Eventually, they have to close that road to the public. Shutting it all down, or building a separate road for the public. And build a proper fence around the launch area and tank farm.
The Angry Astronaut is not wrong here. This situation is very bad. I do force protection as part of my job, and this is a nightmare. And a disaster waiting to happen. These roads need to be cleared of civilians during tanking and fuel deliveries. Wow. This is not safe at all.
Isn't the actual issue that so many trucks concentrate there? That's the decision of SpaceX. And t-attacks can happen everywhere. You can't let unspecific fear ruin liberty.
@@TheAngryAstronaut This is irresponsible fear mongering that could put forth an idea toward one of the loonies that might happen to see it they otherwise didnt have. If you see a security risk contact those that can fix it. dont just blast it out to the public and potentially incite someone to test your theory.
@@TheAngryAstronaut You are so welcome Angry, you put out great content that I truly appreciate, especially your coverage of the OLM foundation disaster... And I fear for the people at SpaceX Boca Chica.
I still can't believe that so many public people are allowed to get so close. I work in petro chemical storage and refining. Well before i'm anywhere close to all these volatile fuels and machinery, i'm required to be fully certified, informed and attend many safety briefings and sight orientations. And Space X actually has a poor safety record as a company, that's public record. This is an accident waiting to happen.
And thats why we love you Angry. Maybe now that Elon has an administration willing to work with him instead of against him, they will be able to expand.
@ the people have not been putting the “brakes” on development. The current administration has because of a select few. Well majority rules and the people have spoken. The future administration will take the breaks off.
It's easy to think nitrogen is safe until you consider it's an asphyxiant, heavier than air, and displaces oxygen. A major release close to that many people would be a major tragedy.
@@Lewis_Kilgo Absolutely, comment was not to that effect. IIR there is a minimum distance for the general public when transferring any of the said material, and the ornis is actually on the driver.
@jamskinner Oh really. ABSTRACT Background: Studies have shown major cardiovascular effects associated with ketamine use disorder including dose-dependent negative inotropic effects. Preoperative ketamine use has been linked to ketamine-induced stress cardiomyopathy.
FYI, liquid oxygen, nitrogen and helium are not flammable by themselves. Liquid O2 supports combustion when a flammable substance like the other fuel (eg, methane) is present, but all these liquid propellants are dangerous in that they are extremely cold.
Contrary to popular belief, Oxygen is not flammable. As an oxidizer, it facilitates the burning process and can cause things to burn longer, but Oxygen itself does not burn.
@nfergistink110 but it does make things that are flammable explode. But you can throw a match on and open O2 spout and all you will get is the match burning for a long time. But if you add it to something else that can explode then you can get a massive explosion.
The high frequency of flights and the use of a public road should force SpaceX to build a railway line with a siding, because it is ridiculous that such amounts of fuel are transported by trucks.
@The Angry Astronaut : There is discussion about SpaceX, Cameron County and TX DOT to run a Hwy 4 bypass that will connect Hwy 4 to Boca Chica Beach by an Causeway bridge across the marsh beside Stage Zero.
While I love SpaceX's amazing progress with Starship, and I follow every launch, SpaceX is only one orbiting Starship "unscheduled disassembly" (Kessler syndrome) away from a huge backlash. I hope it never happens, but it seems almost inevitable at some point.
I too enjoy SX (although it's tougher now) but the US has put all its eggs in 1 basket and it will come crashing down and then the US will be back to square one. That's a downside to having a junkie narcissist in charge of things. I think SX have a great PR team because they come across as being really caring of the environment, their workers etc but the reality is much worse than that.
Welcome to 2017. The same things were said about the Falcon Rocket. Did you forget that part or are you ignorant of what SpaceX has accomplished? At least tell the truth
@@iamaduckquackanother person claiming to be smarter and more functional than the smartest man in the world. You think very highly of yourself while we all point and laugh and your ignorance.
@@same3210 Leon is not the smartest person in the world. He's the richest and has bought many smart people. Stop sucking up to the billionaire, he doesn't know you exist.
@@same3210 Lol. No one has been following SpaceX from its inception through the Falcon series and now Starship more than I have. No one's more excited about the possibilities for cheaper access to space than I am. Tell the truth about what? The considerable success of SpaceX thus far? Or the possibility of a Kessler syndrome event? Are you saying that's not a possibility?
One of the few myths that the MythBusters refused to try was to see if the myth that a spill of liquid oxygen onto an asphalt road would make it explode. They said that once they saw the fire caused by liquid oxygen being dumped on anything flammable, such as rags with some oil on them, they decided that it was way too dangerous to dump a lot of it on an asphalt road with all the hydrocarbons in asphalt. Oh, and in case of an explosion, everyone within a kilometer will be dead. A methane explosion in air is bad enough, but in contact with pure oxygen it won't just burn, it will violently explode. And it is a liquid, so some might spread out along the ground as it burns. That could cover a big area. I would stay away from there. Better safe than sorry.
This is liquid methane, it needs to transition to the vapor phase to burn and that reduces how much of the methane will realistically combust. The remainder gas and rest of the liquid oxygen is still dangerous and will burn anything but to be honest I think the risk of being doused in cryogenic liquid is much scarier, instant freezing.
Heh. I used to work at a factory with a massive butane tank in the yard. There was no security. Down the street was a propane refueling depot for delivery trucks. No security. A few dozen blocks away there's a paper mill with, you guessed it, their own tank. If any one of those went off, it would probably set off all the others. Estimates are that 1/4 of the city would disappear, or so I hear. We live in a high trust society.
It would be much more efficient and safer to bring in all those liquids by barge. The Intercoastal Channel ends in Brownsville Harbor. Installing a receiving station at the harbor's entrance and an underground cryogenic pipe should not be that hard. Volumes would also be a lot bigger with a barge, and all the liquefaction plants on the GOM would be potential suppliers. That being said, only the LNG is flammable here and LNG is no gasoline. Its a lot safer than what most people assume.
How about instead of just making a sensationalistic report, you actually do some research into the pipeline situation. Who's blocking the pipelines and why?
As a trucker I can tell you that is an accident waiting to happen no doubt. People in general put their little pointy dunce hats on whenever they are around trucks. I wouldnt hang around a place that busy with tankers.
@Mallchad Liquid Oxygen is only dangerous to you if it gets on you, and thats moreso because it's at cryogenic temperatures. But the boiling point is so low it would probably gasify before for it hits you, which then it would be no different from the O2 that you get in the hospital.
Liquid oxygen is not explosive or flamable as you're implying in your opening statement!! Other things are in it's pressence but itself not! (granted you do mention oils etc are later on your video) Methane is offloaded behind the fuel farm - not by the road, and there are plenty of safety systems in place, including a concrete wall to protect the storage areas, detect leaks etc etc. All these tankers are at far more risk travelling on the freeways/roads than parked up waiting for the unload. There's also plenty of workers / security and police there to keep an eye on things. Once their air seperation unit is built and running, the amout of tankers required will be drastically reduced
Stop crying Angry everything got your own risk, if wasn’t risk US wouldn’t be the first most powerful and most important country in the world with liberty as is now. I speak as Brazilian, I wish my country would be free and risk as yours, we would be a space power and superpower right now.
Ignorant ,unmitigated garbage, you would also have no Amazon rainforest using your recipe. Regulations are necessary to preserve Earth for future generations.
Your country would be a superpower without CIA and private companies that destoyed the forest, there's way more riches to get from it than just soja plantations
@ I agree partially with you, the richness it’s in our forests research should be done but with private companies, in the right way, many of diseases cures can be there in our biodiversity, but surely the state (specially now) doesn’t care about protect our forests.
Some years ago an Oil Refinery's Storage tanks in West Wales was struck by lightning and dozens of Fire Engines from all over Wales couldn't put it out, Across the river most houses and shops lost their windows. There were serious injuries no doubt.
This is a "Canary in the Coal Mine" situation. As an emergency manager, I know for sure, that this is a huge safety liability issue. I don't see how this is being allowed. Great coverage on this genuinely concerning issue.
Lots of bribes and corruption. Only more to come and reduced regulations and health and safety. SX may be doing cool things but can't really be considered the good guys.
I just want to say that liquid methane is not actually flammable in the liquid state but it's (instant) vapour emissions will be. Which is to say it's dangerous but maybe not as explosive as you think (see Starship IFT-1 for an example of "exploding" cryogenic fuels). Liquid oxygen however is actually that bad becauase oxygen in the liquid state makes things significantly easier to burn, and burn hot, even iron. Indeed, I would agree it's not great to have so many people around here during truck loading.
Very important subject! Authorities along with SpaceX should study the situation and act accordingly designing a plan. The road should be larger, I mean, 4 lanes to cope with the traffic and to maintain curious people far from these infrastructure.
The best option would be to create renewable methane with carbon capture on site. They probably lack the land area for such a plant, especially if they plan to launch multiple times a day. The second best option would be either a pipeline or a rail infrastructure. Hauling it over the highway is unarguably the worst option.
Production of fuel on site is currently even more complicated than making pipeline. Simply lack of land. Elon planned Sabatier processors powered by sea wind turbines, but making THAT is extremely hard to get permission.
Which doesn't prevent Musk from promising it. Must have been years at this point that Musk "announced" it, using solar power etc. He always knew how difficult it would be to have a launch facility in this region.
Very good points @angry. Those trucks should be in a gated compound probably with an earth berm. Not just for an explosion hazard but because of the possibility of a leak of cryogenics. You would of thought the County or who ever oversees this area would actually have stopped semis from lining the road and backing up and turning on the road anyway. Spacex need to buy the land opposite the tank farm and divert the road there. That's really a bad oversight. No members of the public should allowed that close to operations. What about the general safety concerns of dawdling tourists and cars in poor light conditions plus the extra hazards of parked vehicles.
Refineries looked similar all the way through the 60's, then the oil companies started buying adjacent properties to cut their liabilities. My grandparents lived within 1/4 mile of a refinery then got bought out and moved 5 miles north in the early 70's.
I have visited Starbase myself, and I agree that it is very unsafe and an accident waiting to happen. I took Safety Engineering in college for my engineering degree, so I have more than casual exposure to industrial safety. I believe what this video shows is very unsafe. I hope something can be done to improve safety for everyone at Starbase.
This is a bad situation created by government bureaucratic red-tape and incompetence. Fortunately, the Administration is about to change, reforms are going to made, and Elon is definitely going to get all the pipelines and permits he ever needed. Elon is feeling unburdened by the past.
For someone who advocates space flight you should go out of your way to try to tear it down.I wish you’d use your hot air to go after the regulations that is causing some of these issues. But I can sure you after a change of the administration you will see a lot of these problems go away.
I mean to be fair he did say that SpaceX has been trying to fix the situation by installing a pipeline. However I do agree he should be expanding on that and laying the blame at the feet of the environmentalists and "safety" regulators that have blocked SpaceX from doing so rather than leaving it open ended as the obvious solution is installing a pipeline for those hazardous materials.
Or perhaps SpaceX could have constructed their base in a manner where the safety of the road and those needing to use it wasn’t compromised? It’s not like this problem existed before SpaceX
This is a major problem on launch days, between the trucks, construction people/equipment and the all of the people running around. Being that everything is so open there I always wondered if something in the tank farm exploded, how bad would it be? I would guess pretty bad. Most of these types of installations have tremendous security, but here it looks like most of the launch day security is the local sheriff's department and it's been that way since they started there. I was there about 1.5 years ago and I was able to almost drive anywhere I wanted within reason. They need to beef up security for sure.
Declare the area a national security interest, eminent domain the area, move the road to the beach and secure the highly sensitive space research facility.
Safety should be key with this stuff. Safety standards as high as Halliburton Energy Services. Those people need to go, sorry not sorry. Random unattended people and flammable liquids don’t mix.
The entire area will be closed to the public within another couple years. There won’t be an issue because the public won’t be allowed within several miles.
Would a single gun shot to one of those tankers cause a cascading effect with the other tankers? I am not entirely sure how the liquid fuel would work in such a scenario. Recently someone has been shooting at fuselages of planes in Haiti and Dallas Love Field. This is not inconceivable. In fact, this is actually quite plausible in SpaceX's case. I'll have my popcorn ready...
If they fired with incendiary bullets and with a caliber strong enough to penetrate the tanks, for example 50 BMGs, they could cause a large explosion that would activate a domino effect, destroying the other tanks and even the ship. I don't know what the security of the place is like if there are police, Rangers or private security prepared to face a situation of that type, but I hope they are prepared for a situation like this because it could end with many lives.
The worst of all is that now that Musk has declared himself a Republican and openly supports Trump, an attack on Starbase is a possibility, there are many radicalized people who are willing to kill
We saw what happens to LOX when exposed to the air in one of the high altitude tests. The second test I believe where the ship overcorrected and landed on its side, instantly rupturing the header tank for LOX at the top of the vehicle. Where was the mega explosion at the header tank... There wasnt one at all the bang was at the base of the ship, the top just spilled its super chilled contents all over the place and it immediately started to turn to gas, but even then it didnt explode despite being so close to the explosion that was the rest of the ship. If LOX and Liquid methane were both to breach, and then mix in the right mixture, then become gasses at the right mixture then be exposed to naked flame, yea there will be an explosion. But I reckon the people at the side of the road on the LOX side will be running for the protected area long before that all occurs trying to avoid the super chilled LOX from freeze burning them first. Is it dangerous... Yes, are most of those people that are there fans of SpaceX, or even youtubers... Most likely. Are they fully aware of the risks? Maybe not, but one has to imagine if you are visiting an active launch facility when tank farm refuelling is underway for an upcoming launch and you dont think there is a bit of inherrant risk with that then you're not so bright of an individual. Any act of sabotage, would basically end up also taking the person who is perpetrating it as well as the other people there, so one has to be quite committed to thier cause to want to sacrfice themselves. Fact of the matter is, SpaceX doesnt own the road or the adjacent footpath, they do own the areas where the trucks are parked up waiting, and the area where they are unloading. You can bet that if any memor of the public crossed that road, they would be moved on or possibly detained real quick.
What happened to the Lox/N plant? That would remove the need to transport two thirds of the liquids/gases. If they expect 25 flights next year, it needs to done fast. That's thousands of truck journeys. Obviously, this is going to have to be shut down to the public at some point! Maybe a hovercraft across the channel to the north to reach the beach.
Point taken... No wonder NASA always puts everything behind closed gates and on government property. Hopefully, Boca Chica pivots to "simply" being a rocket construction site and away from being a launch and recovery site. That is...once all the testing they desperately need to accomplish is finished. All I can do now is bury my head in the sand and hope everything works out...
Seems the other tower is also near,way to near the other. When, not if, when a starship and booster rapidly unassembled fully loaded for launch. The other tower will certainly be damaged.
FYI. the materials being delivered are not yet "super Cooled" yes they are extremely cold....spacex uses nitrogen flowing through heat exchangers to super cool oxygen, methane,for starship and kerosene for falcon 9.... it makes zero sense that spacex is not allowed to build or have a fuel company build them a pipeline from the port of Brownsville...it would save millions in transportation costs...be safer and be far less of a carbon footprint as you would not be wasting all the diesel fuel powering all those thousands of trucks.....say nothing of the damage all that truck traffic does to the highway surface... I wondered why a pipeline was not yet in the works...had no ideal the regulators had stymied that also... its just common sense to have a pipeline
So sad that I'm going to miss your coverage at BC and my and my first time missing live coverage of starship flight test since sn16 because of work. Also I agree, too many crazy people out there that are capable of anything. Also I'm just as shock as I did not expected it to be that crowded.
Silly concerns. There is no more danger here than when these materials are being transported and handled all across the world daily around the public at times, certainly on the roads, and at facilities involved in loading and unloading.
has spacex tried to block the road during fueling? you said the piipeline wasn't approved. what actions has spacex taken to avoid this? why is spacex always the problem? what about the buerocrats what have they done or not done to contribute or create this situation? i have more faith that spacex tried doing the right thing but the buearocrats are the ones tying their hands.
they actually could close the road like they do for launches 24 hours or more in advance of a launch then you would not see this. Better yet let them build a pipeline
Mr Musk needs to go in to the cryogenic gas business . Really it should not be too hard for Mr Musk having a plant of his own like this on the site at Starbase so he can produce his own Oxygen on site and have the fuel piped or shipped and piped in straight to his tank farm .
Eventually, they have to close that road to the public.
Shutting it all down, or building a separate road for the public.
And build a proper fence around the launch area and tank farm.
At which point, a pipeline would make more sense anyway
They need to get that base away from a densely populated area.
They can't. Its the only road to a popular beach destination for Brownsville residents.
The Angry Astronaut is not wrong here. This situation is very bad. I do force protection as part of my job, and this is a nightmare. And a disaster waiting to happen. These roads need to be cleared of civilians during tanking and fuel deliveries. Wow. This is not safe at all.
@@scleeb A proper and honest evaluation of the clown planning at this location.
Thanks for your insight.
Isn't the actual issue that so many trucks concentrate there? That's the decision of SpaceX. And t-attacks can happen everywhere. You can't let unspecific fear ruin liberty.
@@TheAngryAstronaut This is irresponsible fear mongering that could put forth an idea toward one of the loonies that might happen to see it they otherwise didnt have.
If you see a security risk contact those that can fix it. dont just blast it out to the public and potentially incite someone to test your theory.
@@TheAngryAstronaut You are so welcome Angry, you put out great content that I truly appreciate, especially your coverage of the OLM foundation disaster... And I fear for the people at SpaceX Boca Chica.
I still can't believe that so many public people are allowed to get so close. I work in petro chemical storage and refining. Well before i'm anywhere close to all these volatile fuels and machinery, i'm required to be fully certified, informed and attend many safety briefings and sight orientations. And Space X actually has a poor safety record as a company, that's public record. This is an accident waiting to happen.
And thats why we love you Angry. Maybe now that Elon has an administration willing to work with him instead of against him, they will be able to expand.
Rubbish. The people are incharge not the Government.
@ the people have not been putting the “brakes” on development. The current administration has because of a select few. Well majority rules and the people have spoken. The future administration will take the breaks off.
Expand unchecked against environmental protections and human safety. Good job 👍
@@DAlexander35"brakes" not "breaks". Sounds like you are qualified for a cabinet position.
@ I agree 100%. You could be my scholarly technical writer. 🤗
Learn your DOT hazmat markings, I see a ton of Liquid Nitrogen and Helium, not much more.
Rocket uses liquid oxygen and liquid methane so they'll be there as well.
It's easy to think nitrogen is safe until you consider it's an asphyxiant, heavier than air, and displaces oxygen. A major release close to that many people would be a major tragedy.
@@Lewis_Kilgo Absolutely, comment was not to that effect. IIR there is a minimum distance for the general public when transferring any of the said material, and the ornis is actually on the driver.
That sir, is the right question. The lack of lightning arrestors boggles the mind.
That giant tower begs to differ.
@jamskinner Oh really.
ABSTRACT
Background: Studies have shown major cardiovascular effects associated with ketamine use disorder including dose-dependent negative inotropic effects. Preoperative ketamine use has been linked to ketamine-induced stress cardiomyopathy.
Rapid disassembly of the crowd.
FYI, liquid oxygen, nitrogen and helium are not flammable by themselves. Liquid O2 supports combustion when a flammable substance like the other fuel (eg, methane) is present, but all these liquid propellants are dangerous in that they are extremely cold.
Contrary to popular belief, Oxygen is not flammable. As an oxidizer, it facilitates the burning process and can cause things to burn longer, but Oxygen itself does not burn.
it explodes pretty well though eh
Actually it doesnt @nfergistink110
@nfergistink110 but it does make things that are flammable explode. But you can throw a match on and open O2 spout and all you will get is the match burning for a long time. But if you add it to something else that can explode then you can get a massive explosion.
Everything burns if there is enough oxygen around it
Yeah just makes absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE BURN, thanks for your input though lol
The high frequency of flights and the use of a public road should force SpaceX to build a railway line with a siding, because it is ridiculous that such amounts of fuel are transported by trucks.
Tree huggers would riot.
It is pretty ridiculous this is how they are moving propellant.
@The Angry Astronaut : There is discussion about SpaceX, Cameron County and TX DOT to run a Hwy 4 bypass that will connect Hwy 4 to Boca Chica Beach by an Causeway bridge across the marsh beside Stage Zero.
While I love SpaceX's amazing progress with Starship, and I follow every launch, SpaceX is only one orbiting Starship "unscheduled disassembly" (Kessler syndrome) away from a huge backlash. I hope it never happens, but it seems almost inevitable at some point.
I too enjoy SX (although it's tougher now) but the US has put all its eggs in 1 basket and it will come crashing down and then the US will be back to square one. That's a downside to having a junkie narcissist in charge of things. I think SX have a great PR team because they come across as being really caring of the environment, their workers etc but the reality is much worse than that.
Welcome to 2017. The same things were said about the Falcon Rocket. Did you forget that part or are you ignorant of what SpaceX has accomplished? At least tell the truth
@@iamaduckquackanother person claiming to be smarter and more functional than the smartest man in the world. You think very highly of yourself while we all point and laugh and your ignorance.
@@same3210 Leon is not the smartest person in the world. He's the richest and has bought many smart people. Stop sucking up to the billionaire, he doesn't know you exist.
@@same3210 Lol. No one has been following SpaceX from its inception through the Falcon series and now Starship more than I have. No one's more excited about the possibilities for cheaper access to space than I am. Tell the truth about what? The considerable success of SpaceX thus far? Or the possibility of a Kessler syndrome event? Are you saying that's not a possibility?
One of the few myths that the MythBusters refused to try was to see if the myth that a spill of liquid oxygen onto an asphalt road would make it explode. They said that once they saw the fire caused by liquid oxygen being dumped on anything flammable, such as rags with some oil on them, they decided that it was way too dangerous to dump a lot of it on an asphalt road with all the hydrocarbons in asphalt.
Oh, and in case of an explosion, everyone within a kilometer will be dead. A methane explosion in air is bad enough, but in contact with pure oxygen it won't just burn, it will violently explode. And it is a liquid, so some might spread out along the ground as it burns. That could cover a big area.
I would stay away from there. Better safe than sorry.
This is liquid methane, it needs to transition to the vapor phase to burn and that reduces how much of the methane will realistically combust. The remainder gas and rest of the liquid oxygen is still dangerous and will burn anything but to be honest I think the risk of being doused in cryogenic liquid is much scarier, instant freezing.
Heh. I used to work at a factory with a massive butane tank in the yard. There was no security. Down the street was a propane refueling depot for delivery trucks. No security. A few dozen blocks away there's a paper mill with, you guessed it, their own tank. If any one of those went off, it would probably set off all the others. Estimates are that 1/4 of the city would disappear, or so I hear. We live in a high trust society.
It would be much more efficient and safer to bring in all those liquids by barge. The Intercoastal Channel ends in Brownsville Harbor. Installing a receiving station at the harbor's entrance and an underground cryogenic pipe should not be that hard. Volumes would also be a lot bigger with a barge, and all the liquefaction plants on the GOM would be potential suppliers. That being said, only the LNG is flammable here and LNG is no gasoline. Its a lot safer than what most people assume.
The big road block might be environmentalist wackos who would rally to protect the life of a single sand flea.
How about instead of just making a sensationalistic report, you actually do some research into the pipeline situation. Who's blocking the pipelines and why?
Pipeline? For liquid oxygen? Enlighten us?
As a trucker I can tell you that is an accident waiting to happen no doubt. People in general put their little pointy dunce hats on whenever they are around trucks. I wouldnt hang around a place that busy with tankers.
@@aqualung58 I wouldn't even wanna be around a single truck filled with cryogenic liquid.
@@3373just What about a plant for synthesizing liquid oxygen from the air?
@Mallchad Liquid Oxygen is only dangerous to you if it gets on you, and thats moreso because it's at cryogenic temperatures. But the boiling point is so low it would probably gasify before for it hits you, which then it would be no different from the O2 that you get in the hospital.
Liquid oxygen is not explosive or flamable as you're implying in your opening statement!! Other things are in it's pressence but itself not! (granted you do mention oils etc are later on your video)
Methane is offloaded behind the fuel farm - not by the road, and there are plenty of safety systems in place, including a concrete wall to protect the storage areas, detect leaks etc etc.
All these tankers are at far more risk travelling on the freeways/roads than parked up waiting for the unload.
There's also plenty of workers / security and police there to keep an eye on things.
Once their air seperation unit is built and running, the amout of tankers required will be drastically reduced
Facts
Stop crying Angry everything got your own risk, if wasn’t risk US wouldn’t be the first most powerful and most important country in the world with liberty as is now. I speak as Brazilian, I wish my country would be free and risk as yours, we would be a space power and superpower right now.
Ignorant ,unmitigated garbage, you would also have no Amazon rainforest using your recipe.
Regulations are necessary to preserve Earth for future generations.
Your country would be a superpower without CIA and private companies that destoyed the forest, there's way more riches to get from it than just soja plantations
@ I agree partially with you, the richness it’s in our forests research should be done but with private companies, in the right way, many of diseases cures can be there in our biodiversity, but surely the state (specially now) doesn’t care about protect our forests.
Some years ago an Oil Refinery's Storage tanks in West Wales was struck by lightning and dozens of Fire Engines from all over Wales couldn't put it out, Across the river most houses and shops lost their windows. There were serious injuries no doubt.
This is a "Canary in the Coal Mine" situation. As an emergency manager, I know for sure, that this is a huge safety liability issue. I don't see how this is being allowed. Great coverage on this genuinely concerning issue.
Lots of bribes and corruption. Only more to come and reduced regulations and health and safety. SX may be doing cool things but can't really be considered the good guys.
I just want to say that liquid methane is not actually flammable in the liquid state but it's (instant) vapour emissions will be. Which is to say it's dangerous but maybe not as explosive as you think (see Starship IFT-1 for an example of "exploding" cryogenic fuels).
Liquid oxygen however is actually that bad becauase oxygen in the liquid state makes things significantly easier to burn, and burn hot, even iron.
Indeed, I would agree it's not great to have so many people around here during truck loading.
All I could see was Nitrogen Tankers? Good luck getting a bang out of those! Click bait bollocks.
Safety Protocols are definitely needed 😮 great video 👍👍👍
Very important subject! Authorities along with SpaceX should study the situation and act accordingly designing a plan. The road should be larger, I mean, 4 lanes to cope with the traffic and to maintain curious people far from these infrastructure.
I agree this is a legitimate concern. I was pleasantly surprised to see this wasn't a pure click-bait, rage-bait criticism of SpaceX.
The best option would be to create renewable methane with carbon capture on site. They probably lack the land area for such a plant, especially if they plan to launch multiple times a day.
The second best option would be either a pipeline or a rail infrastructure.
Hauling it over the highway is unarguably the worst option.
Production of fuel on site is currently even more complicated than making pipeline. Simply lack of land. Elon planned Sabatier processors powered by sea wind turbines, but making THAT is extremely hard to get permission.
Which doesn't prevent Musk from promising it. Must have been years at this point that Musk "announced" it, using solar power etc. He always knew how difficult it would be to have a launch facility in this region.
That requires dozens of times as much energy as the energy in the fuel.
if it exploded lets be honest it would be an amazing spectacle which everyone would marvel at.
Let all the money taken from Doge short go in vein, it's peoples hard work afterall
Very good points @angry. Those trucks should be in a gated compound probably with an earth berm. Not just for an explosion hazard but because of the possibility of a leak of cryogenics. You would of thought the County or who ever oversees this area would actually have stopped semis from lining the road and backing up and turning on the road anyway. Spacex need to buy the land opposite the tank farm and divert the road there. That's really a bad oversight. No members of the public should allowed that close to operations. What about the general safety concerns of dawdling tourists and cars in poor light conditions plus the extra hazards of parked vehicles.
Refineries looked similar all the way through the 60's, then the oil companies started buying adjacent properties to cut their liabilities. My grandparents lived within 1/4 mile of a refinery then got bought out and moved 5 miles north in the early 70's.
I have visited Starbase myself, and I agree that it is very unsafe and an accident waiting to happen. I took Safety Engineering in college for my engineering degree, so I have more than casual exposure to industrial safety. I believe what this video shows is very unsafe. I hope something can be done to improve safety for everyone at Starbase.
Really appreciate your solid and honest opinion on these things, stay honest and ignore the haters!
This is a bad situation created by government bureaucratic red-tape and incompetence. Fortunately, the Administration is about to change, reforms are going to made, and Elon is definitely going to get all the pipelines and permits he ever needed. Elon is feeling unburdened by the past.
I wonder whether Elon really cares about anything like that--collateral damage in the service of a titanic ego? Acceptable.
For someone who advocates space flight you should go out of your way to try to tear it down.I wish you’d use your hot air to go after the regulations that is causing some of these issues. But I can sure you after a change of the administration you will see a lot of these problems go away.
I mean to be fair he did say that SpaceX has been trying to fix the situation by installing a pipeline. However I do agree he should be expanding on that and laying the blame at the feet of the environmentalists and "safety" regulators that have blocked SpaceX from doing so rather than leaving it open ended as the obvious solution is installing a pipeline for those hazardous materials.
How will the change of administration improve this situation?
@ wait and see
Or perhaps SpaceX could have constructed their base in a manner where the safety of the road and those needing to use it wasn’t compromised? It’s not like this problem existed before SpaceX
@@enighostmasterdemocrats are anti space they say the money is better spent on people here on earth.
This is a major problem on launch days, between the trucks, construction people/equipment and the all of the people running around. Being that everything is so open there I always wondered if something in the tank farm exploded, how bad would it be? I would guess pretty bad. Most of these types of installations have tremendous security, but here it looks like most of the launch day security is the local sheriff's department and it's been that way since they started there. I was there about 1.5 years ago and I was able to almost drive anywhere I wanted within reason. They need to beef up security for sure.
Declare the area a national security interest, eminent domain the area, move the road to the beach and secure the highly sensitive space research facility.
Interesting, but alarming! Let us hope they can get a pipeline or a dock, perhaps so that tanker ships can bring the necesscary liquid.
Safety should be key with this stuff. Safety standards as high as Halliburton Energy Services. Those people need to go, sorry not sorry. Random unattended people and flammable liquids don’t mix.
You are right , these people are unconscious of the danger !!!
Imagine one lighting a cigarette here !
After launch 6 of Starship....Space X has consider moving to the cape ASAP.
also an issue with the sound and surrounding populace. my guess is once spacex has a fully usable ship as they envision they will move to the cape
4:00 - "A banana for scale..." 🤣
The entire area will be closed to the public within another couple years. There won’t be an issue because the public won’t be allowed within several miles.
I appreciate the sights and sounds video.
Oxygen is not a flamable gas. It requires fuel to burn.
Would a single gun shot to one of those tankers cause a cascading effect with the other tankers? I am not entirely sure how the liquid fuel would work in such a scenario. Recently someone has been shooting at fuselages of planes in Haiti and Dallas Love Field. This is not inconceivable. In fact, this is actually quite plausible in SpaceX's case. I'll have my popcorn ready...
I was just about to post the same thing. I imagine that the tank structure is fairly robust but I'm sure that Texans have access to some big guns
If they fired with incendiary bullets and with a caliber strong enough to penetrate the tanks, for example 50 BMGs, they could cause a large explosion that would activate a domino effect, destroying the other tanks and even the ship. I don't know what the security of the place is like if there are police, Rangers or private security prepared to face a situation of that type, but I hope they are prepared for a situation like this because it could end with many lives.
The worst of all is that now that Musk has declared himself a Republican and openly supports Trump, an attack on Starbase is a possibility, there are many radicalized people who are willing to kill
I have been right there at that spot multiple times and wondered this as well.
We saw what happens to LOX when exposed to the air in one of the high altitude tests. The second test I believe where the ship overcorrected and landed on its side, instantly rupturing the header tank for LOX at the top of the vehicle. Where was the mega explosion at the header tank... There wasnt one at all the bang was at the base of the ship, the top just spilled its super chilled contents all over the place and it immediately started to turn to gas, but even then it didnt explode despite being so close to the explosion that was the rest of the ship.
If LOX and Liquid methane were both to breach, and then mix in the right mixture, then become gasses at the right mixture then be exposed to naked flame, yea there will be an explosion. But I reckon the people at the side of the road on the LOX side will be running for the protected area long before that all occurs trying to avoid the super chilled LOX from freeze burning them first.
Is it dangerous... Yes, are most of those people that are there fans of SpaceX, or even youtubers... Most likely. Are they fully aware of the risks? Maybe not, but one has to imagine if you are visiting an active launch facility when tank farm refuelling is underway for an upcoming launch and you dont think there is a bit of inherrant risk with that then you're not so bright of an individual.
Any act of sabotage, would basically end up also taking the person who is perpetrating it as well as the other people there, so one has to be quite committed to thier cause to want to sacrfice themselves. Fact of the matter is, SpaceX doesnt own the road or the adjacent footpath, they do own the areas where the trucks are parked up waiting, and the area where they are unloading. You can bet that if any memor of the public crossed that road, they would be moved on or possibly detained real quick.
Jordan, thank you for the close-up videos of the propeller trucks and the propellant farm. Very cool. Pun intended.
Take your click bait back to Europe 😢
What happened to the Lox/N plant? That would remove the need to transport two thirds of the liquids/gases. If they expect 25 flights next year, it needs to done fast. That's thousands of truck journeys. Obviously, this is going to have to be shut down to the public at some point! Maybe a hovercraft across the channel to the north to reach the beach.
no spectators were allowed within 3 miles of any Apollo, prelaunch prep or launch
Point taken... No wonder NASA always puts everything behind closed gates and on government property. Hopefully, Boca Chica pivots to "simply" being a rocket construction site and away from being a launch and recovery site. That is...once all the testing they desperately need to accomplish is finished. All I can do now is bury my head in the sand and hope everything works out...
That's probably more because most of the things they were working on were classified.
Most SpaceX stuff is not. Just trade secrets.
Yeah my Angry Astronaut let’s just fuel that probability some more, so that you can say: “I told you so!”.
Who'll get the first paid flight to orbit. New Glenn or starship ? Personally I think it'll be New Glenn.
Scary I hope you didn't give someone a bad ideal
Yes because most rocket launch sites aren’t that close to a populated area.
The closest civilian area is SPI which is 5 miles away
I'm surprised state and county officials are allowing this to happen during the fueling time of the tank farm. Accident waiting to happen, sadly.
Bribes and corruption.
Yeah, no one not authorized should be allowed anywhere near that area.
Interesting, Not sure how much danger is from the LOX alone. Yes if someone wanted to make trouble that would be bad.
Seems the other tower is also near,way to near the other. When, not if, when a starship and booster rapidly unassembled fully loaded for launch. The other tower will certainly be damaged.
You do realize these trucks drive down the open roads all the time i assume?
FYI. the materials being delivered are not yet "super Cooled" yes they are extremely cold....spacex uses nitrogen flowing through heat exchangers to super cool oxygen, methane,for starship and kerosene for falcon 9....
it makes zero sense that spacex is not allowed to build or have a fuel company build them a pipeline from the port of Brownsville...it would save millions in transportation costs...be safer and be far less of a carbon footprint as you would not be wasting all the diesel fuel powering all those thousands of trucks.....say nothing of the damage all that truck traffic does to the highway surface...
I wondered why a pipeline was not yet in the works...had no ideal the regulators had stymied that also... its just common sense to have a pipeline
So sad that I'm going to miss your coverage at BC and my and my first time missing live coverage of starship flight test since sn16 because of work. Also I agree, too many crazy people out there that are capable of anything. Also I'm just as shock as I did not expected it to be that crowded.
They need to close those roads down to the public (for public safety) until the eco freaks lose interest and move on to something else.
So glad someone is talking about this lmao
It look like that was all nitrogen in the trucks I saw in the video. I'm sure they know what they are doing.
If there was a risk to safety it wouldn't be happening.
Silly concerns. There is no more danger here than when these materials are being transported and handled all across the world daily around the public at times, certainly on the roads, and at facilities involved in loading and unloading.
If the county doesn’t seem to prioritize the pipeline because of activists opposition, then they’re sacrificing the public for activists wants.
Good Morning @The Angry Astronaut Advocate. Today is the day.
Will someone please explain how you can have massive cross-country pipelines for cryogenic fluids?????????
MethaneMan is probably pissed about this situation!
😠 😡
Good points , bit of a crazy situation, hhmmm 🤔
3:59 Banana eco-warrior for scale
Wasn't the guy filming here, also part of the problem "people roaming around"?
What could possibly go wrong!
Could contribute to the safety solution and stay home? But there’s no clicks in that.
has spacex tried to block the road during fueling? you said the piipeline wasn't approved. what actions has spacex taken to avoid this? why is spacex always the problem? what about the buerocrats what have they done or not done to contribute or create this situation? i have more faith that spacex tried doing the right thing but the buearocrats are the ones tying their hands.
I concur.
Disneyland at the launchpadThats America
they actually could close the road like they do for launches 24 hours or more in advance of a launch then you would not see this. Better yet let them build a pipeline
Pipeline would only handle methane. For oxygen, they want to build their own oxygen plant.
Musk announces a lot of things, which then never happen.
What if one of the Teslas caught fire?
They’ll just create a loop around it I’m sure, more signage..
INSANE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Government policy at the price of safety.
only in "no gubmint" texas
one can only hope
Disaster. That's why I watch.
Also, identifying a terrorist target and broadcasting it on the internet is not wise
With all due respect, if it was so dangerous, what were you doing there?
Maybe AA should just stay in the UK to be safe lol
AA doing AA staff😂
Don't drive out there before launch. Problem solved.
Not a tesla semi in sight 😢
This is a real Train wreck of a traffic jam
The traffic is all the moron RUclipsrs like Nasa Space flight blocking the place up.
Mr Musk needs to go in to the cryogenic gas business . Really it should not be too hard for Mr Musk having a plant of his own like this on the site at Starbase so he can produce his own Oxygen on site and have the fuel piped or shipped and piped in straight to his tank farm .
Most Americans dont seem to understand tons.
Workers on the tower?