The impact of SpaceX’s rocket launches in South Texas include rocket debris, road closures, plus noise and vibrations that effect wildlife.
And these aren’t restricted to the borders of the place now known as Starbase. Just across the border in Tamaulipas, residents are speaking out about SpaceX’s impact there, too.
Pablo De La Rosa, who recently reported on this for The Border Chronicle, spoke to Texas Standard about recent protests against Elon Musk’s operation in South Texas. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: You spoke to a number of people just across the border in Tamaulipas who are protesting against SpaceX. What are their concerns?
Pablo De La Rosa: Sure, I mean, this really exploded on the southern side of the border about two or three SpaceX launches ago when they started finding large pieces of debris on the Mexican beaches, on the beaches of Tamaulipas – Playa Bagdad.
We’re talking about, you know, big carbon composite cylinders used for high-pressure gas storage. But also, one of the nonprofits I spoke to is talking about what he calls “millions of pieces of plastic” also that have been spread on the beach that they’re really concerned about in terms of the ecosystem.
And also because of the noise, I mean, that’s also gotten a lot louder. So basically, you know, as SpaceX has built up these engines to be louder, more powerful, you’re having more effects, the debris is going further as those launches get further and further out into space during these tests.
Well, how have the launches in South Texas affected wildlife on the Mexican side of the border? That whole Gulf Coast is an important habitat for animals, especially endangered sea turtles.
Sure, I mean, Conibio, who’s a nonprofit that works with the Mexican federal government on bi-national conservation projects, what they told me is that so far this year, about 900 endangered turtles have been found dead.
What they’re finding is that the sand above their underground nest is being compacted by some of these explosions at Starbase. This is something that they’ve been looking at.
And so, most recently, just a few weeks ago, we had an explosion at Starbase that was on the ground. Usually we have these rockets explode in the air a little bit further.
The ground explosion really caused a much different kind of impact, vibration on the beaches of Tamaulipas, as well as on the north side of course, but that’s what they found on their side after that particular ground explosion.
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Tell us about the protests. What else are people planning there on the Mexican side of the border to express their displeasure?
Sure, I mean, just last month was the tenth launch of Starship at Starbase, and Conibio organized a big protest on the water in the Gulf of Mexico.
And one of the things that happened at that protest was there were some flyovers by helicopters. One of the helicopters came very, very close. Conibio said that it actually destabilized the vessels that they were on and that they’re not sure if maybe those helicopters were trying to either get them to leave or maybe even capsize their boats or something like that.
But very tense time out on the waters during these last launches as Conibio and community members and a few other organizations on the ground gathered to protest these launches.
Well, in the little time we have left, federal officials in Mexico, including Mexico’s president, has talked about this, and they floated the idea of taking legal action against SpaceX based on some of the impacts we’ve been detailing here. Where does all that stand?
Well, what we know right now is that there’s a task force assigned by Mexican President Sheinbaum to be in Tamaulipas during these launches. They were present at this last launch and they plan to be present for every launch.
We know also that she’s committed a specialized scuba diving team to go out and prepare reports of any damages or debris underwater.
So they haven’t commented too much, the various jurisdictions – Tamaulipas, Matamoros, Mexico. They’re not saying too much about whether they will file a lawsuit, but they’re definitely following up on what they said would be a study of whether a lawsuit would be brought.
Did SpaceX ever clean up that debris?
You know, actually, El País reported that SpaceX reached out to the federal Mexican government to say that they wanted to come in and collect debris that still belonged to the company. That’s what I’ve seen there.
Other than that, SpaceX didn’t respond to my request for comment, and I haven’t seen them respond to any other requests on this particular possible lawsuit.
