Boca Chica is only getting FAA permits for five orbital launches per year.
The LNG will probably be delivered to a floating launch platform (Phobos or
Deimos) well offshore, with much simpler permitting and safety
requirements. Both Starships and Superheavies could be delivered to the
orbital launch platform(s) via a relatively short suborbital hop/checkout
flight. SH delivery flights might need fairings on the top, but those could
be just another nose, possibly carried back to Boca Chica via a barge.
On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 6:22 PM Michael Kelly <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The Apollo program generated the huge demand for liquid hydrogen that
resulted in a gigantic production facility in Ontario, CA. It supplied
both Rocketdyne’s Santa Susanna test facility and the Cape, all via over
the road trucks. Liquid methane is easier to truck, and much easier to
ship via…well, ship. A port to receive methane ships at SpaceX’s facility
would be easy. But Elon has evidently been developing methane sources in
Texas himself.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 11, 2021, at 5:20 PM, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
the environmental assessment for SpaceX's Boca Chica launch site raised an
The next item down in Space News's "First Up" newsletter reports that
interesting question. They're going to need methane in large quantities,
both for the rockets and for a natural-gas powerplant that's part of the
site plans. How are they going to get it there? Apparently there's no
operational gas pipeline in the area, and the current paperwork is silent
on the matter.
Henry