When Elon Musk first eyed South Texas as a new base for space operations, he promised that SpaceX's footprint would be small, environmentally friendly and that the surrounding area would “be left untouched.”
A decade later, the reality is very different: A New York Times investigation has revealed how SpaceX's breakneck growth in the region is dramatically altering the fragile landscape, threatening the habitat the U.S. government is charged with protecting.
Further impacts are likely in South Texas and other areas where SpaceX is expanding. Musk has said he wants to one day launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever made, 1,000 times a year.
SpaceX executives declined repeated requests for comment, but Gary Henry, who until this year advised SpaceX on the Defense Department's launch program, said the company is aware of concerns about SpaceX's environmental impact and is working to address them.
Here are four takeaways from our research:
Musk used the protected land as a buffer zone for SpaceX operations.
U.S. rocket launch sites, such as Vandenberg Space Command Base in California and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, are typically huge, secure facilities covering tens of thousands of acres.
When Musk was looking at the area near Brownsville, Texas, he wasn't looking to buy a parcel of land that large, but rather a small piece in the middle of public land — what his team calls a “donut hole” — with the idea that the surrounding state parks and federal wildlife refuges would act as a natural buffer.
But there was a catch to the plan: the village of Boca Chica next to the planned launch site had several inhabited homes and frequent visitors to the state park, and these people had to be evacuated every time a launch was scheduled.
Adding to the concern, the proposed site is adjacent to one of North America's most important migratory bird habitats, and nearby Boca Chica Beach is a breeding ground for Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, one of the world's most endangered sea turtles.
Musk misled authorities about his plans for the region.
Musk and SpaceX initially told local officials that the company's impact on the area would be modest, with the development bringing hundreds of jobs to the area for an investment of about $50 million.
Company officials also told the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX's top regulator, that the company plans to launch Falcon rockets from the region, the company's flagship rocket that is primarily used to launch satellites into space.
Mr. Musk has implemented an entirely different plan. Investments in SpaceX, including rocket-building facilities, now total $3 billion. A second launch pad is under construction. Industrial growth has caused congestion on the narrow, two-lane road leading to Boca Chica, so some of SpaceX's 3,400 employees and contractors now commute to work by hovercraft.
SpaceX has also begun testing its Starship rocket, which is much larger than the largest version of the Falcon and nearly four times heavier. As Starship test flights began, Musk hailed the advance as a step toward one day sending humans to Mars. The FAA initially did not anticipate such a large-scale operation or such a powerful rocket.
National Park Service officials also grew frustrated with SpaceX's failed promises. The company agreed to certain conditions to limit its impact on the Palmito Ranch Battlefield, site of the final Civil War battle. But a retired National Park Service official told The Times that SpaceX violated some of those agreements. “We were lied to,” Mark Spiers said.
Public lands around the starbase were destroyed.
In April 2023, SpaceX conducted the first full-scale test launch of Starship. However, the rocket malfunctioned, triggering a self-destruct mechanism and ultimately exploding, sending steel plates, concrete shards and debris flying thousands of feet into the air and impacting bird habitats, nearby state parks and beaches. One piece of concrete was found 2,680 feet from the launch site, far outside the area where the FAA expected damage could occur.
This isn't the first time or the last time debris has been hurled at the protected area: Since 2019, testing of SpaceX's Starship rockets and prototypes has caused at least 19 problems, including fires, leaks and explosions, at Musk's rapidly growing complex in Boca Chica, which he calls Starbase.
Even the hovercraft that employees use to commute to work create new dangers to “globally important shorebird habitats,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said in a letter to SpaceX.
The environment has taken a back seat to SpaceX and American ambitions
Musk exploited the limitations and competing missions of the various agencies that are best placed to check Starbase's expansion.
Those tasked with protecting the region's cultural and natural resources, particularly officials with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, have repeatedly lost out to more powerful agencies, including the FAA, which is intertwined with Musk's goals.
The US already relies heavily on SpaceX to launch defense and commercial satellites into space. Both the Pentagon and NASA plan to carry cargo aboard the new Starship, which NASA has a $2.9 billion contract to use the rocket to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
The FAA is charged with promoting the safety of space travel, and despite being required to conduct environmental studies of SpaceX's activities, the agency has acknowledged that protecting the environment is not its top priority.
“It's not something we ordered to do, to send debris into state parks or onto federal land. But at the end of the day, nobody was hurt. Nobody was hurt,” said Kevin Coleman, the FAA's top official who oversees space launch licensing. “We don't want people to feel like they've been crushed by a bulldozer. But it's really important work that SpaceX is doing there. This is really important to our civil space program.”
