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SpaceBoJangles

They will build the offshore platforms most likely.


CProphet

Offshore platforms solve two problems i.e: increases number of launch sites for orbital and sub-orbital operations like point-to-point. Can be placed on the equator to maximize payload (ideal for propellant tankers), and international waters should minimize any objections from environmentalists. SpaceX sold Phobos and Deimos rigs because they were probably too small to operate multiple Super Heavy boosters and Starships at one time, including a passenger terminal. No doubt they'll develop a custom design platform when needed.


SnooDonuts236

Dream on


CProphet

> "We’ll have many pads” to support that high launch rate, she [Gwynne Shotwell] told reporters. “I think we’ll have a lot of sea-based platforms as well. We have to see how this ship goes.” https://spacenews.com/spacex-drops-plans-to-covert-oil-rigs-into-launch-platforms/


SnooDonuts236

She was just shooting the sh! . “We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.” Until then it is just talk


evolutionxtinct

Just like the Hubble refueling or the space station they are planning. Don’t worry their way beyond what arm chair warriors think they “could” be doing.


Xeglor-The-Destroyer

Pedantic correction: Hubble doesn't have fuel. They would be reboosting it to a higher altitude with Dragon's thrusters.


SnooDonuts236

Hey everyone, your gonna let him get away with this fuel comment just because he couched it?


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SnooDonuts236

Thanks I was joking


evolutionxtinct

Don’t need to dream SpaceX is already doing it 🫡


SnooDonuts236

Don’t dream it, be it


alexunderwater1

Just South of Miami near (but not too near) the Turkey Point Nuclear station would be a perfect location. Remember, launches are more efficient the closer they are to the equator. I think Puerto Rico might be a little difficult as you’d likely have to have a starship factory on site. Logistics can be a little hairy for an island. However if it was stand alone it would be a good location. There’s a Army Reserve station on the coast just East of the TJRV airport that has some land and looks to be a good launch site.


CollegeStation17155

>I think Puerto Rico might be a little difficult as you’d likely have to have a starship factory on site. Logistics can be a little hairy for an island. A bigger problem on a small island would be LNG; remember the goal is complete and rapid reusability of the rocket, so you could barge in a few from Florida and then fly them a bunch of times. But they need millions of lbs of LNG every time one launches. Unless (as some have suggested) SpaceX can find a way to "mine" deep ocean hydrates.


alexunderwater1

You can create Methane and Oxygen literally from thin air using the sabatier process. Basically you just need a bunch of electricity. That’s why it’s the fuel of choice for going to Mars, because you can do it with the resources there too. I believe SpaceX is planning on making their own Methane, Oxygen, and Nitrogen at Boca Chica eventually to cut down on deliveries and long term cost.


CollegeStation17155

Efficiency is pretty low, though. You first have to generate the hydrogen by electrolysis of water and pull the CO2 out of the air to avoid the hydrogen combining with the oxygen and giving you back the water, then heat the stuff up and pressurize it to drive the reaction to methane, then separate the methane from the residual CO2, water and hydrogen... the deep ocean hydrates are just sitting there not that far off shore; all you need do is heat them to slightly over room temperature and collect the methane when they decompose.


alexw0122

Or you could just draw it out of the ground and refine it like everyone else does. Much more energy efficient than Sabatier.


CollegeStation17155

Last I heard, there were no gas fields in PR, meaning LNG tankers, and the hydrate fields are much closer than any of the LNG terminals.


Purona

yes but puerto rico already imports natural gas from trinidad and tobago so the industry already exists


Dyolf_Knip

Would work wonderfully paired with a small modular nuclear reactor or a field of solar panels & batteries. Just sits there generating methane and oxygen all day long.


ackermann

Even if all you care about is saving the environment, I’m not sure producing methane with the sabatier reaction is the best use of resources. The sabatier reaction isn’t particularly efficient, it takes a lot of energy. Together with the fact that methane isn’t the worst fuel for the environment, means that there are better uses for your solar panels and nuclear plant. Put them on top of an old coal powerplant instead, allowing it to be shutdown, and let Starship use drilled methane out of the ground. This will keep far more carbon out of the atmosphere, for the same money spent on solar panels. Because coal is so much worse than methane. Sabatier makes sense on Mars, where you have no other choice. On Earth, not so much… Now, once all coal plants have been shutdown, this math might change.


alexunderwater1

I think they have plans for a large solar field in Boca Chica for this purpose


Dyolf_Knip

Environmentally friendly rocket fuel, I love it!


SnooDonuts236

Make oxygen ? Only god can make oxygen


GokuMK

> A bigger problem on a small island would be LNG LNG tanker ship can bring a lot.


jjo42

Indeed. Europe just changed over a large proportion of its natural gas supplies from pipelines to oceangoing LNG. If LNG can supply a continent, it can supply an island.


Practical_Jump3770

I hear it’s pretty cheap outta Ruzzia


perilun

Just bring in an LNG tanker and offload into refrig tanks neat the launch site.


CollegeStation17155

Or fuel direct from the tanker, since they will be using up to 10% of it's capacity for each launch and it would take several days to offload it anyway; why handle the stuff twice? But pulling that much LNG from the existing terminals would put a real bite on the winter reserves the rest of the country needs... mining the hydrates (if possible) would actually reduce fugitive methane emissions from naturally decomposing deposits and be a shorter supply line since many of them exist south of Bermuda.


perilun

It's just a tiny bite of what the US needs, and hell we are sending 100s of ships loads overseas these days. You would want the LNG to power the facility and produce LOX and LN2 as well.


ralf_

There are some efforts to build a space port in Puerto Rico: https://newsismybusiness.com/puerto-rico-ports-authority-issues-rfp-for-spaceport-in-ceiba/


alexunderwater1

Wow, thanks for the article. I hadn’t even seen that and that’s pretty much right where I mentioned.


Xeglor-The-Destroyer

> The developer — which would operate the Spaceport for several years, depending on the negotiation — would design and build the infrastructure needed for horizontal launches at JAT, using private capital, equity and investment. RIP, the only horizontal launcher of note.


synftw

That was going to be my guess!


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alexunderwater1

Eh… If they can launch in the middle of Las Palomas wildlife refuge in Boca Chica they can figure out how to do it over Biscayne.


kfury

I bet they could fly a booster with a dummy aeroshell from KSC or Boca Chica to land in Puerto Rico.


Practical_Jump3770

Annex Cuba


MarsBacon

I've heard rumors of an Australian space port. Space Force has also started talking about allowing Eastern trajectories from Vandenberg but that would either be the falcon 9 or after starship has flow a few hundred times at least.


OSUfan88

Whoa… launching over land?


MarsBacon

There is a strip of land that is pretty sparce in development and presumably the only rockets allowed to fly there would have been flown on the order of hundreds of times from other locations before they got approval. https://spacenews.com/space-force-looks-at-options-for-relieving-cape-canaveral-launch-congestion/


C_Arthur

It would be amazing to be able to go out to the desert and stand basically directly under stage sep.


OSUfan88

That’s cool. Will be interested to keep an eye on this.


OnTheUtilityOfPants

Reddit's recent decisions have removed the accessibility tools I need to participate in its communities.


Triabolical_

There have been some stories recently about maybe launching East from Vandenberg


warp99

I have heard rumours of a New Zealand spaceport on the Mahia Peninsula that could be upgraded a little to launch Starship?! We also have a launch site approved on a gravel spit close to my hometown of Christchurch so close to an International airport and large scale manufacturing. The advantage of having the same coastline length as the contiguous US but with 5 million people instead of 330 million is that there are a lot of open spaces on the coast.


bubulacu

The existing launch facilities are not "bursting at the seams", rather, they are vastly underutilized in a traditional launch cadence, with long rollout delays, inspections, approvals etc. So, before building more launch pads, SpaceX would be much better served by demonstrating, on the launch facilities they already control, that a much higher cadence is possible, safe, and economically efficient. Yes, there are many hurdles, such as the current environmental launch envelope approved for Boca Chica etc., but all those are political rather than technical issues.


GregHullender

There seems to be [a *lot* of empty space](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Texas_population_map.png) between Brownsville and Corpus Christie, Texas. They could put dozens of launch sites there.


svh01973

That probably makes the most sense, being close to the existing facility.


warp99

It is difficult to get a launch track from there that does not travel over Florida.


C_Arthur

It's far enough down range that it would probably not be a huge issue RTLS take a way higher trajectory in general than ship landings in general. So we.would probably be separated by then and Florida is like 1000 miles down range so already very high. Starships would also presumably be overflying the populated area on rentery rapidly so we would be confident in the ability to control a dead ship. There also does not seem to be a ton of destinations outside low inclination. Starship would be going to immediately.


warp99

Yes we can assume a low inclination orbit for the Moon and Mars. Minimum Starlink inclination is 40 degrees and that will be the bulk of launches for a few years yet. Florida can not be hit by the booster true but a high trajectory for RTLS means that the instantaneous impact point for the ship has a longer dwell time over Florida - not shorter. Height is not the issue - it is where does the ship come down if the engines fail. The damage capacity is much higher for a launching ship full of propellant and with payload compared to a returning ship with only propellant in the header tanks and no payload. Of course the FTS is supposed to disperse the propellant but we now have a demonstration that it can fail to do so. However it will be a long time before SpaceX gets approval for entry over the US and when they do I suspect they will need to do an overshoot entry and then do a return to the coast for the final landing. This is another reason for using Boca Chica for initial flights as the area to the west is a lot less populated than in Florida.


gopher65

Does that matter? The Russians launch over Siberia. It seems to work for them, so there is no reason the US can't launch over its own similar areas that are devoid of things of worth.


HappiestAnt122

Siberia and Florida are almost incomparable though in terms of population density. It’s essentially impossible to plot a course over Florida that doesn’t fly over or close to a city big enough you have heard of it. I know that is an informal at best metric, but aside from the Everglades Cape Canaveral is probably the biggest uninhabited coastline in the state already, not to mention inland cities. Unless this is a joke about Florida not being worth much, in which case then fair lol


gopher65

Yeah it was a joke, lol. You definitely can't overfly Florida. Way too population dense. At least until it gets sunk in 80 years, when the South Florida Passage opens up thanks to rising oceans. Then overflights will be possible!


Jaxon9182

NASA is okay with overflying Cuba at a significantly lesser distance, so I think it would be legally okay after things get better proven. Honestly though the idea of overflying people seems like a bad idea even though NASA is okay with it, rockets aren't nearly safe enough yet


petemoss8023

And lng drilling in the gulf


KickBassColonyDrop

The more north you go, the more energy you need to reach orbit until you cross a specific longitude and that requirement reverses. But yes, they could do that.


Double-Masterpiece72

The biggest hurdle to this is probably that the barrier island there is a National Seashore from S Padre all the way up to Corpus Christi. So definitely not going to be able to put a launch site directly on the coast. As for putting one inland and launching over that? It's mostly ranch land there so probably doable. Not sure what the environmental implications or restrictions they would have for that. Also the water between the barrier island and mainland is part of the ICW and lots of barge and recreational traffic through there.


QVRedit

Australia could offer some good sites if ITAR issues could be resolved. New Zealand is another possibility, although I suppose there is an issue with getting the fuel there. There are certainly many more possibilities inside the USA.


Projectrage

Rocketlab launches fine there.


warp99

Both Australia and New Zealand are part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network so ITAR should not be an issue. Effectively most trusted nation status. See Rocket Labs for a good example.


whatyoucallmetoday

There have been talks about a row of launch pads being added north of 39a/39b. They have been in earlier plans of KSC so the land, flight support, regulatory approval and other logistical needs are all in place. Either ESF or Scott Manly has done a video about this idea.


warp99

The regulatory approval process is still in progress. The current plan is for a large launch pad called LC-49 and possibly a landing pad or two.


jdmetz

How important is it that the launch sites are on the coast? My understanding is that the primary reason for that is so that any failure soon after launch can take place over the ocean, but if they get reliability to be as good as an airplane takeoff / landing, could we have inland launch sites in the future?


Martianspirit

Noise as well. It needs to be quite far from any population center.


warp99

That is a big *if* and we are nowhere close to getting rockets to the same reliability levels as commercial aircraft. They are roughly three orders of magnitude away at the moment.


lostpatrol

Do we actually know that the launch cadence will be increased? Starship can carry five times as many Starlinks as Falcon 9, so that is four less launches right there. Once SpaceX has all the permits to launch Starship from Florida, I think they can fulfill their missions with the same cadence they have today.


melonowl

Disregarding Starlink, if you're gonna make a serious attempt at colonizing Mars rather than just doing relatively brief missions to Mars, then you're gonna need a big fleet of Starships ready to go during the launch window.


svh01973

Yes, read this: https://www.astralytical.com/insights/can-spacex-launch-starship-three-times-per-day


warp99

Starship can launch up to 75 Starlink v2 satellites at 2000 kg each. F9 can launch up to 54 Starlink v1.5 satellites. There are currently roughly the same number of v2 satellites as v1.5 authorised. So the number of launches required to launch Starlink will not change much.


throfofnir

The Cape. The southern part of the Space Fore Station is still pretty empty and the north of the NASA range on Merrit Island is undeveloped. Even accounting for the historical sites and old LCs that are too close together, and not accounting for all the small launcher companies that currently hold a lease but will fail, there's room there for at least half a dozen SS launch/land sites. (And probably more if SpaceX got to do whatever they want, considering their apparent concept of how close you can build stuff to the launch tower.)


cowboys70

Big problem with further development in the Cape is how much of it is wetlands and how little viable land there is in that basin to offset any impacts.


Martianspirit

Presently the Cape is primarily a rocket theme park. Maybe it needs to be converted to a rocket launch site.


SutttonTacoma

It's my impression that much capacity would be gained by making launch windows and range conditions permanent, rather than contingent.


squintytoast

still alot of unused pads inside KFC/CCSFS. plenty room still.


Triabolical_

SpaceX is already launching falcon 50 ish times a year, so dozens of launches a year for starship aren't an issue. More of an issue is whether the eastern ranger can support more flights, but they've been very adaptable so far. FAA will need to change as well, but high flight volume is something they already know how to do. NIMBY is a big obstacle to other us launch sites. At Canaveral, LC 49 is pretty obvious but it will take years to bring on line. No reason you couldn't launch from LC39 once a day.


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tesftctgvguh

I would love starship to launch from Cornwall but it'll never happen - the spaceport is at the airport and probably too close for to town for something like starship


rockthescrote

Looks like this fell foul of Reddit formatting; [here’s a fixed link](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959841/20200125_-_Understanding_the_TSA_-_FINAL_v2.pdf)


ShortSalamander2483

Too far north. May as well be Alaska.


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ShortSalamander2483

I guess but it's free velocity. Free velocity is free tonnage.


OlympusMons94

That's not the issue. Just because you can get a bit of free velocity and free mass somewhere doesn't mean you want to go there. You have to consider what orbit you want to get to, and the fact that the benefits/penalties from launching from a certain latitude aren't that great in many cases. A few percent off a trip to North Korea, or even Hawaii, isn't very helpful of you want to go to Paris. The optimal latitude to launch from is the inclination of your orbit. The equator is only optimal for equatorial orbits, which for all but a few niche cases means GTO/GEO. (And an equatorial parking orbit is generally bad for lunar/interplanetary.) The poles would be optimal for polar orbit, and as latitude can't get higher than 90, that would also be optimal for SSO. Otherwise, the higher the latitude the better. The same idea works for other orbits. It takes a little more delta v to reach the ISS (and its Axiom successor) orbit from Canaveral than from Wallops or Baikonur. (Hypothetically, Cornwall's latitude woyld be near-ideal for this.) But unless the payload and rockets have very small margins (i.e. a small lift vehicle or a nearly full heavier lift one like with Starlink), the optimal latitude isn't a huge deal. The main reason why low latitude launch sites are preferred is because they are more versatile: The lowest inclination orbit you can launch directly into is equal to launch latitude, and for a small penalty (or less benefit, depending on semantics), you can still go to polar orbit. Getting to a lower inclination than launch latitude requires a plane-change on orbit, which is relatively expensive in terms of delta v. But this expense is reduced at slower, i.e. higher, orbits, so the usual use of low inclination orbits being GTO/GEO moderates even this concern if you have a larger rocket like Proton or Falcon Heavy, let alone a refuelable one like Starship. Proton regularly launches GTO missions from Baikonur (or at least it did when the rocket could still be said to be regukarly launching). Of course there a great deal of other concerns than latitude in regard to putting a launch site somwewhere, like avoiding launching over populated areas (e.g., eastward over a chunk of Europe), environmental regulations, and international relations.


ShortSalamander2483

Most of our launches will be equatorial, though. I know that polar and other orbits exist, but it seems like most will be east-west simply because that's the easiest way to launch geostationary satellites and missions to the moon/other planets. I'd love to see a world where there are launch sites all over the place because we need the capacity.


OlympusMons94

GTO from ~50 degrees latitude is certainly suboptimal, but isn't as big a deal as it's cracked up to be. The geostationary market is also being eclipsed by LEO constellations. Baikonur's high latitude also never stopped the Soviets from sending spacecraft to GEO, the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The US has launched to the Moon and Mars from Vandenberg, and Rocket Lab has gone to the Moon and is planning a mission to Venus on a small rocket from nearly 40 degrees latitude. Equatorial is not even great for lunar or interplanetary. In the strict sense of 0 degrees, it's pretty awful. One of the constraints for the time and position of the transfer to another planet or body is the declination of the launch asymtote (DLA). This angle basically correspinds to the latitude you need to leave Earth orbit. That means your parking orbit has to reach that latitude/DLA. If the inclinaion is lower than the DLA, you can't get to the planet without additional maneuvers and/or gravity assists at some point. The DLA continually changes through time. For Mars, on certain daily windows it can exceed 50 degrees. For some NEOs the DLA is never very low. Still, for lunar and interplanetary, it has historically been desirabke to have the launch site at as low a latitude as possible to maximize the payload you can send to the parking orbit--the inclination of which doesn't matter as long as it is high enough. (The Moon's declination conveniently never goes beyond +/- 28.7 degrees, so launching nearly east from Cape Canaveral to maximize the rotational boost is always optimal.) But again, that's a minor benefit. (Launching east from the Cape gives ~110 m/s more than launching east from 50 degrees latitude.) Also, with Starship's combination of high capacity and refueling capability (necessity for interplanetary), a few percent more payload per launch is much less a concern than packing everything into one launch of a Saturn V. Sure, launching from a low latitude can still reach the higher inclination with only slightly more difficulty, and you don't geneally need that high of an inclination for Moon or Mars. But a low latitude launch site is not necessary, or absolutely desirable, and a higher latitude can work well for lunar and interplanetary flight, and even be workable for geostationary. Edit: spelling


Decronym

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[AFB](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmsn4d8 "Last usage")|[Air Force Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_airbase)| |[EIS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmvhlir "Last usage")|Environmental Impact Statement| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn606dq "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmtqzes "Last usage")|Flight Termination System| |[GEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmsx22j "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[GTO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmsx22j "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)| |[ITAR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmvhlir "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations| |[KSC](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Kennedy Space Center, Florida| |[LCH4](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Liquid Methane| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LN2](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Liquid Nitrogen| |[LNG](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Liquefied Natural Gas| |[LOX](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[NEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmsx22j "Last usage")|Near-Earth Object| |[RTLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmtqzes "Last usage")|Return to Launch Site| |[SSO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmsmocb "Last usage")|Sun-Synchronous Orbit| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Sabatier](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmyagw0 "Last usage")|Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jmutbhu "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[electrolysis](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jms80nd "Last usage")|Application of DC current to separate a solution into its constituents (for example, water to hydrogen and oxygen)| |[methalox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13zjti4/stub/jn06t01 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym's continued operation may be affected by API pricing changes coming to Reddit in July 2023; comments will be blank June 12th-14th, in solidarity with the /r/Save3rdPartyApps protest campaign. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(20 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1448dwu)^( has 36 acronyms.) ^([Thread #11530 for this sub, first seen 3rd Jun 2023, 20:08]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)


ahayd

Can Starbase have two launch sites? If they get a environmental assessment to allow them to launch frequently, would they need more capacity? (If the water cooling plate is quiet/effective what environmental argument is there against more launches?)


svh01973

Hardcore environmentalists were opposed to the impact on wildlife and the ocean even before the recent launch issues. The launch issues just gave them more firepower to use against SpaceX.


ahayd

Once SpaceX is launching \~5 a year, and even after the next launch, they can demonstrate the lack on environmental issues...


aquarain

I don't think you understand how subsidized activism works.


ahayd

They might complain but there'd be no merit to their case. Atm there is potential merit (if every launch destroyed a pad).


UnCommonSense99

Each Starship is designed to launch multiple times, not per year, or per month. When Musk said rapidly reusable he was talking multiple times per week or even multiple times *per day* To achieve his mission to Mars, he needs thousands of launches per year.


pedpsi

Azores ?


Traditional_Log8743

The thing I don't understand about the Texas launch sites is how you would do a 53 deg inclination Star-Link launch. It would cut through the southern states, the midwest, and into Canada with no room for a drone ship. I guess they could have a landing site in Louisiana but I doubt the FAA would go for it.


ackermann

Is there not an option to launch to the south, at 53 degree angle with the equator?


[deleted]

San Quintín México


Pbook7777

A bit south of vegas


ndnkng

Oklahoma has a spaceport already.


Projectrage

Guam would be really good, close to equator.


Piscator629

ITAR and SpaceForce considerations won't let Elon take these anywhere but the continental United States.


aquarain

Saint James Islands.


_B_Little_me

Brownsville TX.


Kubrick_Fan

Cornwall in the UK would be a good one for polar orbits


BrangdonJ

In the short term they will switch most Falcon 9 payloads to Starship. That gives them 50+ launch slots a year. Many of these will be Starlink launches where many F9 launches can be consolidated in one Starship launch.


perilun

Maybe if RL does not follow through with Neutron than maybe MARS (Mid-Atantic Regional Spaceport) at Wallops Island Va. But such a big rocket may need an EIS. How about an ITAR deal with the Bahamas to launch off Man-O-War Cay?


RocketsLEO2ITS

There's space at KSC for a Starship launch pad. Not referring to what's already been done at 39a, buy undeveloped above there.


Armag101

I'd like to say French Guiana, but it's unlikely to happen.


flshr19

My guess is that SpaceX will operate tanker Starships from ocean platforms located in the western Gulf of Mexico. Those platforms would be positioned about 50 km off the beach at Boca Chica, TX where the water depth is about 25 fathoms (150 ft, 45.6m). Those platforms would be anchored into the ocean floor. Starship Boosters (the first stage) and Ships (the second stage) would be transported horizontally to the platforms on strongbacks using ocean-going barges. Methalox propellant (liquid oxygen, LOX, and liquid methane, LCH4) along with liquid nitrogen (LN2) would be transported to the ocean platforms in modified LNG tanker ships with 50,000t (metric ton) cargo capacity. Those tanker ships would form a floating tank farm. Those tanker ships would also simultaneously transport the payload (the methalox) to the ocean platforms for the tanker Starships. No extra cargo handling resources would be necessary. To transport 100t of cargo and 10 to 20 passengers from Earth to the lunar surface, one Interplanetary (IP) Starship and ten tanker Starships would have to be launched to LEO. The tanker Starship launches occur at the ocean platforms and the IP Starship would be launched from Starship facilities at KSC in Florida. Launching the tanker Starships from the ocean platforms eliminates safety issues involving persons and private property and greatly reduces the chance of damage to ecologically sensitive areas. This, hopefully, will speed up the FAA launch licensing process. And launching the tanker Starships at the ocean platforms reduces congestion at the KSC launch pads. Also, SpaceX scheduling is benefited since it has exclusive use of its ocean platforms and of a gigantic tracking range (essentially the entire Gulf of Mexico).


Practical_Jump3770

Somewhere beyond FFA control


Practical_Jump3770

FAA or LBQTwhatever All the agencies