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If there is a leader in the aerospace industry, SpaceX is it. The company's are the current go-to vehicles to deliver astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.

NASA contracts through 2030 alone are worth nearly US$5 billion and include research and development for the to return astronauts to the moon.

Over the past decade, SpaceX has also emerged as a key vendor to the U.S. Department of Defense, seen most recently with a for projects such as launching defense satellite networks and contributing to .

As a , I'm interested in how commercial space and defense companies affect the local communities where they conduct launches and tests.

For instance, I spent over two years in Kazakhstan researching the and the beginning of .

Elon Musk and SpaceX's influence

Politically, SpaceX is an enormous boon to the United States.

As a U.S.-based defense supplier and contractor, the company's technology has helped to an almost two-decade for access to the International Space Station. Its billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, has even expressed .

Musk's helping Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election is expected to .

In the new administration, Musk is poised to lead a newly created advisory agency called the , which could lead to benefits for his business and widen his space ambitions.

Boca Chica, Texas, is home to SpaceX's . Since 2021, I have been conducting research with environmental groups and multigenerational community members of Latino and Indigenous descent in south Texas who see space exploration as a landscape-altering industry that affects their well-being.

After watching Starbase's development proceed since 2014, locals there told me that there is much unseen and unsaid about what happens on the ground while an aerospace giant shoots for the stars.

Breaking eggs to make an omelet

Starbase is an built by SpaceX to fabricate and test a number of the company's rocket types.

The area around it is a that includes estuaries and coastal grasslands, mud flats and more, where falcons, hawks, ravens, gulls and songbirds live.

Since , SpaceX engineers have had to drain water-logged soils, level them and pour concrete to support ground tracking stations, assembly buildings, engine test stands, a nearly 500-foot (152-meter) launch tower and onsite fuel mixing and storage.

to of environmental abuses, the company maintains that it is dedicated to environmental stewardship.

But developing rockets is a . are often, though not always, remote and highly secured installations.

Fiery explosions on the ground or in the air aren't unheard of over the past several years. Rocket tests in , and have all ended in accidents.

In April 2023, one of SpaceX's prototype Starship rockets shortly after liftoff.

This is not the only time that a at places where SpaceX operates.

SpaceX runs a compact though growing operation at Boca Chica that has transformed the area. The hamlet was previously known as Kopernik Shores, and SpaceX purchased in the area. Some residents have reported pressure to sell their property for suboptimal prices following rumors that the county would use their residences.

I spoke to Rebekah Hinojosa, a local activist and member of the Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, while researching in the area. To many locals, including Hinojosa, it seems like Musk is that SpaceX is insulated from public criticism.

In a 2018 press conference, , "We've got a lot of land with no one around, and so if it blows up, it's cool," referring to a rocket he planned to test at Starbase.

Changes to the landscape

An installation the size of Starbase cannot avoid in the four distinct state and federal wildlife protection areas that surround it.

If you walk through the protected areas you may see shrapnel, segments of rocket chassis and other random debris from any number of explosions—that is, if someone else hasn't picked them up first.

In December 2022, I visited a luxury campground near Starbase. It displayed various fragments of rocket debris, which they called memorabilia to the new space age, throughout the site.

Within SpaceX, as well as NASA, the explosion of 2023 was in developing the Starship rocket. The event did produce valuable data on the rocket's performance—it has done little to tarnish the company's reputation.

There is tremendous support for SpaceX . The company has into a region ranked among the country's poorest.

SpaceX has created about 2,100 jobs. However, that local and state politicians have seen more personal gains in their real estate holdings and campaign budgets than the region's economy has overall.

A laboratory near the community

At the end of the day, to develop a rocket, you need a place to test your design.

"Our local beach is the laboratory," local activist Hinojosa told me.

Resident coalitions of Indigenous, Latino and Chicano people as well as conservation groups the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and others to combat SpaceX.

SpaceX misled state and federal regulators about Starbase's operations. They claim SpaceX changed how frequently it planned to launch tests and built new facilities for several rocket types, which rendered the company's original environmental impact statement for the area inaccurate.

Some key issues these groups are fighting against include a bid into more protected areas. Another point of contention is the , which creates thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater to cool launch pads and rocket engines after testing.

While the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about violations of the Clean Water Act, claimants in a recent lawsuit contend that these agencies have not held the company accountable for breaking the law. The company has denied any wrongdoing and of environmental harms.

"As we have built up capacity to launch and developed new sites across the country, we have always been committed to public safety and mitigating impacts to the environment," . "The list of measures we take just for operations in Texas is over two hundred items long, including constant monitoring and sampling of the short and long-term health of local flora and fauna. The narrative that we operate free of, or in defiance of, environmental regulation is demonstrably false."

So, what does the future hold? Many people from conservation agencies, activist groups and Indigenous communities in Texas . Given the high public support for space exploration in the U.S. and the burgeoning friendship between Musk and Trump, a SpaceX evacuation from the area seems unlikely.

While it may take difficult negotiations that require concessions from each party, I hope that somewhere there is a middle ground on which space exploration and environmental protections can coexist.

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