Sometime in the next two months the largest and most powerful rocket ever built could hurtle into space from deep South Texas.
If Elon Musk and SpaceX have their way, the nearly 400-foot-tall Starship and Super Heavy booster combo will shake the ground, rattle windows and capture imaginations as it spits fire and rumbles skyward from its quick-growing facility near Boca Chica Beach outside Brownsville.
The test flight will be the latest, and most impressive, volley in a new space race as NASA and various companies scramble to send humans to the moon (again), Mars and beyond.
Musk is eccentric, but his stated goal of making humans a multiplanetary species is admirable. To dream is to innovate.
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great — and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about,” Musk says on SpaceX’s website. “It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”
The plan, according to an FCC filing, calls for the booster to carry Starship into orbit then return to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico 20 miles off the coast of Boca Chica. The Starship will continue its flight and land in the ocean about 60 miles off the coast of Kauai about 90 minutes after launch.
Many environmental and regulatory hurdles remain, but Starship Serial Number 20 stands tall against the onshore breeze awaiting its chance to make history and change the future.
More than a futuristic stainless-steel rocket, the Starship represents a new era of space exploration and hope for humanity. That’s something to celebrate.
San Antonio Express-News
