According to an environmental review from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released on Monday, SpaceX can officially launch its colossal Mars rocket — Starship — into orbit from South Texas.
SpaceX aims to execute orbital launches of Starship pose “no significant impact” on the region throughout the Gulf Coast near Brownsville, Texas.
75 more items of action still need to be completed to cut down the ecological impact of the surrounding environment from Starship launches. However, this means Musk’s aims to send humans to Mars are finally materializing.
As a next-generation launch system, SpaceX’s Starship will be the main hub of NASA’s Artemis project, which aims to return humans to the moon and take us even farther into deep space.
However, there are a few hiccups. It must also take care to check the effects on wildlife and vegetation of the region by coordinating biologists with state and federal agencies while ensuring that all launch waste is safely removed from sensitive habitats.
The FAA’s measures also demand SpaceX limit its closures of a highway that’s near the launch site so that ordinary people can still go to the nearby beach, park, and enjoy the wildlife refuge.
Starship is completely reusable, unlike any other orbital rocket. This could save massive riches for SpaceX, Musk — and by proxy, U.S. taxpayers, whose money helps subsidize the billionaire space baron’s dreams in the form of lucrative contracts with NASA, the U.S. military, and other wings of the federal government.
Soon, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch the fully stacked Starship from Boca Chica, and it will zoom above the Gulf of Mexico, using its proximity to the Earth’s Equator to aid its journey to orbit by adding the planet’s own rotational velocity to that of the rocket.