In the summer of 2012, SpaceX were looking to expand their rocket launching business outside of Florida. At the time, the company had only flown their Falcon 9 rocket a handful of times, but with a rapidly increasing launch schedule, an additional launch site was required to meet their needs. That’s when they started looking at a small village in Texas called Boca Chica as the site of their own private spaceport.

Boca Chica background

Boca Chica is a tiny community in Cameron County made up of just 35 houses. For years, it has been the dream spot for retirees and vacationers with waterfront properties as it’s far away from civilization. So far in fact, that even the water must be trucked into the community once a month and basic errands like grocery shopping requires a 40 minute commute into the nearest city of Brownsville. So this raises the question – why would SpaceX choose such a poor and desolate part of the country to start building their future spaceport?

Despite the lack of basic infrastructure or a skilled workforce, the quiet town of Boca Chica actually had a lot to offer SpaceX. Along with the abundance of cheap land and nearby access to the sea, Boca Chica also had a low population density, making it the perfect location to launch and land rockets. Not to mention the state of Texas was also offering a $15 million incentive for them to build their spaceport in Texas. So SpaceX chose Boca Chica as their future spaceport and broke ground in 2014.

Over the next few years, activity remained quiet (apart from the piles of dirt which were being dumped onto the land to strengthen the foundations) and although the Falcon 9’s launch schedule was at an all time high, several years went by without any construction at all.

As time passed, many assumed that SpaceX had changed their mind about building an extra launch site in Boca Chica, but in fact, life in the little town of Boca Chica was about to change forever.

Starship development begins

In December 2018, a local resident shared an image of a new structure at the SpaceX site. These images quickly spread around the space community and many suggested that the structure could in fact be the beginnings of SpaceX’s new Starship rocket. At the time this seemed like a crazy theory and most people assumed that this was simply a new water tower, but after rounds of speculation, SpaceX revealed that this structure really was the beginnings of a rocket called Starhopper – designed as an early test bed for Starship.

As the months went on, SpaceX’s presence in the community grew and soon they were ready to test Starhopper. With local residents documenting every move, Starhopper took to the sky in a spectacular show and returned to land under its own propulsion. While this test was a major achievement for SpaceX, it didn’t come without its disturbances.

During the test, residents had to remain outside of their homes to avoid getting injured by shattering windows, and it was clear as the weeks went on that SpaceX could not increase the scale of their tests without putting residents in danger.

SpaceX start buying houses in Boca Chica

With this in mind, SpaceX began the process of buying out the entire town by sending letters to residents offering to buy their house for three times their market value.

Although many residents accepted the offer, many understandably declined and refused to give up their dream life to a company that could easily offer so much more. With an average property value of around $80,000, SpaceX would have spent at least $8.5 million to buyout every house – not much more than the cost of a Falcon 9 fairing. But for the residents that were being pressured to move, even a triple-value offer wouldn’t be enough to find a similar home in a different location.

That said, although SpaceX doesn’t have the right to kick residents out of their homes – the County does. And while the County wanted to avoid evicting people from their homes, they also had an opportunity to create a thriving industry and provide high paying jobs to one of the most economically depressed regions of the country … and this is where eminent domain comes in.

Texas law states that “private property may only be taken by a government or private entity that is authorized to do so” meaning that Cameron County could give SpaceX the right to seize the properties. However, these legal requirements also state that seizing any property must only occur for a purpose that benefits the general public.

While Texas does not allow eminent domain for the benefit of private landowners, there is an alternative which would involve SpaceX giving the land over to the government which would not be ideal for SpaceX since they would risk losing control over their first privately owned spaceport.

So instead, SpaceX decided to extend their deadline and increase offers for some of the remaining residents. As of March, seven houses remain unsold to SpaceX and the negotiations could continue to go on for much longer.

In the meantime, SpaceX has hired hundreds of new workers to create a constant 24 hour production line, and although the residents of Boca Chica were essentially forced to give up their dream life, it will hopefully be an important sacrifice for the exciting future that SpaceX is aiming to create for everyone.