Why is SpaceX building the Brownsville Launch Complex?

[kunok]

44 minutes ago, Mjp1050 said:

Why would Elon care about oil fields? He's the CEO of Tesla and chairman of SolarCity. He'd probably consider hitting an oil field a bonus.

They would be so sued if they do...

[fredinno]

On 2016-06-18 at 4:15 PM, grimzod said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned methane...LNG, of which there is a megabuttload nearby...and mct / raptor will be methlox...

With elon always check location against availability of resources.  

FUel is a miniscule portion of launch costs. By that logic, they should be launching and building near an aluminum mine.

On 2016-06-18 at 5:55 PM, PB666 said:

Already mentioned months ago, but yeah they would pay you to take the methane off the production platforms in the northern gulf right now. 

If you created a production platform about 50 miles north east and piped it to the BSC, you could get all the methane to your hearts desire when deepwater drilling starts again in the gulf, right now theres just no liquidity to do it, and peeps would pay to use your platform and give you the gas, only problem is getting it off the platform. You could build an offshore LNG plant, and sell whats left tomEurope for a pretty penny, china also, japan also. 

DeepWater already started again in the gulf a long time ago. For example, the Jack oil field is starting to pump oil. Only problem is cost is too low to fund more oil wells right now.

Hell, I'd argue it's a lot more alive than the Canadian Arctic Island oil right now.

 

I'm calling it, in 15 years, we'll see people drilling around Greenland's waters and into the greenlandic ice sheet. Along with offshore Arctic, and European Shale.

 

IN any case, SpaceX funding an offshore LNG project makes more sense. If BFR is sea-launched, (even just on a platform, which would make sense, since BFR would generate insane amounts of noise that would likely require building an entire lagoon just to launch without dealing with people sueing them for breaking Grandma's eardrums.

On 2016-06-20 at 11:05 AM, Roastduck said:

 

Something tells me that Russia's diplomatic relations with China and Mongolia are NOT analogous to USA's diplomatic relations with Mexico.

I live in SW Louisiana, where we have two or three major LNG expansions underway. Please do not take away one of our primary industries ;P

Sure, but if I was Elon, I would just launch everything going polar or retrograde (which is also impossible from Brownsville or Cape, and there ARE a few DOD retrograde orbit Satellites) from Vandenberg- in case Trump is elected...

I don't think Mexico would be very happy giving the US gov a $10 Billion check...

On 2016-06-20 at 11:12 AM, Rakaydos said:

Well, you know how much SpaceX loves their vertical integration...

One question tho, is it possible that all the cape pads would be moved to Brownsville in the near future- if BFR isn't using LC-39A, it's really way too expensive to run on the long term, unless SLS is also capable of using it (would have been possible if the Blue Origin/ULA alliance proposal went through instead of FH) not to mention SpaceX didn't pretty much rebuild LC-39A like NASA did with LC-39B. Something tells me they aren't planning on using it for long, and will move operations away from LC-39A, and it's more just an "intrem" between the Brownsville pads to relieve LC-40. Would it be worth it for SpaceX to cancel their NASA rent contract early, and how much would that cost? (I think the rent was to 2040 or something...)

Maybe OrbitalATK's "Liberty 2.0" EELV could use LC-39A with it also being used as a SLS backup pad- they both use Shuttle SRB-derived booster stages, and possibly "Liberty 2.0" would just use the SLS rocket carrier and structure- meaning minimal modifications. Not to mention Orbital doesn't have any pads that can host that rocket right now. The very low development cost and dual use might be enough to offset the higher cost using such a huge pad...

 

But SpaceX going into oil/Gas is stupid, really. Not 100% of F9s are vertical integrated, and SpaceX has no experience in the energy sector anyways (why would it?) Not to mention it would save bat sh*t. It would be better for SpaceX to fund Keystone XL or some other Oil/Gas project- though that could bite them in the rear later by Telsa cars being less economical....

 

Honestly, SpaceX could just truck in LNG, or have a small CNG pipeline built. It's not like NASA or ULA has Hydrogen pipelines to their pads...

On 2016-06-20 at 11:49 AM, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

i thought brownsville launch center was for BFR

It is. And F9 apparently.

On 2016-06-20 at 11:49 AM, wumpus said:

If you have chemical plants, they will likely need lots of methane delivered.  I can't see LNG leaving LA.

Why not? Isn't there a huge amount of refineries @ the gulf, and that old Atlantic LNG import terminal?

 

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

12 hours ago, fredinno said:

in case Trump is elected...

I don't think Mexico would be very happy giving the US gov a $10 Billion check...

What?

I don't think elon would build an oil platform, it would be weird if he , who is an environmentalist who owns an electric car company would do that. he seems like the sort of person who would use biofuels to power a rocket. climate change is dooming us.

[wumpus]

14 hours ago, fredinno said:

But SpaceX going into oil/Gas is stupid, really. Not 100% of F9s are vertical integrated, and SpaceX has no experience in the energy sector anyways (why would it?) Not to mention it would save bat sh*t. It would be better for SpaceX to fund Keystone XL or some other Oil/Gas project- though that could bite them in the rear later by Telsa cars being less economical....

The only reason SpaceX would be interested in oil/gas is if they thought they had some sort of advantage in using satellite provided data to locate oil/gas.  This seems drastically unlikely (although they probably have time to send a bird up, analyze the data, and find a good spot before anybody really wants to dig a new well).  I suspect they would partner with an oil company if this somehow was a real thing (and see below for additional issues).

Vertical integration is great.  But there is no reason to vertically integrate a commodity unless you already use a significant chunk of that commodity.  I wouldn't put batteries in that category, but that is more or less what Musk is trying for with the Gigafactory.  Oil/gas is just the biggest commodity out there and will remain beyond anyone's control (it seems to have slipped out from the House of Saud's control a good decade ago).

Doing even a large project with an oil company might make sense (assuming the oil company needed launch services), but even then SpaceX probably wouldn't want them to pay with a stock swap (unless they made a bunch of tricky financial moves to counter any issues).  Oil/gas have some nasty cyclical tendencies and would wreck havok with SpaceX's always iffy schedule.  Most people buying launch services don't want to depend on more variables than necessary (such as SpaceX's ability to make a booster suddenly dependent on the price of oil).  The whole industry is something they would want to move away from (except as a customer who spends a tiny proportion of their costs on RP-1 or methane).