The Trump administration is considering a proposed land swap that would transfer about 775 acres of federally protected land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge to SpaceX, allowing Elon Musk’s rocket company to expand launch operations in the newly incorporated town of Starbase, Texas, helping ensure America continues to lead the space race into the 2030s.
New documents obtained by The New York Times show that SpaceX would give the federal government approximately 692 acres of land it owns elsewhere in Cameron County in exchange for 775 acres.
Not surprisingly, the proposed land swap has caused an uproar among conservationists and archaeologists who say the 775 acres are home to endangered species and even part of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield.
However, Fish and Wildlife Service officials have taken a more optimistic view of the proposed land swap. In an October memorandum, Stewart Jacks, the agency’s acting regional director for the Southwest region, wrote that the swap deal would deliver a “net conservation benefit.”
The deal would “facilitate greater habitat protections for important fish and wildlife resources,” Jacks wrote in a letter to Brian Nesvik, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He added that SpaceX would divest of lands that “include high-quality habitat for a myriad of species, including the endangered ocelot.”
But Sharon Wilcox, the senior Texas representative for Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group, said she was skeptical of Jacks’ claims, noting that “With SpaceX present in this place, we have a very explosive force nestled in among all of these really fragile habitats.”
What’s clear is that any proposed land swap would have been rejected if Democrats were still in the White House. In fact, Musk blamed federal agencies, such as the Fish and Wildlife Service, for being weaponized against him during the Biden-Harris regime years that slowed rocket launches.
To expand Starbase City, it seems a lot more land will be needed. SpaceX says on its website that it plans “to build 1,000 Starships per year in order to send enough crew and cargo during Mars transfer windows to build a self-sustaining civilisation.”
Starbase City is incredibly special, with its cutting-edge industrial spaceflight infrastructure, including a purpose-built town that merges factories, launch pads, housing, and local services into a single live-work town built entirely around the Starship program.
The city is the first of its kind, well, at least in our generation, as building company towns in the 1800s and 1900s was popular nationwide when America was an industrial powerhouse. Those times are changing as the Trump administration seeks to revitalize the nation’s industrial core.
Thanks to Musk, America leads the space race and will likely continue to do so well into the 2030s.
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