SpaceX’s Boca Chica Project Getting Underway

For SpaceX, the wagon train to Mars is about to get underway with a major transportation project of a decidedly more earthly nature. The Valley Morning Star reports that construction of the company’s commercial launch facility at Boca Chica is about to get underway for real with the import of approximately 310,000 cubic yards of soil to stabilize the shifting sands which currently comprise the ground conditions at the site.

From the story:

“This fall, in order to stabilize the ground at the site, SpaceX will begin a process known as soil surcharging,” John Taylor, spokesman for Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, told the Star.

“Between now and January 2016, the company will be transporting 310,000 cubic yards of new soil to the locations where all the major facilities will be built at the complex.”

For comparison’s sake, a typical tri-axle dump truck can carry somewhere between 16-20 cubic yards depending on moisture content and soil density, suggesting that as many as 15,000 trucks could be headed towards the eventual launch site.

Even for a dedicate environmentalist like Elon Musk, there’s got to be some guilty appreciation that diesel prices are in the tank.