.)
- infamouscow 22d agoThis is not a serious position. Just because you personally prefer to be subjugated doesn't mean anyone else does. That necessarily means being able to defend yourself from bad actors, and history has proven the best way to do that is by investing in technology.
- asadotzler 22d agoIt will be comms mostly, and mostly civilian. That other stuff will happen, but it'll be dwarfed by the effort of supporting several tens of millions of Starlink users.
- maeln 22d agoFeels like an impossible project that will end up being 5% of what was advertised (the 5% being what was actually planned all along), but is made with folie des grandeurs to pump a stock who's hype has died down.
- 1970-01-01 22d agoThe stock really didn't move much (+2%) with this big announcement. It is a city; not a short-term idea we can forget about in two weeks.
- xyst 22d agoSpace exploration is a pipe dream and fantasy that billionaires hope to have up and running just in time to "escape" the world they have helped destroy. Prove me wrong bro
- xboxnolifes 22d agoI agree mostly with your stance, but I still have to downvote out of principle for the whole "prove me wrong" statement at the end. Hate that argumentative tatic.
- sockaddr 22d agoElon-types won't "dig us out" of our mess. Removing parasitic elements in government spending and policy will. This starts with politics. We first need a healthy, educated, engaged, and safe population. All else follows. These are all things Elon actively works against. You aren't part of his future.
- ryandvm 22d agoWe just need more leeches.
- throwaway894345 22d agoYep, it's crazy that people can correctly recognize that corruption is responsible for the current situation but fail to recognize that adding more corruption will not deliver us from it.
- watwut 22d agoThey will try to dig us out of the hole they created by their previoua digging.
- guywithahat 22d ago[flagged]
- krapp 22d ago>Isn't that an Elon thing? He was involved in DOGE, which did nothing but catch fraud and cut worthless spending. It did nothing of the sort. Finding someone still pushing this line in 2026 is like seeing a thylacine in the wild. One can only stare in awe.
- teachrdan 22d ago> He was involved in DOGE, which did nothing but catch fraud and cut worthless spending. Elon wasn't just involved with DOGE, he was responsible for it. And Elon said he would cut $2 TRILLION in federal spending before ultimately claiming just $110 billion in savings -- which the GAO found he lied about. Considering out budget deficit is about $2 trillion, even his inflated claims are a rounding error. (To say nothing of the fact that a lot of it was NOT useless spending. For example, Elon ended a program to fund countries in Central America to stop the spread of screw worms. Now screw worms are projected to cost $1.8 billion in damage to Texas alone.) > while Elon encourages reporting on X Elon has a track record of banning journalists on Twitter / X, the everything app, when they criticize him. Literally the opposite of encouraging reporting on X. > We need more "Elons", people like him are actually helping dig us out of this mess. I would encourage you to start reading independent news sources and forming your own opinions, rather than uncritically believing everything people in power feed to you. Otherwise you end up saying things online that are trivially disprovable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/09/gao-report-underscores-how-little-doge-cut/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/09/gao-repor... https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/flesh-eating-screw-worm-fight-plan-rcna348521 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/flesh-eating-scr... https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-musk-silencing-his-critics-as-journalists-are-suspended-by-x/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-mus...
- bigtex88 22d agoIsn't this an absolutely horrible idea to build this here? What happens when the next Category 5 hurricane hits this area? It's an absolute certainty that they will get another Category 5 at some point.
- asadotzler 22d agoDo you know where NASA's launch facilities are? The Florida coast.
- btmiller 22d agoThe Florida coast isn't defined by a huge, meandering river. Take a look at some satellite surveys that showcase how the Mississippi River changes over time. We've of course damned up the shorelines upstream where people live in places like New Orleans so there's no inherent seasonal risk of mass flooding, though of course lose the deposited silt and hence further erode the land we've "saved". Further down south toward the mouth, it's marsh land defined by however the river chooses to meander. I'm not sure where exactly SpaceX is planning to setup in LA, but the entire coastline there is chronically very poor, very unpopulated, and not supported to weather flooding of any kind, especially not hurricanes.
- ggreer 22d agoPecan island is 40 miles away from the nearest distributary of the Mississippi (the Atchafalaya river), and there are several towns (and a highway) in between. It's the ocean & weather that erode the coastline in that area, not any rivers.
- starkparker 22d agoThe distance from the Mississippi's flow or mouth is irrelevant compared to the sediment that flowed out of it before levees forced it to exit the way it does today. Erosion from that decision was already an issue 50 years ago; weather events accelerated the pace, but so have upriver dams that cut off sediment supply, and also shipping canals that have carved gaps into it that push surges further inland than they would otherwise, and also the chéniers that diverted floodwaters regardless of cause into more fragile marshes, and also farmland that was in active use as far south as Pecan Island up until Rita salted it, and also 50 years of oil-industry support infrastructure, and also the Deepwater rig explosion that leaked oil that killed off marshes (the settlement of which is how the state ended up capable of awarding this land), and also rampant invasive nutria that negated efforts to use agricultural fresh-water discharge to reverse previous damage. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11042/ https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11042/ https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL073079 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/44432/noaa_44432_DS1.pdf https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/44432/noaa_444... https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/45895/noaa_45895_DS1.pdf https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/45895/noaa_458... https://gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/media/document/2018-07-la-final-rpea-4070618508pdf https://gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/media/document/2018-07... https://www.usgs.gov/publications/accelerating-elevation-gain-indicates-land-loss-associated-erosion-mississippi-river https://www.usgs.gov/publications/accelerating-elevation-gai...
- ratelimitsteve 22d agowell, let's see what actually gets done. or even started.
- officeplant 22d agoAs a local who will probably end up doing work for or adjacent to this project: Fuck Elon get out of my state.
- sailfast 22d agoGreat place to put a star base for all the reasons listed, but, uh… does anyone buy for a second that Elon Musk gives a fig about the Louisiana coastline or the migratory birds?
- tim333 22d agoI'm sure that's there to make it more possible to get planning permission.
- moberley 22d agoWill they have to rename the other Starbase Louisiana? https://starbasela.org/ https://starbasela.org/
- riffic 22d agoGenerally, the way this works is that the richest person gets to whatever they want because they own the people who write the rules, and the people with less money have to abide or change.
- fblp 22d agoI wonder if we're at the point where this shoreline critical infrastructure would need more physical security / protection from the drones of adversaries.
- dylan604 22d agoFrom the hype video, it looks like they will be building towers in pairs. Hard to tell the distances, but if one explodes on the pad, will it's pair be in the blast radius? I'm guessing the plane will be to have a launch on one them and then move to the other for a faster launch cadence?
- pinkmuffinere 22d agoI wonder how coastal they intend to be. They make a lot of claims about repairing the wetlands and coastal regions, but a lot of it is likely going to be underwater in the next 25 years because of rising sea levels [0], regardless of how many wetlands are repaired. And I suspect infrastructure like this probably has to be usable for something like 100 years to payoff. Maybe they're actually going to build inland, where the eventual coast will be? [0] https://www.klfy.com/louisiana/interactive-map-shows-which-parts-of-louisiana-could-be-underwater-in-2050/ https://www.klfy.com/louisiana/interactive-map-shows-which-p...
- kulahan 22d agoThis was my question as well. If they’re as close to the shore as the picture makes it seem, they’ll be underwater with the first Cat 1 they come across, and huge cat 5s are becoming more and more common as time goes on. I wouldn’t want to invest here because how will you keep those 200 foot tall structures standing in 150 mph wind??
- YetAnotherNick 22d ago> infrastructure like this probably has to be usable for something like 100 years to payoff I don't think so. Likely the pad with last 10 years max. In any case, I highly doubt that but in any case sea level is almost certainly going to rise below a meter. Filling a meter higher with sand is a pocket change for this project.
- johnisom2001 22d agoThere are levees and other tech that has existed for centuries and millenia to stave off flooding.
- sfblah 22d agoHumans will never be "multiplanetary" without something like warp drive.
- digitalsurgeonz 22d ago[dead]
- tim333 22d agoThe eastoids do capitalism too.
- simgt 22d agoI wish Musk had stuck to bullying his employees instead of going after everyone, because SpaceX is still building a more interesting future. Although that apparently involves pouring concrete in a wetland.
- dzonga 22d agoElon - great product guy - he has to let go of his scammy tendencies of overpromising stuff. just one launch base will transform the Louisiana economy.
- fastball 22d agoNth order effects are powerful things. A single person could change the trajectory of Louisiana in a meaningful way.
- tristanj 22d agoSo this is official after months of speculation. Local realtors called this back in May https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829 https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829 , and Ars Technica covered these rumors earlier this month https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/spacex-is-set-to-acquire-130000-acres-of-marshland-in-southern-louisiana/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/spacex-is-set-to-acqui... . The Louisiana location has two major benefits: Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) Access: Launches into SSO have a launch angle of ~98° relative to the equator (i.e. south), and launching from Louisiana gives a direct launch corridor over the Gulf of America without crossing major cities. SpaceX plans to launch millions of datacenter satellites in SSO, so this is the perfect launch site for their use case. SSO launches from their existing launch sites (Boca Chica and Cape Canaveral) would overfly land. Existing Methane pipelines: They are next to existing Gulf Coast natural gas/LNG infra, making bulk liquid methane delivery significantly easier. Currently for Starbase, there are no pipelines and methane is shipped in via truck. Delivering the ~1,000 metric tons of methane required for a single Starship launch requires 50-60 tanker truck deliveries.
- daft_pink 22d agoA quick ctrl f for Gulf of America yield no results. Just curious lol.
- leetrout 22d agoIt's in the comments here tho.
- rickreynoldssf 22d agoI wonder how many environmentalists are losing their shit over this and burring the lawsuit machine.
- preisschild 22d agoHabitat destruction is bad actually
- boxed 22d agoAnd yet, the area around Chernobyl and the DMZ between North and South Korea are two of the most important bio diversity areas in their respective areas. I think most environmentalists are rather confused about what is good and what is bad for the environment.
- rbanffy 22d agoLook! Flame trenches, the kind Elon said were useless because he had a better idea - that inverted shower floor.
- fig781 22d agoI definitely read this as Starbucks. Boy was I surprised when I clicked on the link
- maxlin 22d agoThe whole state just multiplied their amount of big dick energy. Crazy good for Louisianans
- wonderwonder 22d ago[flagged]
- calldacopsidgaf 22d ago"Elon Musk has promised to send humans to Mars at least eight times since 2016. Every single deadline has passed without a launch." you know what they say about "fool me twice" right? Add six more "fool me"s and we're now at your position. https://tesorb.com/spacex-mars-timeline-accountability-missed-deadlines/ https://tesorb.com/spacex-mars-timeline-accountability-misse...
- Animats 22d agoSurprising that Space-X didn't just buy KSC from NASA. Space-X already does most of the launches from KSC anyway.
- r2ob 22d agoHow many drones can it deploy on Earth?
- outside1234 22d agoWill look forward to the articles in five years of how trashed the LA coast is
- steele 22d agoYes yes, mountains of gold in this new world! just get on this boat!
- tootie 22d ago> We’re committed to investing at least $100 billion and creating more than 3,000 new jobs at Starbase, Louisana Does each job pay $30M?
- carlosochoa 22d agoNot all the money is going towards salaries. I imagine that steel and concrete cost quite a bit in the specific configurations required by the project.
- jongjong 22d agoI have nothing against humans becoming multi-planetary but this is a luxurious desire at this point in history. We should solve poverty first. This is the kind of project which you do once there are no more problems to solve on earth.
- ipnon 22d agoFrom 1990 to 2025, the number of people in extreme poverty dropped from around 2.3 billion to roughly 831 million. I think we're making fast enough progress here to warrant public companies going to space on their own dime and volition.
- cesarvarela 22d agoSpace exploration might help solve poverty, though. It will create new occupations, as new technology and discoveries always do.
- formvoltron 22d agoThis is madness. People seriously need to value this thing realistically. Otherwise we are handing the money required over to a raging narcissist who plans to launch hundreds and thousands of rockets, each one burning KEROSENE or methane... For what? Live on mars? Aykm? Starlink? Nifty but I get unlimited 5g 300 Mbps unlimited for 8 euros a month. And does starlink work inside? What else? Does nobody else see it as kind of strange that humans with all of our technology still have not figured out a better way to power a rocket with kerosene or methane? And we're powering the most cutting edge computing AI using.... Fossil fuels. Fail
- jsjdjdjsjsnsj 22d ago[dead]
- shy107 22d ago[dead]
- fsuts 22d agoHow are SpaceX paying for it? it’s costing $100bn… but they don’t have $100bn…
- joelthelion 22d agoI imagine they plan to rely on debt, which is the fashionable thing to do these days. The wake up call might be difficult, for the whole country or even the whole world.
- boxed 22d agoPresumably this will be built out in parts over many years. It's not like they throw down 100bn and POOF there's the full thing completed magically.
- thrance 22d agoMore no-bid contracts, under the guise of building a "golden dome" that I'll bet my hands will never exist.
- zoomaboom 21d agoThe amount of effort by some to make it exist is hard to imagine. I wouldn't bet against it. The problem is it will be destabilizing and you and everyone else will lose more than just their hands.
- renierbotha 22d agoAll I saw was nipples
- poulpy123 22d agoThe first sentence is already a scam "multiplanetary future" lmao, they can't stop themselves lying
- tim333 22d agoStretch goal.
- runamok 20d agoWhere exactly are they planning to build this? See https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/louisianas-shrinking-coast-offers-narrowing-window-managed-retreat https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/louisianas-shrinki.... Ah, Vermilion Parish which is ~160 miles east of New Orleans...