Starbase, IFT-3 and the Tesla
OK, so I know I’m a little behind in posting to my blog, and I left off musing about equipment and approach. I’ll get back to that, but I’ve done some traveling of late that I wanted to share with you.
In March, I traveled to Brownsville/Boca Chica/Starbase Texas to photograph SpaceX Starbase, Ship 28 and Booster 10 before its then-impending launch. I felt somewhat confident that IFT-3 (In Flight Testing) would have a significant degree of success in achieving its goals of reaching orbital velocity and perhaps even soft-landing both the Booster 10 (B10) and Ship 28 in water.
It was also the first “road trip” I took driving the Tesla Model Y Long-range. I’m constantly hearing about how you can’t really drive a Tesla on a long trip because of charging/range issues and I wanted to experience it for myself. Out in eastern Oklahoma, I live in a bit of a Supercharger desert as I have come to find out, with few Superchargers available that aren’t stretching the range of the vehicle.
So I set out from home for Starbase TX fully charged, but having to stop for a brief “top off” in south Tulsa to enable me to have enough to reach the next Supercharger in Denison, TX. I will say this - Tesla would be well-served to install an additional Supercharging station between Tulsa, OK and Denison, TX (McAlester OK, perhaps?) to alleviate the range anxiety that can occur between those points as a lot of Tulsans travel to Dallas.
Can you make it? Absolutely but without much, if any, deviation from your route. Not trying to get ahead of myself here, but on the return trip home I found the navigation attempting to re-route me out towards Ardmore, OK - a bit out of the way - or back to Denison TX because it was estimating I might not make it to the south Tulsa Superchargers. I did, with battery to spare, but it did kind of freak me out a bit. No such Supercharger issues existed the remainder of the trip, coming or going.
As you drive to Starbase from Brownsville on TX highway 4, beware! Especially at night. That road, until you’re about a few miles from Starbase, is just miserable and littered with deep potholes that will rattle your vehicle and your teeth. Watch yourself and drive carefully - you’ll find yourself dodging potholes like you’re driving through a minefield. Once you’re closer, near the Massey site, the road has been repaved and it’s smooth sailing from there.
The “guts” of the Massey site was quite obscured and in the midst of the construction of the new suborbital test mount flame trench, so there really wasn’t much I could see there except construction vehicle and various pieces of equipment being hauled in.
Starbase itself is an awesome site however, and the amount of construction taking place is wild. Construction of the main Starfactory had begun to install street-facing windows; the parking garage area was being cleared for construction and of course, the ships and boosters in the various bays. Ship 29 (scheduled for use in IFT-4) was on the sub-orbital test mount towards the entrance to the launch facility (where the second Orbital Launch Mount - OLM - and tower will be constructed) with Booster 10 on the OLM and Ship 28 destacked next to it.
If you visit the site, I recommend you see it both during the day and at night. It’s just as impressive at night as it is during the day.
I stayed in the area and returned once Ship 28 was stacked onto Booster 10 to see the entire rocket prepared for launch and remained through the pre-flight water deluge test. It was during this time I met Sean Doherty, one of the photographers for the YouTube channel NASASpaceflight (NSF), Calvin of Base Camp Zero and a fellow traveler, Aaron with whom I approached the rocket after the water deluge test.
Having lived near and visited Kennedy Space Center frequently, I was amazed that we were able to be so close to the rocket itself - although we (along with the NSF photographers) were chased off shortly thereafter by a SpaceX drone. I didn’t want to remain for the launch itself (as it was still a few days away and didn’t want to be caught in any crowds). Besides, hanging out there in the dunes of the beach without a hat awaiting the unanticipated water deluge test resulted in a pretty good sunburn for me.
My time at Starbase and in the Brownsville area was quite enjoyable and exciting to see the progress being made by SpaceX to accomplish their stated goals of interplanetary travel and truly become the Gateway to Mars. May I live long enough to see the dream of colonizing Mars that many of us as youngsters had fully achieved.
Please check out the videos posted to my YouTube channel for some content associated with this photography project and I’ll see you again, around the bend!