SpaceX gets federal clearance for South Texas launch site

SpaceX gets federal clearance for South Texas launch site

SpaceX has received a green light from the Federal Aviation Administration to construct a spaceport in South Texas.

The Environmental Impact Statement (see .pdf of documents), issued by the FAA’s Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation George Nield, concludes with:

The undersigned finds that the Proposed Action is consistent with existing national environmental policies and objectives as set forth in Section 101(a) of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

The proposed 56.5-acre launch site at Boca Chica beach would launch up to 12 rockets a year, including two Falcon 9 Heavy rockets, which could begin flying in 2015. These launches would be for commercial (i.e. satellites) as well as possibly NASA purposes.

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I'll make the drive down to Padre to watch a Falcon take off -- those things are impressive.



Watching a Falcon X Heavy take off would be beyond cool.

 

A mission to mars launched from Texas..?
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Elon Musk Promises SpaceX Will Stay the Course for Mars

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For now, he says the company is focused on creating technology that with enable large groups of people to travel to Mars.

"I'm hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years, I think it's certainly possible for that to occur," he said. "But the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary."

He acknowledged that the company's plans were too long-term to attract many hedge fund managers, which makes it hard for SpaceX to go public anytime soon.

"We need to get where things a steady and predictable," Musk said. "Maybe we're close to developing the Mars vehicle, or ideally we've flown it a few times, then I think going public would make more sense."

SpaceX, which was just named No. 1 on CNBC's second annual CNBC Disruptor 50 list, recently unveiled the Dragon V2, a spacecraft that it hopes will carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as soon as 2016.

That announcement came about two weeks after Russia said it would bar the U.S. from using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites.

Since the end of the U.S. space shuttle program, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been the only way astronauts can get to the space station.

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New footage of their latest test in McGregor, TX.