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SpaceX Starship Land Grabs? The machine that builds the machine · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
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  This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The
• 0:08
  Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink,
• 0:13
  and I'm your host, Will Walden. If you want uninterrupted
• 0:17
  episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please go to
• 0:20
  clubelon.supercast.com to find out how.
• 0:25
  There's a link in the show notes.
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  Some really interesting things are happening down at
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  Brownsville, Boca Chica Starbase, Texas area.
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  Now that's where SpaceX is building the world's largest
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  rocket, the Starship. It's around 400 feet tall and is
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  more powerful than any rocket that's ever flown.
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  Now they're building this rocket, and that's very
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  interesting. But there are things that are
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  happening behind the scenes that are almost as interesting as the
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  rocket itself. And it's kind of weird because
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  you don't really hear about this stuff that much, but it's one of
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  the most important aspects of delivering a rocket to space,
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  and that's the infrastructure. How do they build a rocket?
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  It's the machine that builds the machine, as Elon Musk would say.
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  And how do they do that? Well, they have to work with
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  local governments, and they have to work with the land that they
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  have to build the machines on. Now just recently, SpaceX and
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  the city of Brownsville that worked together came up with a
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  resolution to rename the Boca Chica area where Starbase is,
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  which is where they're building this giant rocket.
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  They want to rename it to Starbase.
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  Straight up Starbase Boca Chica. It will be known as Boca Chica
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  going forward. You know, if they want to
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  reference it, they can call it Boca Chica or they can just call
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  it Starbase. And this is from the Brownsville
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  texas.gov site, City passes resolution.
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  This happened last year, by the way, December 18th.
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  So City passes resolution in support of renaming area east of
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  Brownsville to Starbase. So the Starbase area about 20
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  miles away from Brownsville, it's about a 30 minute drive
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  ish. I've driven that hundreds of
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  times and it's known to most people in the Space Flight
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  community as Starbase and most people that are locally there,
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  they know it is Boca Chica. So it does take a little bit of
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  nudging from the local government and also the State of
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  Texas to rename this because there are things that happened
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  behind the scenes that we don't see because we see the rocket
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  all the time or we see this giant rocket.
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  But this is, it's important, trust me.
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  The notice is hereby given that a regular meeting of the board
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  of Cameron County Spaceport Development Corporation will be
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  conducted as authorized by the VTCA, Texas government code,
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  etcetera, etcetera. So basically what they're doing
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  approve a resolution in support of the United States Postal
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  Service mailing name which I know it's not cool like it's a
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  post office thing but the renaming the spaceport of
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  Starbase to actual Starbase, it's a postal code now so if you
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  have 1234 Starbase, that's your address now 1234 Boca Chica, the
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  mail will probably still get there they they pretty much know
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  what it is. There's not other things out
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  there. So it's either going to be
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  Starbase or Boca Chica. So that's interesting, this that
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  that is happening. But there's also a few other
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  things that are happening along the lines of the Starbase
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  facility itself. And The thing is massive.
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  You know, there's a a production facility that builds the Rockets
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  and then there's a launch facility down the road about a
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  mile ish that flies the Rockets. So what's in between there
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  though? There's just kind of Dead Space.
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  There's really not much. There's a couple streaming
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  platforms, a couple YouTube streamers that sit on the side
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  of the road and film. There's people that hang out
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  there on the side of the road and there's robot filmers all
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  over the place. So what does SpaceX need to do?
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  They need to get that land. They need to get that land they
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  make. They need to make sure that all
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  the land in between the production field facility and
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  the launch facility, they can use as much as possible, right?
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  So if they can do that, if they can do that, they can build more
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  parts of the machine that builds the machines.
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  That'll take us to Mars, right here.
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  State considers handing over Parkland to SpaceX.
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  Now, this is a big deal. This isn't just a let's hang out
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  and build a couple rockets here and there kind of thing.
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  This is a huge deal because this is going to, it's kind of kind
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  of set off some alarms for environmental advocates down
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  there. But also SpaceX is going to be
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  using this area to build the infrastructure that will be
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  building the Rockets even faster, though they already do.
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  And then they're going to have two launch pads there where the
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  rock, two rockets per day possibly could launch from
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  Starbase as it's been named now by the post office.
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  So they can do that now. So all of these little green
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  dots here, let me explain this to you.
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  All these little green dots right here, these are whoop,
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  these are places that are owned by the state right now.
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  Little plots of land, these little ones right here and this
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  one right here. So this right here, that's where
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  they launched the Rockets from. And this little arrow right here
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  that I just pointed to, this area right here is where they
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  launched the Rockets from to. This is towards Brownsville.
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  This way. If you go that way, it's towards
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  Brownsville. About 20 minutes.
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  Thirty minutes that way. But everything in between here,
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  little plots of land. The state owns that land, so
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  SpaceX can't use it for anything.
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  They can't build there. They'll get in major trouble if
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  they build there. All of those plots, they're
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  owned by the state. What are they from?
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  There are people that own lots of land there, little tiny lots
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  of land. I actually thought about buying
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  one of those lots because you could put up a Robo camera and
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  have a live stream of Starbase 24/7 if you have one of those
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  lots. So you could buy one of these
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  lots. There are lots over here as well
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  that you can, you know, put a camera in and you know, there's
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  there's other places over there that you can put a camera.
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  But one of these lots is something that I was interested
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  in. But it's kind of expensive to to
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  buy these lots, talk to a couple people.
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  It's very. It's a process.
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  Let's just say that it's a, it's a pretty big process, but SpaceX
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  would use this to move facilities over to these lots.
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  And as you can see, there are a few of them like this one right
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  here. These are all clustered
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  together. So they could build something
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  there. They could build something in
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  this cluster, something in this cluster, this butt's right up
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  against where they are right now, this cluster, etcetera.
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  So they can have little, little things, little pockets where
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  they could, I don't know, build fuel depots or something.
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  I don't know what they're going to do there.
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  Nobody really knows right now. They know they're going to
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  develop it if they if this passes and it has to go through
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  the government of Texas in order to pass, right.
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  So the government of Texas has to pass this.
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  They have to make sure that everything's up to code.
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  But this is what's going to happen.
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  SpaceX has all of this land up here, the Laguna land up here.
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  It's like 44 acres of land and all.
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  They wanted those little plots down there, all these little
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  green plots. And if they exchange these tiny
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  green plots for like, I think it's 44 acres, If you look up
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  here a little bit, it tells you how much it is.
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  But if they exchange that and they see that there's a value,
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  if the Laguna has more value than the Boca Chica area, then
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  the state, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, they may be
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  OK with this because if they can trade, this would be an even
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  traded. By the way SpaceX would trade
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  that giant chunk of land for those little plots throughout so
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  they can develop more things. So this is going to be an
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  ongoing story. This may not happen right away.
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  This is supposed to happen sometime a date adopted and
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  approved 25th of January 2024. And if they approve this, this
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  is going to be happening in the next few days that they approve
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  this land trade here with SpaceX and the government of Texas.
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  So if they can do this, it's 43 acres from Boca Chica SP, the
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  exchange tract. And then so that's what SpaceX
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  would be getting 43 acres they'd be giving of them giving the
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  state 477 acres near the Laguna, 477 acres.
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  So if you do the math, that's an exponentially huger amount of
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  numbers 43 compared to 477. I think the government of Texas
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  would be OK with them, you know, the Wildlife Refuge going back
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  to them. But it also depends.
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  There's so many other factors though.
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  Who's going to take care of this land now?
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  There Will they have to hire people to take care of this land
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  now the 477 acres. Was SpaceX taking care of this
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  land before? Were they paying for it?
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  And it is SpaceX just going to have that big cluster, like I
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  was saying before, like this cluster of land near Starbase.
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  That's it. That one strip of land, you
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  know, near the production facility, which is over here,
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  ish. And then all the way down to
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  here, they would have little spots and then they'd have all
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  of this to build the Rockets at. Hey, thank you so much for
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  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 9:24
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  and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.