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\n Starship is the largest rocket ever built. Elon Musk hopes it will one day fly humans and other species to Mars, but environmentalists say it’s doing damage to the local habitat around the Texas launch site.<\/p>\n
Ver\u00f3nica Gabriela C\u00e1rdenas for NPR<\/p>\n
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BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 Standing before a crowd of onlookers and journalists in South Texas in February of 2022, Elon Musk made the case for going to Mars. His company SpaceX would build a rocket called Starship. It would be the largest ever built and it would launch frequently \u2014 as often as three times a day. The goal would be to stockpile enough fuel and oxygen in space to power a single Starship out toward the Red Planet.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Starships would deliver around a million tons of cargo on the Martian surface \u2014 enough to build a self-sustaining colony. Musk pitched the colony as a Plan B for humans, should anything happen to Earth.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nIt would protect other species from a catastrophe as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are life\u2019s stewards, life\u2019s guardians,\u201d Musk told the crowd. \u201cThe creatures that we love, they can\u2019t build spaceships, but we can, and we can bring them with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk might see Starship as an ark for all God\u2019s creatures, but environmentalists tell a different story. As Starship prototypes have begun flying from SpaceX\u2019s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, they say the company has shown little regard for the wildlife Musk has said he wants to protect.<\/p>\n
Now, a review of state and federal records by NPR, including some obtained through a freedom of information request, shows how SpaceX has sometimes ignored environmental regulations as it rushed to fulfill its founder\u2019s vision. With each of its launches, records show, the company discharged tens of thousands of gallons of what regulators classify as industrial wastewater into the surrounding environment.<\/p>\n
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\n SpaceX’s water deluge system sprays about 180,000 gallons under the rocket. Tens of thousands of gallons of that water ends up in the nearby wetlands.<\/p>\n
SpaceX, GIF by NPR<\/p>\n
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In response to the discharges of water from the pad, both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) have determined that SpaceX has violated the Clean Water Act. Both agencies levied fines totaling more than $150,000 against the company in September.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nThe consequences of actions like these are real, environmental groups say. SpaceX\u2019s launch site is surrounded by a state park and federal wildlife refuge home to hundreds of of thousands of shorebirds, sea turtles and other species. Biologists say the company\u2019s Starship launches are having a measurable impact. A recent report documented how SpaceX\u2019s last launch destroyed nests of a vulnerable population of shorebirds.<\/p>\n
Local environmental groups and members of the Carrizo\/Comecrudo Tribe have filed a lawsuit demanding an extensive environmental review of Starship launches.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is the last untouched piece of the Texas coast, essentially,\u201d says Joyce Hamilton, a member of the board of Save RGV, a local environmental group that is part of the lawsuit. For Save RGV, the wastewater issue has become emblematic of how SpaceX treats the environment. \u201cThis is potentially really damaging,\u201d Hamilton says.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything you see out here doesn\u2019t exist on Mars,\u201d adds Jim Chapman, another board member. Musk \u201cseems to care a lot more about 100,000 years from now than now here on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, Save RGV filed a second lawsuit on Oct. 9 over the wastewater issue asking for an additional $56,460 in civil penalties per day of violation. In a post on the social media platform X, SpaceX described the suit as “unwarranted and frivolous.”<\/p>\n
In response to NPR\u2019s request for comment for this story, SpaceX referred to a lengthy post it put up Sept. 10. In the post, the company categorically denied that the water system it employs for launches was in any way hazardous.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt uses literal drinking water,\u201d the post read in part. \u201cThe subsequent fines levied on SpaceX by TCEQ and the EPA are entirely tied to disagreements over paperwork. We chose to settle so that we can focus our energy on completing the missions and commitments that we have made to the U.S. government, commercial customers, and ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n A snowy egret seen next to SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica State Park. The land around the launch site is part of a migratory pathway for many species of birds.<\/p>\n
Ver\u00f3nica Gabriela C\u00e1rdenas for NPR<\/p>\n
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Experts contacted by NPR disagree with the company\u2019s statement. The water is being used to cool the launch pad as Starship\u2019s engines fire. While drinking water may be used in the system, after it comes into contact with the rocket exhaust, it contains high levels of dissolved solids and potentially toxic chemicals like zinc and hexavalent chromium, according to the license application submitted by SpaceX to Texas regulators.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\n\u201cI would not feel comfortable drinking it as drinking water,\u201d says Courtney Gardner, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. \u201cAnd I would not recommend that anybody else would drink it either.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Despite the concerns over the water and other issues, SpaceX appears to be just days from launching again. The company says it could conduct its fifth test launch of Starship as soon as Oct. 13, \u201cpending regulatory approval.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the EPA and Texas regulators have agreed to allow the launch while SpaceX finalizes a permit for dealing with the wastewater. The Federal Aviation Administration, which grants permission for Starship\u2019s test launches, said in a statement that \u201cThe FAA will make a licensing determination once SpaceX has met all licensing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
But environmental activists think the company needs to slow down. \u201cThey\u2019re protecting their corporate interests by moving quickly and not following the law,\u201d says Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is leading the lawsuit to force a larger environmental review. \u201cFollowing the law would take more time and money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Launch pad bust-up<\/h3>\n Driving out to SpaceX\u2019s launch pad takes about 30 minutes from the nearby city of Brownsville. The road is a tiny ribbon of highway that winds through coastal grasslands and tidal flats. Most of the land is part of Boca Chica State Park and federal wildlife refuge, but rising high above grasses and shallow pools of water are two launch towers and three large buildings where Starship and its boosters are built.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of the property out here is either state or federal, except for the patch that SpaceX is on and some other little holdings,\u201d says Justin LeClaire, a conservation biologist with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, a nonprofit that studies South Texas\u2019 coastline.<\/p>\n
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\n \u201cBoca Chica was a literal refuge and state park where these species could go and not have to deal with people,\u201d says Justin LeClaire, a conservation biologist with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, a nonprofit that studies South Texas\u2019 coastline.<\/p>\n
Ver\u00f3nica Gabriela C\u00e1rdenas for NPR<\/p>\n
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LeClaire says this area is a vital habitat for hundreds of species of birds. \u201cAll shorebirds are in somewhat of decline,\u201d he says. Much of that decline has come as humans have built up homes and industry along the coast. The preserve is a stopover for many species as they migrate between North America and Central and South America.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\n\u201cBoca Chica was a literal refuge and state park where these species could go and not have to deal with people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Then came the first launch of Starship in April of 2023. The rocket\u2019s booster, which the company refers to as \u201cSuper Heavy,\u201d fired its 33 engines. The force and heat were so great that they vaporized parts of the launch site, including the toilets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shockwave blast created by engine ignition and take-off destroyed the pad restroom \u2026 the building has been leveled and the system is non-existent,\u201d SpaceX wrote Texas environmental regulators in an email shortly after the launch that was obtained by NPR through a freedom of information request.<\/p>\n
Starship\u2019s powerful engines also dug into the concrete launch pad, flinging debris like concrete and rebar into the dunes and marshes around the pad. In the weeks and months following the launch, SpaceX did clean up some of the debris, but chunks of concrete and rebar remain scattered throughout the area.<\/p>\n
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\n A piece of concrete and rebar that remains from SpaceX’s first test of Starship in 2023. The launch destroyed the pad, sending debris into the landscape.<\/p>\n
Ver\u00f3nica Gabriela C\u00e1rdenas for NPR<\/p>\n
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The damage was substantial, in part, because the company had opted not to install a system to spray water under the rocket as it lifted off. Such a system, known as a water deluge system, protects the concrete and steel of the launch pad from the intense heat of the rocket engines. It is standard equipment at launch sites elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag [concrete] would make it through 1 launch,\u201d Musk said on X.<\/p>\n
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