SpaceX seeking additional $5 million in spaceport funding from state
SpaceX is seeking new state funding to build a commercial spaceport in Texas, even though the high-profile project that it began near Brownsville in 2014 is behind schedule and millions in state tax dollars already set aside for it have yet to be spent.
From article, (SpaceX is seeking new state funding to build a commercial spaceport in Texas, even though the high-profile project that it began near Brownsville in 2014 is behind schedule and millions in state tax dollars already set aside for it have yet to be spent.
Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX — founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk with the aim of reducing the cost of space travel and one day facilitating the colonization of Mars — is seeking up to $5 million more from the state to help build infrastructure related to the launch facility at Boca Chica beach outside Brownsville, a Cameron County official has confirmed.
A total of $13 million from the Spaceport Trust Fund was earmarked for SpaceX’s project at Boca Chica beach in 2014, but only $2.6 million of it has been spent. In addition, SpaceX has been pledged $2.3 million from the state’s jobs-focused Texas Enterprise Fund, but only $400,000 has been distributed to it — and the company has returned about $81,000 of that sum — because the project hasn’t kept pace with employment targets.
The slower-than-expected rate of development at the Boca Chica spaceport is partly the result of difficulties building on the beach after the bedrock proved to be deeper than expected and the water table turned out to be higher than expected, prompting SpaceX to bring in hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of new soil to stabilize the site to support future structures.
Other slowdowns have been caused by the company’s focus on more pressing issues after one of its rockets exploded in 2015 shortly after liftoff from a leased launch pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and another exploded on the pad in 2016, temporarily grounding some of SpaceX’s commercial operations both times.
Musk -- who started electric car-maker Tesla, among other companies, and is known for bold and futuristic pronouncements -- said during the Boca Chica groundbreaking in 2014 that rockets launched from the site would carry commercial satellites at first but it eventually could be critical to establishing a human presence on Mars.
“It could very well be that the first person that departs for another planet will depart from this location,” Musk said at the time.)
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