After our stay on the Pecan Farm (and a lovely conversation with the owner that morning) we headed south again. A roughly 2.5 hour drive from Falfurias to South Padre Island was pretty uneventful. Just a big ‘ol highway that took us down to a big port (port of Brownsville) which it seemed like we drove along for an oddly long time. But then I saw it. Off in the distance, I could see a large tower. But that tower had a pointed top. I knew right away that I was looking at a SpaceX Starship rocket!
We got onto South Padre Island itself and into what looked like a tropical vacation destination. With hotels and restaurants lining a big white sand beach, it almost felt a bit like Cozumel. And one thing stuck out immediately… the golf carts. They were everywhere! It seemed like every second business had a parking lot full of golf carts for rent, and there was easily as many of them on the road as there was cars.
We pulled into our campground, which was on the southern tip of the island. I had reserved the southern-most corner spot that I could, as I hoped to be able to see the SpaceX grounds from our site. And sure enough, we could see that same rocket I had seen earlier, the launch tower with a stacked Starship on a booster, as well as the ginat high bays shops where the rockets are built. I was stoked.
I had looked up the scheduled road closures around the SpaceX facility, and could see that today the road was closed. So the plan was to just set up and relax today and head over to SpaceX tomorrow when we could drive in. So the boys and I were inside setting up while Kirsten checked in to the campground when I heard a sudden loud roar that lasted a few seconds. It only took me half a second to realize what the sound was and I quickly ran outside. I saw a big cloud of smoke shooting to the side of one of the rockets. SpaceX had just conducted a “static fire” (lighting engines of a rocket while it is strapped down) of a new booster! This was some unexpected excitement for us in our first hour there, but I could hear people cheering on the beach so clearly others were more in-the-know than myself and had come to watch.
We wanted to stretch our legs and let the kids get some energy out, so we took a short bike/OneWheel ride down to the beach to check things out. We figured we could come back for a swim if it looked good for the kids. Well… that was an oversight on our part. Within maybe 5 minutes, both kids had gotten their shorts wet in the water, to the point where it wasn’t worth trying to keep them out. So the kids a great little splash/swim in the water while Kirsten and I talked and enjoyed the sunset with our feet buried in white sand under the ankle-height waves.
Once it was time to go, we worked our way up the beach, while the kids turned themselves into churros by rolling their wet selves in the sand. Luckily we found some showers at the edge of the beach and got about 70% of the sand off of them.
The next morning, we loaded up our proper beach stuff and set course for Boca Chica beach, the public beach only accessible by driving through the SpaceX compound. It is surprising to have the place that builds the most advanced rockets in the world be so accessible to the public, but sure enough there are public roads that drive right past/through it all. Kirsten drove so I could keep my eyes on everything around us. I got her to pull over when we got to the classic “Starbase” sign for a picture. Mason and I got out of the truck and Mason brought his binoculars to inspect the ships in the “rocket garden” (a spot where they put on display rockets/ships that won’t be flown (or flown again) for whatever reason).
We continued dow the road until just before the beach, we passed the launch tower. I got Kirsten to pull over again, which may have been in employee parking (oops) so I could get a good look. While I was standing and staring, another couple fans/nerds/whatever we are passed and let me know that the road down to the rocket garden is also a public road, so you can just about walk right up to the rockets themselves.
Once I had seen what I could see, we continued down to the beach, which was only a few hundred more feet down the road. Some people had parked at the end of the road for beach access, but others had driven right onto the beach, so that’s what we decided to do as well. We set up our sun umbrella and there we sat, a few hundred feet away from the largest rocket in the world, perched on its launch tower. We spent the day at the beach which was a great swimming spot. We all had a great time, though I did find it very difficult to focus on anything other than the monster on the other side of the sand dunes. I truly was struck by the significance of what I saw. This is the vehicle that is to take humanity to Mars. And it was all done by a team of engineers, probably like myself, who had made more progress on this mission in the past 10 years than all of the government agencies on earth had in the past 50 years.
After we were all done in the water, we packed up and headed back up the road. We stopped at the dirt parking area closest to the rocket garden, and all got out on foot to walk as close as we could get. Sure enough, we stood at the fence maybe 30 feet away from a starship. They had a booster and 2 starships on display, as well as another hooked up to a crane that workers were doing something to the underside of. The scale of these things when you get that close is astounding. To think that the two pieces stack on top of each other and then will accelerate straight up to 20,000+ km/hr in a couple minutes is close enough to impossible that I find it extremely exciting and inspirational.
This was just a quick visit to come see the rockets, and so with that goal accomplished the next day it was time to leave. This is nothing out of the ordinary for us these days so all went smooth. Though as we drove away and the launch tower faded into a speck on the horizon, I was overwhelmed by a feeling that is hard to put into words. I felt incredibly pulled; like I need to go back and become a part of that endeavor.
