Starbase, Louisiana will be integral to space exploration

Starbase, Louisiana is a new spaceport on the Gulf Coast that aims to enable a multiplanetary future. Joe Pappalardo, an author and journalist who has covered the Starbase site since it was just a beach, says the state as a whole stands to benefit from being an integral part of SpaceX launches moving forward.

While SpaceX’s launch facility in Texas has been a major focal point, the Louisiana Gulf Coast will be integral to space missions advancing national priorities going forward. Pappalardo expects development to happen at a rapid pace in Louisiana. “It’s going to happen fast in Louisiana. They’ve got the money and the plan. They didn’t really have either of those when Boca Chica Beach (in Brownsville, Texas) was just starting out,” he went on to explain. Pappalardo expects Louisiana residents to be able to take advantage of the myriad jobs that will be created by the facility in Louisiana as well.

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Pappalardo says the facility in Brownsville was made primarily for testing purposes. The SpaceX base in Louisiana would be where they launch rockets regularly. “They’re going to be building as many launch pads as they can and launching as many of these gigantic rockets as frequently as possible and they want to do it on a very tight timeline,” he notes, saying SpaceX has plenty of money to do it and a government in Louisiana that is very compliant. “They have everything that they didn’t have in place in Texas to move very fast, including relaxed environmental rules on the federal level,” Pappalardo explains. “They have a golden opportunity to move quickly here and when SpaceX has all those planets in alignment so to speak, they move very fast,” he went on to add.

Elon Musk has said he wants to launch as many as 30 times per day from Louisiana alone. That will require a lot of launch pads, and a lot of construction, but Pappalardo expects a highly motivated Musk to put the pedal to the metal so to speak when it comes to ramping up the Gulf Coast facility.