Elon Musk and SpaceX recently declared they were “one step closer to the first orbital flight test of Starship.”
The reference was to the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket that’s perched at Starbase on Boca Chica Beach near Brownsville. The Federal Aviation Administration announced in June after a two year-study that SpaceX could expand its footprint on Boca Chica. The FAA, however, did not grant a rocket launch license. It cited 75 actions SpaceX needs to take to mitigate environmental concerns.
Some media outlets saw the FAA’s action as a setback for SpaceX. It did fall short of receiving a launch license. A significant takeaway, however, may have been missed. The FAA allowed SpaceX to continue expanding operations without requiring it to conduct a wider environmental impact study. The latter is crucial because it removed a lengthy process that would have pushed Boca Chica rocket launches well into the future.
The development comes as welcome news for a Brownsville-area economy that continues to see SpaceX’s influence grow. The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation describes an aerospace manufacturer that is ramping up the local economy’s technological and tourism possibilities.
“The excitement around SpaceX in Brownsville has been a great marketing component for businesses looking to enter the U.S. market,” said Nathan Burkhart, the director of business development for the BCIC. “We’re seeing an emerging market of tech and energy companies moving to the area from Latin America.”
‘Residual Impact Of SpaceX’
The strands of the SpaceX influence are widespread in the Brownsville-area economy.
The first came in food and beverage services and the hospitality industry in 2015 and 2016, the early construction years of SpaceX. Operations at Boca Chica began to ramp up in 2019 going into 2020. Hotel occupancies surged and Airbnb reservations flourished, Burkhart said. Caterers were contracted to provide food to SpaceX and many of those local eateries expanded their operations, he said.
Support companies and services attracted by SpaceX began arriving in Brownsville. One was the Space Channel, which bases its global news headquarters in Brownsville in covering stories impacting the industry. It’s what Burkhart calls the “residual impact” of businesses moving to Brownsville and providing support services to the aerospace industry.
Local talent is being built around SpaceX, Burkhart said. City officials say SpaceX has more than 1,600 employees and is now Brownsville’s largest private employer.
Building An Ecosystem
SpaceX has accelerated the development of an “ecosystem of entrepreneurship” in Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley, Burkhart said.
The BCIC is seeking to capitalize on the SpaceX-fed momentum by improving its resources, incentives and networks. One of its most important partnerships is with UTRGV’s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center. The two organizations worked together to gain a “soft landing” designation from the International Business Innovation Association.
The designation helps companies with various services as they seek to enter the U.S. market. In Brownsville’s case, it has been tech and energy companies from Mexico and Latin America entering the local economy because of the allure SpaceX brings, Burkhart said. It’s but one example of SpaceX’s local reach that goes beyond the shorter-term goal of the aerospace manufacturer getting FAA approval for rocket launches.
“It’s a combination of an innovative aerospace company moving to a region that has less barriers to entry, with the resources more established cities have, but with a more affordable cost of living as we develop the ecosystem of entrepreneurship in this region,” Burkhart said.