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It’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 oth

by kemotep 23d ago

It’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 23d ago
Seems 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 23d 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 ago
  They 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 ago
    Crazy 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.
    - NewJazz 22d ago
      What if the money you receive isn't enough to offset the physical damage to your body that the work demands?
checker 23d ago
No expert - but from what I've heard, Florida and Texas are constrained for efficent polar (North/South) orbit launches due to restrictions over populated areas. Whereas Louisiana has the Gulf to the south so no/fewer restrictions to worry about.
- piloto_ciego 22d ago
  It's for sun-synchronous orbits, almost assuredly. This is for space data centers. Man, I was hoping they would pick Alaska (as it's even better for launching into those orbits) - we could really use new industries other than just resource extraction, but Louisiana makes a lot of sense, I just am surprised that there's actually the available land there to do this. Interesting.
  - checker 22d ago
    Thanks for the extra context!
    - piloto_ciego 22d ago
      I mean, I'm just speculating? But yeah, I'd be willing to bet serious money (well, in a way, I have) that this is why. Sun-synchronous orbit is something like 7 degrees off of a purely polar orbit? Something like that? So a big southerly coast is extremely valuable for this sort of operation. I would absolutely love if we were building launch infrastructure up here. We have tons of open space for it, Cape Chiniak is "fine" but kind of remote. What I wish we would do is put some launcher's on the road system, or close to it, then build out our own space infrastructure here in AK. We really need something other than just resource extraction up here and asteroid mining and space manufacturing is going to be particularly bad for the Alaskan economy. Once it's cheaper to get a big rock from space, or battery tech gets just a little bit cheaper, the economy up here is in deep trouble. My little startup is trying to do build some tools up here for local airlines using AI, and I'm able to make money at it? Which is cool - there's not a huge amount of technically talented people here compared to Seattle or the Bay Area, but there's still smart people in these parts, we have resources, and we have available land and permissive building rules. That is so crazy valuable in a world where NIMBY rules everything down south. Like, obviously I don't want them drilling for oil in DNP, but you know, I have been to and worked in the arctic, I'm pretty fine if we were building things up there, or on these remote Aleutian islands, or in these relatively empty and uninhabited/uninhabitable places. I wish these companies would look north to build. There are some Nimby d-bags up here, but there are FAR fewer of them than any other place I've ever lived. For context on a hyper micro-scale, my driveway permit outside of Anchorage for our cabin was handled for free with a friendly email to the borough and them wishing me luck. Obviously, other people's mileage may vary, especially for things like giant projects, dams, mines, etc. but the burden here is so much less - you can almost just... feel it. Despite being "harder" to do things up here, it's remarkably permissive. Maybe when my little startup is more capable and I've got more money coming in, and I'm spitting out drones from my little machine shop, maybe I'll be able to do more?
beerandt 23d ago
There's also a due south launch path at play.
Tuna-Fish 22d ago
They want to launch to sun-synchronous.
UltraSane 22d ago
I expect Musk picked Louisiana because it has some of the weakest corporate regulations of any state and will probably let SpaceX get away with almost anything.

by kemotep 23d ago

jauntywundrkind 23d ago

Seems 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 23d 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 ago
They 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 ago
  Crazy 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.
  - NewJazz 22d ago
    What if the money you receive isn't enough to offset the physical damage to your body that the work demands?

checker 23d ago

No expert - but from what I've heard, Florida and Texas are constrained for efficent polar (North/South) orbit launches due to restrictions over populated areas. Whereas Louisiana has the Gulf to the south so no/fewer restrictions to worry about.

piloto_ciego 22d ago
It's for sun-synchronous orbits, almost assuredly. This is for space data centers. Man, I was hoping they would pick Alaska (as it's even better for launching into those orbits) - we could really use new industries other than just resource extraction, but Louisiana makes a lot of sense, I just am surprised that there's actually the available land there to do this. Interesting.
- checker 22d ago
  Thanks for the extra context!
  - piloto_ciego 22d ago
    I mean, I'm just speculating? But yeah, I'd be willing to bet serious money (well, in a way, I have) that this is why. Sun-synchronous orbit is something like 7 degrees off of a purely polar orbit? Something like that? So a big southerly coast is extremely valuable for this sort of operation. I would absolutely love if we were building launch infrastructure up here. We have tons of open space for it, Cape Chiniak is "fine" but kind of remote. What I wish we would do is put some launcher's on the road system, or close to it, then build out our own space infrastructure here in AK. We really need something other than just resource extraction up here and asteroid mining and space manufacturing is going to be particularly bad for the Alaskan economy. Once it's cheaper to get a big rock from space, or battery tech gets just a little bit cheaper, the economy up here is in deep trouble. My little startup is trying to do build some tools up here for local airlines using AI, and I'm able to make money at it? Which is cool - there's not a huge amount of technically talented people here compared to Seattle or the Bay Area, but there's still smart people in these parts, we have resources, and we have available land and permissive building rules. That is so crazy valuable in a world where NIMBY rules everything down south. Like, obviously I don't want them drilling for oil in DNP, but you know, I have been to and worked in the arctic, I'm pretty fine if we were building things up there, or on these remote Aleutian islands, or in these relatively empty and uninhabited/uninhabitable places. I wish these companies would look north to build. There are some Nimby d-bags up here, but there are FAR fewer of them than any other place I've ever lived. For context on a hyper micro-scale, my driveway permit outside of Anchorage for our cabin was handled for free with a friendly email to the borough and them wishing me luck. Obviously, other people's mileage may vary, especially for things like giant projects, dams, mines, etc. but the burden here is so much less - you can almost just... feel it. Despite being "harder" to do things up here, it's remarkably permissive. Maybe when my little startup is more capable and I've got more money coming in, and I'm spitting out drones from my little machine shop, maybe I'll be able to do more?

beerandt 23d ago

There's also a due south launch path at play.

Tuna-Fish 22d ago

They want to launch to sun-synchronous.

UltraSane 22d ago

I expect Musk picked Louisiana because it has some of the weakest corporate regulations of any state and will probably let SpaceX get away with almost anything.