If you’re a fan of SpaceX, you’ve likely heard of Boca Chica, a small town in Texas that has become a hub of activity for space enthusiasts. People from all over the world tune in to live streams and visit the area to witness the construction of the Starship, the largest rocket ever built, right in an open field. This attention has been constant since the first piece of stainless steel arrived in Boca Chica.
However, for a short time, SpaceX also operated another site in Cocoa, Florida, near the Kennedy Space Center. This facility was established in 2019 when SpaceX began building the Starship. Although both Boca Chica and Cocoa were set up for the same purpose, the Cocoa site was much smaller, able to fit nearly seven times within Boca Chica’s area.
SpaceX anticipated a long journey with Starship and initiated a competition between the teams in Boca Chica and Florida. The goal was to determine the best methods for constructing the Starship. Any significant breakthroughs had to be shared between the teams, and the winning team would not have to relocate across the country. This friendly competition proved to be more beneficial than expected.
Florida faced challenges with their barrel machine, which produced rings of varying diameters, making them difficult to stack. Welding, especially on the bulkhead, was another hurdle. Boca Chica experimented with different welding techniques and automated much of the process, resulting in cleaner welds and a more sophisticated Starship.
While both sites made progress, Boca Chica’s overall setup gave it the edge. The expansive land allowed for rapid construction and experimentation with manufacturing methods. Florida’s limited space meant unusable steel rings took up valuable room, hindering progress.
Despite the challenges, Florida’s team built the second full-scale Starship prototype, Mark 2. However, transporting it for testing proved too complex. Plans to move it to launch pad 39A involved significant logistical hurdles, including road closures and barge transport. Ultimately, the Florida site ceased operations, and resources were redirected to Boca Chica.
SpaceX now uses the Cocoa site for manufacturing Starship’s heat shield tiles. Meanwhile, a larger area near the old site is being developed into a state-of-the-art factory for Starship production. This new facility, located near the Kennedy Space Center, will simplify transportation to the launch pad.
SpaceX is also constructing a massive tower to launch and catch future Starships. These developments promise a new chapter for SpaceX’s operations in Florida, complementing the work done in Boca Chica.
For those interested in science and technology, Curiosity Stream offers a wealth of documentaries. Shows like “Trajectory” explore significant space achievements, including the Hubble telescope and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Available on various devices, Curiosity Stream provides thousands of documentaries for just $14.99 a year.
Thank you for exploring the fascinating journey of SpaceX’s Starship development. Stay curious and keep learning!
Research the history and development of both the Boca Chica and Cocoa sites. Prepare a presentation comparing the two locations, focusing on their contributions to the Starship project. Highlight the challenges each site faced and how they were overcome. Present your findings to your peers, emphasizing the strategic decisions made by SpaceX.
Engage in a group discussion about the impact of internal competition on innovation, using the Boca Chica and Cocoa sites as a case study. Discuss how competition can drive progress and what lessons can be learned from SpaceX’s approach. Consider how similar strategies could be applied in other industries or projects.
Analyze the logistical challenges faced by SpaceX in transporting the Starship prototype from Florida to the launch pad. Discuss the complexities involved in such operations and propose alternative solutions or improvements. Share your analysis with the class, focusing on the importance of logistics in space exploration.
Watch a documentary from Curiosity Stream related to space exploration, such as “Trajectory.” Write a review that connects the documentary’s content to SpaceX’s Starship development. Discuss how the documentary enhances your understanding of the challenges and achievements in space technology.
Using the information about SpaceX’s expansion plans, design a blueprint for a future SpaceX facility. Consider factors such as location, size, and technological needs. Present your design to the class, explaining how it supports SpaceX’s goals and addresses past challenges faced by the company.
This video is supported by Curiosity Stream. If you’re a SpaceX fan, you will be very familiar with Boca Chica. For 24 hours every day, this small town in Texas is under constant surveillance from YouTube live streams, space photographers, and curious people from all over the world, looking to experience Starship. This incredible level of attention has been with Boca Chica ever since the first piece of stainless steel turned up. And rightly so, SpaceX is literally building the largest rocket ever made outside in a dirt field!
But for a short period of time, SpaceX took over another location, which could have become the Boca Chica we know today. 1,000 miles away in Florida lies a SpaceX site located near the Kennedy Space Center. This small construction yard in Cocoa was set up when SpaceX first started building Starship back in 2019. Although both sites were established for the same reason, Cocoa’s facility was extremely small—so small that you could fit almost seven of them into Boca Chica’s site.
Nevertheless, SpaceX knew that it was about to begin a very long journey with Starship. To get started, a competition was set up within the company. The teams in Boca Chica and Florida were tasked with figuring out the best ways to actually make Starship. The rules were simple: any important breakthroughs discovered by one team had to be shared with the other team, and whoever came up with the best solutions won the competition. But what was the prize? Well, there was no prize. But for the workers in the winning team, it meant that they didn’t have to move a thousand miles across the country.
This method of healthy competition turned out to be a great idea, perhaps even greater than SpaceX initially expected. But how did Boca Chica end up winning this competition? One of the first problems Florida had was with their barrel machine. This is the machine that takes rolls of stainless steel and transforms them into the 9-meter-wide rings that make up Starship. The machine kept producing rings with slightly different diameters. So when it came time to stack them, the rings wouldn’t line up, and the rings had to be scrapped.
Another major challenge with Starship was the welding, particularly on the bulkhead. These welds need to endure extremely cold temperatures and hold back the pressure going on inside the tanks. Evidently, the first attempts were not strong enough. But Boca Chica kept experimenting with different welding techniques, eventually automating a large chunk of the process, and it showed. The welds on future Starships started to become cleaner, and the vehicle itself started to look more sophisticated.
But this was only a small part of what made Boca Chica great. Despite making good progress on Starship itself, it was the entire package of Boca Chica that won them the competition. The competition wasn’t all about building the best Starship. You see, Starship is a rocket like no other, and because of that, it’s being built like no other rocket. Hence the dirt fields and factories made out of tents.
If SpaceX wants to send thousands of people to Mars, it will need to start mass-producing Starships at a rate that the spaceflight world has never seen before. And so, building the factories that actually make Starship turns out to be more difficult than making the rocket itself. This was where Boca Chica excelled. Having a massive expanse of land far away from most of civilization gave them the freedom to quickly set up buildings and experiment with many different manufacturing methods. Florida, on the other hand, was so space-limited that the unusable steel rings would take up a huge portion of the land.
But how far did Florida actually get with their Starship? This was only the second-ever full-scale Starship prototype, with Mark 1 being built around the same time in Boca Chica. This prototype had already been destroyed during a test, so Mark 2 was Florida’s opportunity to show off their superior building skills. In many ways, Mark 2 looked like the better Starship, with much cleaner metal work and more sophisticated welds.
But how did the Florida team plan to actually test Starship? In Boca Chica, they already had a very basic testing facility and a road where Starship could be easily transported. In Florida, the plan to transport Starship was much more elaborate. SpaceX wanted to test Starship at the famous launch pad 39A, the same one that sent humans to the Moon. This plan sounds great, but actually getting it to the launch site was a huge challenge.
Simply leaving the construction yard would involve cutting down trees and forming a brand new road through a field. From there, Starship would be towed down Grissom Parkway and onto the main highway, all of which would need to be completely shut down by the police. Starship would then travel on the wrong side of the road in order to get to a small island on the Indian River. From there, Starship would be loaded onto a barge and towed all the way to the Turn Basin, where it would be unloaded and moved up to the launch pad.
This elaborate plan was just weeks away from happening, and utility workers had started raising power lines in order for Starship to pass through. Unsurprisingly, Florida’s Starship never left the construction site, and the work there came to a halt. But what ever happened to this place and the Starship that was being built? After thoroughly winning the competition, SpaceX started throwing everything into Boca Chica.
At the start of 2020, SpaceX held a career day, where hundreds of young hopeful engineers turned up to apply for a job. After this, Boca Chica’s workforce doubled to around 500 employees, and SpaceX began operating four shifts a day, creating a constant 24-hour work cycle. Since then, Boca Chica has been completely taken over by SpaceX and turned into its own city. The workers at the Florida site were either offered a job in Boca Chica or at other SpaceX facilities in Florida.
SpaceX now uses the Cocoa site to manufacture Starship’s heat shield tiles. The remains of Starship Mark 2 were slowly demolished, with some equipment being shipped over to Boca Chica. But this isn’t the last we’ll see of Starship in Florida. 20 km away from their old Starship site lies a much larger area of land which SpaceX has taken over. Home to one of their Falcon 9 refurbishment hangars, this site will soon feature an enormous state-of-the-art factory, purpose-built to make Starships.
This factory will be larger than all of Boca Chica’s tents combined, and the exciting thing is, this is only part of the factory. Future plans show that the factory will be extended and almost doubled in size. But how will these Starships be launched and tested? Luckily, this new facility is located right next to the Kennedy Space Center, where Starship and Super Heavy could easily be transported all the way up to the launch pad.
To add to the excitement, SpaceX has already begun constructing the enormous tower that will launch and catch future Starships. These giant tower sections will be built at the new facility and driven out to the launch pad at 39A to be stacked, just like they were in Boca Chica.
And so, we now have a completely new Starship facility to be curious about. Another thing to be curious about is Curiosity Stream. CuriosityStream is a streaming service like Netflix but designed for those interested in science, nature, history, and technology. This month, I highly recommend the show “Trajectory,” where each episode looks at our finest space achievements like the Hubble telescope, the Space Shuttle, and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
CuriosityStream is available on any device at any time and features thousands of award-winning exclusive documentaries that would be perfect for you. To check out CuriosityStream, go to curiositystream.com/primalspace to get an entire year’s worth of access for just $14.99. That’s just over one dollar per month. If you’d like to support the channel even more, consider becoming a Patron where you can give your input on each video and get exclusive access to our Discord server. Thank you very much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.
Space – The boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction – In physics, understanding the properties of space is crucial for developing accurate models of the universe.
Engineering – The application of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items – Engineering plays a vital role in the development of sustainable energy solutions.
Construction – The process of building or assembling infrastructure or a facility – The construction of the new particle accelerator required precise engineering and advanced materials.
Manufacturing – The process of converting raw materials into finished products through the use of tools, machinery, and labor – Advanced manufacturing techniques have significantly reduced the cost of producing solar panels.
Welding – A fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing fusion – Welding is a critical skill in the construction of spacecraft, where strong, reliable joints are essential.
Challenges – Tasks or problems that test a person’s abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking – One of the major challenges in engineering is developing materials that can withstand extreme temperatures.
Competition – The rivalry between entities to achieve a goal, often for a limited resource or recognition – The competition among tech companies to innovate in renewable energy technologies is driving rapid advancements in the field.
Logistics – The detailed coordination of complex operations involving people, facilities, and supplies – Efficient logistics are essential for the timely delivery of components in large-scale engineering projects.
Transportation – The movement of people or goods from one place to another – The development of high-speed rail systems has revolutionized transportation engineering.
Prototype – An initial model or sample of a product used to test a concept or process – The engineering team developed a prototype of the new engine to evaluate its performance under various conditions.
