4 ms·
So this is official after months of speculation. Local realtors called this back in May https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829 https://x.com/SERo
by tristanj 2mo ago
So this is official after months of speculation. Local realtors called this back in May https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829 https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829
, and Ars Technica covered these rumors earlier this month https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/spacex-is-set-to-acquire-130000-acres-of-marshland-in-southern-louisiana/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/spacex-is-set-to-acqui... .
The Louisiana location has two major benefits:
Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) Access: Launches into SSO have a launch angle of ~98° relative to the equator (i.e. south), and launching from Louisiana gives a direct launch corridor over the Gulf of America without crossing major cities.
SpaceX plans to launch millions of datacenter satellites in SSO, so this is the perfect launch site for their use case. SSO launches from their existing launch sites (Boca Chica and Cape Canaveral) would overfly land.
Existing Methane pipelines: They are next to existing Gulf Coast natural gas/LNG infra, making bulk liquid methane delivery significantly easier. Currently for Starbase, there are no pipelines and methane is shipped in via truck. Delivering the ~1,000 metric tons of methane required for a single Starship launch requires 50-60 tanker truck deliveries.
- rayiner 2mo ago[flagged]
- leoh 2mo agoAlso the benefit of marginal environmental regulations...
- mcmcmc 2mo agoDon’t forget the corruption and low income locals who won’t be able to provide any meaningful pushback
- maxlin 2mo agoPushback? Anyone wishes they lived there now. SpaceX bought out stragglers off Boca Chica for multiple times the value of their homes
- mcmcmc 2mo agoYes, it’s much easier to buy people off and legally “persuade” them out of their homes when the local economy is depressed and they can’t afford a lawyer.
- iknowstuff 2mo agopeople getting paid an order of magnitude more money for their property and yet people like you will find a reason to complain. Where is this coming from? Some anti-capitalist, degrowth thing? Genuinely curious
- Rover222 2mo agoTypical "everything is bad" response. This is going to employ thousands of blue collar workers for years. Reasonable environmental protections will be in place. It's not going to become some barren toxic waste zone.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- phlakaton 2mo agoI think you mean the Gulf of Mexico. It's poor form to let a crybaby bully have his way.
- wjessup 2mo ago[flagged]
- zamadatix 2mo agoI'm not a fan of the guy myself but is this really the way we want to debate things here?
- phlakaton 2mo agoThere's no debate. There never was. There is only concession to the diktat or resistance.
- zamadatix 2mo agoDebate used to be the staunchest form of resistance. This last decade, racing to call the opposition a crybaby and declare it activism seems to be more in vogue.
- 9dev 2mo agoNo, sorry, that’s a strawman. You’re framing this as if we were talking about some nuanced policy issue, which it isn’t. The concrete situation is a president unilaterally renaming a geographical feature for no other defensible reason than hubris, in disagreement with the rest of the region. I agree with GP - there is no debate to be had over this, only rejection.
- detritus 2mo agoIndeed, if you don't push back and reject it, it just encourages him to repeat the same - see Lake Ontario > Lake America.
- PoignardAzur 2mo ago> Gulf of America Do people actually use that name when Trump can't force them to on pain of job loss? I'm pretty sure nobody outside the US does, at the very least.
- testbjjl 2mo agoI dunno, a lot of folks in leadership in the valley and tech in general don’t have, or present a problem with most, if not all of the changes.
- camel_Snake 2mo agoNot that I've experienced elsewhere - it took me a moment to realize what the OP was referring to.
- NewJazz 2mo agoI just stopped reading immediately.
- 9dev 2mo agoAnd for good reason. It’s an insult to the rest of the world.
- NewJazz 2mo agoIt's an insult to the author's own intelligence.
- ColdStream 2mo agoNope, nobody I know has ever called it that. Don's latest spat has him wanting to change Lake Ontario to Lake of America. I did get a good laugh out of that because of how petty it is.