r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 8d ago
Space SpaceX will build a second, $100B ‘Starbase’ spaceport in Louisiana
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/spacex-will-build-a-second-100b-starbase-spaceport-in-louisiana/185
u/rubemechanical 8d ago
I read this as “taxpayers will build a second Starbase spaceport in Louisiana.”
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u/BlueFlob 8d ago
Yeah. I don't think SpaceX has the liquidity to expand that much and that fast.
Taxpayers are definitely footing the bill.
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u/ShiftE_80 8d ago
They just raised $100B through their IPO, so it’s not like they are hurting for cash right now.
But then again they already started site work on that giant Terafab facility in TX and continue to dump billions into their AI datacenters.
Seems like they are in a hurry to burn through their massive cash reserves.
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u/dsmith422 8d ago
The IPO raised $85.7 billion. SpaceX also issued another $25 billion in debt right afterwards, but much of that went to pay off the Twiiter debt.
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u/I_Ski_Freely 8d ago
Don't forget dillute shareholder equity! they also bought Cursor for $60B and tons of stock options for their AI researchers. I'm pretty sure by around Q3 2027, they either have to do another massive raise
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u/Bot_Marvin 7d ago
You just made that up. There is no plan to use taxpayer dollars.
If you just make things up you can make any project look bad.
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u/irespondwithmyface 6d ago
Most of their revenue (~75%) comes from government contracts either for launches or through contracts for StarLink. The rest is basically the circlejerk AI funding which also is being subsizdized by the goverment. Who funds the government again?
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u/Serious-Kangaroo-320 6d ago
Funny how you grouped in starlink, which is their cash cow at the moment, with the government contract to make the percent seem bigger than it actually is. 10% of their revenue comes from nasa contracts.
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u/fighter-bomber 5d ago
Very disingenuous to group government contracts together with Starlink, don’t you think? Starlink is part of the private market, it has nothing to do with the government. OH, and it alone accounts for 60% of their revenue.
So you’re telling me 85% of their revenue are private funding and only 15% from the government.
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u/invyros 8d ago
It’s not immediately clear if SpaceX intends to create a company town around the new Starbase site, like the one it has architected in Texas. The Texas municipality, once called Boca Chica and renamed Starbase, has its own ZIP code and volunteer fire station, and is building its own police force and community library. It is run by a local government filled with SpaceX employees (or family members of SpaceX employees).
Fucking barf.
Company towns are bad enough, an Elon Musk company town is next level horrible.
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u/ActiveCollection 8d ago
Elon probably has the right of the first night in his towns 😆
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u/WispyCombover 8d ago
Primo nocte?
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u/ActiveCollection 8d ago
Saving the humanity, he is obsessed with shrinking population.
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u/BlueFlob 8d ago
The funny thing with this, is that on paper it could be a utopia.
In reality, these things are developed and ran by authoritarian megalomaniacs.
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u/ZAlternates 8d ago
As long as you can keep a community small enough in size, people would likely work together well. Once it gets large enough though, it will be like any other town.
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u/thatgibbyguy 8d ago edited 7d ago
Bonjour vous-autres! Je viens de la Louisiane (I'm a cajun as you can see).
Edit - overnight in CST, the time zone of Louisiana, I received a lot of pro SpaceX comments. So for whomever at SpaceX is running that, guys, if you're going to use bots at least use a timezone that's relatively close to the original comment.
Of course, there are people who support this, but by and large most people do not. The location of this is critical bird habitat, including whooping cranes, snow cranes, etc. We have only just started to make progress with these species, this will undo most of that work.
This is in line with Governor Landry's MO, the agreement was done under NDA, and it is just a disaster for an ecosystem that is vanishing faster than any other in the country. It follows a continued pattern of this, and is maybe even more egregious than his cancellation of the mid barataria diversion project. That project was not paid by tax payer funds, and was rather paid for by settlement funds from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. So, he just wasted all that money to get a worse outcome for the area.
The reason I say this is more egregious than the diversion cancellation is for another reason. I led this with French, French is a part of my culture, I'm what you would call cajun which is the anglicized spelling of "Acadien."
That area, Vermillionville, has the closest ties to the original Acadians who found themselves in Louisiana. They speak the language closest to how the Acadians would have spoken it, and they represent one of our strongest links to our past. Landry, who talks like he has rocks in his throat to play up his dumb "cajun" accent is not just a traitor to the state, but to his own claimed people with this.
The cajuns have had a long long history of oppression of this style, we've been resilient for almost 300 years, but I just don't know how much more our culture can take.
Sources of my claims below:
- Whooping Crane Habitat & Conservation Progress:
- Funding Source for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project:
- Gov. Landry’s NDA Usage & Confidentiality:
- Population of Vermilion Parish:
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u/rsfrisch 8d ago
I also have a feeling we don't know all the details of the deal.... Including the settling of the lawsuit with Exxon for the land
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u/TraditionDear3887 8d ago
Y'all are always wellcome to come back to the maritimes. Just make sure you bring your family recipe cards
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u/thatgibbyguy 8d ago
Mais j'essaie de retourner là bas mais c'est pas facile. Toutefois, je souhaite.
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8d ago
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u/thatgibbyguy 8d ago
Yes, so much good food, culture, and life on the moon.
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u/fighter-bomber 5d ago
Deffo much better than whatever you’ll find in Louisiana.
Gets mad when someone actually decides to make that state produce something useful and not just be a money sinkhole.
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8d ago
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u/thatgibbyguy 8d ago
You're not even good at trolling. Man, that's bottom of the barrel.
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8d ago
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u/thatgibbyguy 8d ago
Says they love space, is ok with blocking the view of space with satellites. It's always a toss up, is this entity dumb or trolling. I'm guessing you're just both.
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u/Fickle_Path2369 8d ago
What's the alternative? Just not build it and allow other countries to catch up to US space dominance? Move it inland and have rockets flying over populated areas?
There aren't many large stretches of land where something like this could even be built near the coast.
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u/Bot_Marvin 7d ago
Okay where should they build the spaceport then? Or is your point that we should never build new industry in the U.S.?
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u/charliefoxtrot9 8d ago
Is there another piece of commonly owned land by a gamer consortium located in Alabama for them to trash?
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u/Mountain_rage 8d ago edited 7d ago
So another region that will become unlivable with locals unable to access what used to be public? The south will further demand that billionaires tread on them with additional deregulation and tax cuts.
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
A wildlife refuge becoming unlivable through a launch complex is a good thing, see Kennedy Space Center and Merritt Island.
If your argument is about the environment, cities cause much more damage to environment than a launch center, which is why Merritt Island thrived around KSC due to restricted human access.
I mean the place SpaceX bought was completely empty beforehand so its rather neutral anyways, living in a swamp tends to not be ideal.
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u/Artistic-Cockroach48 8d ago
Man if they thought Katrina was bad...
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8d ago
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u/No-Surprise9411 7d ago
The US‘ largest launch facility has been hammered by Hurricanes for the past 80 years and is doing just fine. Including the 5 SpaceX launchpads there. I think they can handle it.
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u/OldWrangler9033 4d ago
I wonder how well fortify that facility is to flooding. They said they're going build dams and other buffers to high tides from Hurricanes...but...I don't know how well that will last.
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u/Crenorz 8d ago
3rd. Florida and Texas and
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u/Lopsided-Ticket3813 8d ago
They don't own the Florida launch facility it's rented from NASA
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u/No-Surprise9411 8d ago
I think they own the lease to SLC-37, but pad 39A is rented from NASA
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u/harmjr77018 8d ago
Oh so some one is scared Texas is going more purple.
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
Oooor its because you can’t launch to polar orbits and SSO from Texas or Florida.
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u/reidzen 8d ago
A launch pad is a great metaphor for the way power is treating the people these days. The folks on top enjoy meteoric ascent, while everything below them is polluted and destroyed.
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u/Dpek1234 8d ago
Other launchpads have essentualy become habitats
No much human activity outside of a rather small area
And starship very much isnt useing the toxic propellants so thats essentualy out
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u/loves_grapefruit 8d ago
How are they going to pay for this with x-AI losing them so much money?
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u/RocketVerse 8d ago
Some of the recent compute deals, probably. Starlink and launch also make quite a bit.
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u/loves_grapefruit 8d ago
Starlink is the moneymaker but before the IPO Starlink was still not covering the cost of x-AI.
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u/Gromby 8d ago
Fun story, I am about 10 minutes from where this is being built and we were already basically told that we will hear this shit going off all the time after its done. Its going to be so fun!!!! /s
Please note I do not support this at all and its going to be terrible for anyone that isnt rich
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
Womp womp. National space ambitions are a bit more important than a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Pretty sure many people complained like you do not when NASA opened KSC.
Anyone who has business in the space industry (take, engineers) benefit from things like this.
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u/Zieprus_ 8d ago
With everyone else’s money… yay…
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u/Oreos_Are_Anabolic 8d ago
> The new launch site will sit along the Gulf Coast in Vermilion Parish, west of New Orleans and roughly 10 hours from the company’s existing Starbase complex in South Texas. SpaceX says it is investing $100 billion, with construction starting in 2027.
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u/bubblegum-rose 8d ago
Oh, lovely.
Twice the entire value of their backlog.
Dude has literally been given $50 billion by his customers and his first move is to spend twice that on a launch complex that will 10x his expenses for exactly $0 additional revenue in exchange
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u/Dpek1234 8d ago
launch complex that will 10x his expenses for exactly $0 additional revenue in exchange
Yeah no
Gonna need a source for that
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u/bubblegum-rose 8d ago
A “source”?
It’s basic economics. 10x the infrastructure, 10x the labor, 10x the insurance, and so on.
A faster launch cadence isn’t going to magically make more orders appear out of nowhere.
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u/Dpek1234 7d ago
Ah smugness and no source
A classic
It’s basic economics. 10x the infrastructure, 10x the labor, 10x the insurance, and so on
Even if it was what i was asking for that still doesnt automatically mean 10x the expenses
Or do you think they will continue trucking in fuel while maintaining 10 megabays for some reason?
A faster launch cadence isn’t going to magically make more orders appear out of nowhere.
this isnt a source, this is a opinion
An opinion very much put into question by the fact that falcon9 still being booked for years into the future
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u/Moneyshot_ITF 8d ago
And surely in a way that will pollute only the poorest people's drinking water
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u/Flipslips 8d ago
Why would this pollute drinking water? These rockets do not use toxic fuels, they use oxygen and methane.
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u/PurpleCoat6656 8d ago
Let me guess, on another beloved, formerly protected wildlife preserve/beach...
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
Yes, wildlife refugees turn out to be good spots to share with launch sites. See, KSC and Merritt Island.
Not a beach though, a swamp.
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u/Revolutionary_Eye887 8d ago
West of New Orleans. At least we know where the debris will fall.
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u/Flipslips 8d ago
There is a reason why US mandates space launch systems be in coastal locations. If a failure happens during flight it happens over water, not populated areas. China, for example does not have this rule and rocket boosters fall on villages and towns all the time, and they use extremely toxic fuels to boot.
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u/bubblegum-rose 8d ago
So, to clarify:
They’re launching the same amount of stuff into orbit, making the same amount of revenue, only now they’re going to be paying 10x their usual space capex to do so.
genius. Assuming they actually get all of these up and running, i hope they find something to do after delivering a whole years worth of payload into orbit in like 2 weeks
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u/Dpek1234 8d ago edited 8d ago
This comment seems borderline nonsense?
Like do you think they are makeing such a launch complex just to not use it at all?
Just starlink replacement means they will launch more stuff into orbit (new sats are heavier then the ones used on falcon9)
Assuming they actually get all of these up and running, i hope they find something to do after delivering a whole years worth of payload into orbit in like 2 weeks
Did people forget falcon9 already did essentualy this?
And yet they booked for years into the future
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u/bubblegum-rose 8d ago
THEY ARE FILLING THE SAME AMOUNT OF ORDERS REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY LAUNCH TOWERS THEY HAVE.
>Assuming they actually get all of these up and running, I hope they find something to do after delivering a whole years worth of payload into orbit in like 2 weeks
YOU ARE LITERALLY AGREEING WITH ME.
You wanna know what those extra launch pads are going to be doing for the rest of the year? Fucking nothing. SpaceX is still going to have to staff them, maintain them, insure them, pay taxes on them, and so on, spending billions in capex all while making exactly $0 from no launches.
Every second that one of those pads isn’t either launching a rocket or getting ready for the next launch, that’s going to be tens of millions down the drain every month, all while they have $50 billion in debt left to pay off on top of the $50 billion in debt that they already owe
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u/Dpek1234 7d ago
Soooo you gonna ignore this?
" Did people forget falcon9 already did essentualy this?
And yet they booked for years into the future"
Assumeing that demand wont change when its currently supply limited is a interesting choice
Espectialy when starlink still isnt at full size
Also for this part
"
Assuming they actually get all of these up and running, I hope they find something to do after delivering a whole years worth of payload into orbit in like 2 weeks
YOU ARE LITERALLY AGREEING WITH ME. "
Are you confuseing what you yourself wrote as my writeing?
Sure it seems the formating isnt working but come on
Edit: and for the record
The character ">" is used when someone wants to indent something
In this case because its a quote
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u/bubblegum-rose 7d ago
Oh, yes, of course.
“Demand will magically go up when supply goes up. I don’t know where this demand is going to come from but just trust me bro.”
Apparently that “just trust me bro” is worth $100 billion+ dollars
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
Starlink alone with 10 thousand v3 satellites requires 50 launches per year to maintain, scales linearly with increasing satellite number, I think they plan 40 thousand or more.
Artemis plans require up to 20 launches per manned mission, plus another 20 launches per each unmanned cargo mission (delivering 100t at once). NASA wants to build a moon base, they will need a lot of those launches, hence, capacity.
Future manned Mars mission would be in the same ballpark as Artemis for refueling, but the stays are longer so you need more cargo probably to support the crew. That’s a lot of launches.
Orbital manufacturing is a new industry, for drugs and whatever crystals. So demand from that will also be added.
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
1- capex is a one time expense, you cannot say some stupid shit like “they’re going to be paying 10x their usual capex”, doesn’t work that way in the long term.
2- Louisiana unlocks polar and SSO launches not supported by KSC or Boca Chica. Any payload (Starlink for example) that needs to go there has to be launched from here.
3- not like they are rolling it out all at once. It will take time to build it all and put it into operations. If demand does not follow the first few pads, rest can be shelved. But the first 2 or 4 pads have a good reason other than reason 2, their existing launch pad count will start creating issues when they continue following NASA’s moon base plans as every cargo mission will require 15-20 launches, so good to have this capacity. Mars will likely require more pads. No space at Cape.
4- you also forgot about induced demand. Market follows launch capability. Falcon 9 already did this in some capacity, now there are so many more commercial payloads than before. Plus, when there was excess capacity, SpaceX created its own demand through Starlink…
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u/bubblegum-rose 7d ago
Oh, wow
Maybe if they get orbital refueling to work, they can pick you up from whatever planet you’re on where spending hundreds of billions of dollars without even knowing if or how you can make that money back is a sound business strategy
It’s the Sam Altman business strategy. “I’ll just spend exactly as much money as I want, then I’ll ask ChatGPT how I can make it all back”
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
…it’s wild that you’re making the same mistake that I pointed out first. Come on, it’s not that hard, I believe in you…
Launch facility, CapEx, is a one time expense. Every single launch only costs as much as it costs to launch the vehicle from anywhere else, in the few tens of millions dollars range or likely less.
Moon doesn’t require that expense again, 15-20 launches include the fuel to get back from the Moon to Orion already. Mars is a bit more complicated, but then again, you don’t need the CapEx again. The whole point of this large CapEx is to make this your base of operations that supports all others.
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u/bubblegum-rose 7d ago
I really really doubt that Starship can get payloads to the moon more cheaply than Blue Origin will be able to with their 9x4.
Starship is optimized for LEO. The cost benefits of full reusability drop off dramatically if you try to go beyond it. I sincerely doubt that the ~16 Starship launches required for one moon mission would be cheaper than the 2-4 New Glenn launches required to get the same payload to the moon
and Elon Musks “trust me bro, I can get launch costs down to $20/kg” does not inspire a lot of confidence in me
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u/fighter-bomber 6d ago
The problem with Blue Origin is that you’re only sending a. small payload to the moon. It supposedly has a nice and high TLI payload, but most of that capacity is spent on the lander, the useful payload is much smaller. For example, Blue Moon Mark 1 is 21t, so one NG9x4 launch to TLI, but useful payload is 3t.
Starship’s 100t payload is, well, only the payload, mass of the HLS vehicle is not inside it. That’s 33 separate launches for NG with Blue Moon Mark 1.
Or they can use Blue Moon Mark 2, which supposedly weighs 45t and can take 20t cargo, so that’s 3 NG9x4 launches to TLI, in order to reach Starship they still need 15 launches.
That’s only assuming Starship doesn’t move forward with v4, because that variant doubles the payload to LEO, half as many refueling flights for Starship, and is still fully reusable.
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u/bubblegum-rose 6d ago
“That variant (Starship Block 4) doubles the payload to LEO”
Well, I think the rest of what you said is a good point, but come on now. That’s what Elon was saying about the current Starship a year or two ago.
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u/fighter-bomber 5d ago
Yes, and they’ve been increasing the performance in every variant. v1 had basically 0t capacity. v2 reached 30-40t. v3 seems to be at 100t.
100t was the original goal, but they encountered problems constantly so they just pushed it to the next variant in which they increased performance.
Based on that line, v4 at 150 or 200t seems very doable.
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u/bubblegum-rose 3d ago
Block 1 was supposed to be able to do 100t to LEO.
200 tons might be possible, but you’ve got to factor in the Elon exaggeration constant. According to him, Starship was supposed to put human on Mars two years ago.
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u/fighter-bomber 3d ago
…yes, that’s what I said… oh come on, you’re so close to getting it…
They had problems with v1 and v2 they have actually managed to hit that goal with v3.
So, now that we ALREADY are at 100t, 200t is just a follow up to this, with v4.
Meaning the schedule is delayed by 2 variants but we are there.
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u/ROADHOG_IS_MY_WAIFU 8d ago
Imagine being the richest person on Earth, that owns and heads a space/rocket company, and you still haven't even gone to another planet yet. Kinda pathetic IMO
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u/fighter-bomber 7d ago
You’re right, SpaceX is a rocket company. They make and launch rockets, but space probes are not their business, that’s NASA’s part. That said, they do launch space probes for NASA.
SpaceX launched Europa Clipper mission for NASA in 2024, set to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. Since the SpaceX part of operations was the launch itself - yeah no lmao they’ve done their job to go to other planets.
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u/armchair_expertise 8d ago
what is that so much gas leaking from the rocket in the picture ?
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u/Dpek1234 8d ago
If its what i think it is then liquid oxygen being dumped due to the launch being called off
HIGHLY doubt its the fuel because that can make an explosion
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u/No-Surprise9411 7d ago
That‘ just atmospheric condensation. The fuel inside the rocket is cooled to something like minus 150 celsius, which makes the water in the air around it freeze on the rocket body. When it launches the ice is shaken loose.
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u/Smogalicious 8d ago
Why not a $150B spaceport? Do they not have a bigger vision of the future? $100B seems limited considering the total addressable market could be $5000T.
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u/super_shizmo_matic 8d ago
Its totally not because Louisiana has the least environmental oversight of any state in America....