8 comments

  • chasd0029 minutes ago
    Man if this actually starts to happen it's a good time to be a welder, concrete worker, or any general contractor or tradesman in Louisiana. Coastal Louisiana is some of the poorest areas in the US even more so than the valley in Texas where Starbase Texas is located. Probably 10-20 years worth of solid work building out that site.
    • swingandamiss28 minutes ago
      A lot of good, hard working people in that area that would love to have these jobs open up.
      • ActorNightly1 minute ago
        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Louisiana" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2024_United_States_presidentia...</a>
  • cwal3722 minutes ago
    I wonder if anyone read the copy on this page or if it mostly came out of an LLM.<p>The &quot;Restoring the shoreline&quot; and Rebuilding the marshlands&quot; paragraphs below the images are almost exactly the same. The first sentence is <i>exactly</i> the same.
    • beerandt12 minutes ago
      Maybe, but there&#x27;s some very specific legal language that cpra and the state requires everyone use in referring to some of these issues, and at least part of the land SpaceX is acquiring is involved in coastal restoration lawsuits or deep water horizon settlements or both.<p>As an engineer working on cpra projects in the past, I&#x27;ve wanted to reword a variety things but was forced to use their legal language.<p>It&#x27;s mostly a good thing as it keeps things properly defined in a political context that are meant to have specific technical meanings (like marsh, beach, rebuild vs restore).
    • schiffern13 minutes ago
      For me that makes it <i>more</i> likely to be human-generated. Seems like a &quot;rushing person juggling revs and copy-pasting&quot; mistake.<p>FWIW, the writing style and tone match pre-LLM SpaceX writing. Of course you can prompt an LLM to mimic style, but somehow the regression-to-average blandness shines through. That can be hard to distinguish from bog-standard corporate speak though.
    • bobchadwick4 minutes ago
      Maybe the site developer saw your comment. They&#x27;re different now.
  • timcobb9 minutes ago
    Why does this need to be built on the beach?
    • stronglikedan2 minutes ago
      Presumably so rockets can get out over water as quickly as possible in case they fail.
    • jgdxno1 minute ago
      it is to ensure that nothing fall on people&#x27;s heads
  • kemotep21 minutes ago
    It’s hard to imagine that Cocoa Beach&#x2F;Titusville isn’t receptive to this. I guess it’s probably cheaper? They don’t have to share the airspace with NASA and other launch companies and it becomes a fully owned and operated Freeport for Musk’s ventures.
    • chasd0013 minutes ago
      &gt; I guess it’s probably cheaper?<p>State of Louisiana was probably on their hands and knees begging. The construction would last decades and anyone with a strong back that can be told what to do and do it will have a job. It would help lift a lot of people in that area out of poverty.<p>logistically, i wonder how long it takes to ship from Starbase Texas to Louisiana via barge. It has to be easier to get Starships to Louisiana than the East side of Florida.
    • checker11 minutes ago
      No expert - but from what I&#x27;ve heard, Florida and Texas are constrained for efficent polar (North&#x2F;South) orbit launches due to restrictions over populated areas. Whereas Louisiana has the Gulf to the south so no&#x2F;fewer restrictions to worry about.
    • beerandt11 minutes ago
      There&#x27;s also a due south launch path at play.
    • jauntywundrkind18 minutes ago
      Seems geography constrained. There&#x27;s wetlands sure but how much they re allowed to build that out, vs LA where any effort to keep the state from shrinking as it does seems fairly welcome.
  • MeetingsBrowser5 minutes ago
    &gt; Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year. This self-sustaining spaceport will have propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and an airport.<p>Sounds really neat, but &quot;incredibly ambitious announcement&quot; from an Elon Musk company is starting to wear thin.<p>Is this real, or will it join the graveyard of other incredibly ambitious projects that were eventually abandoned to focus on the next incredibly ambitious project.
  • BugsJustFindMe29 minutes ago
    &gt; <i>Building a new space coast</i><p>But are they building it ghost to ghost?
    • giancarlostoro26 minutes ago
      Lol this is a reference to Florida (though I love your Space Ghost reference), we have the Kennedy Space Center, and an Airforce base (I guess its a Space Force base now) which has led to this area being referred to as &quot;Space Coast&quot; adding this in case anyone else might be unaware.<p>Florida is more interesting than people realize.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_Coast" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_Coast</a>
      • jakeydus18 minutes ago
        Oh, I&#x27;ve never thought that Florida was uninteresting. Florida is nothing but ~interesting~.
        • giancarlostoro15 minutes ago
          I&#x27;m sort of projecting (I&#x27;ve been here most of my life, I got tired of it, now regaining appreciation for Florida the last few years), but I&#x27;ve also noticed others (not you) don&#x27;t realize there&#x27;s more to Florida than most people realize.
  • 1auralynn23 minutes ago
    I mean, isn&#x27;t the LA coast going to be underwater in 50 years?
  • ramesh3122 minutes ago
    Ah, Louisiana — when even Texas won&#x27;t let you pollute enough.
    • TripleTree7 minutes ago
      Can&#x27;t launch south out of Texas
    • syndacks13 minutes ago
      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;publichealth.jhu.edu&#x2F;2025&#x2F;the-shocking-hazards-of-louisianas-cancer-alley" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;publichealth.jhu.edu&#x2F;2025&#x2F;the-shocking-hazards-of-lo...</a>