The last thing the residents of Boca Chica expected were the spaceships. Hurricanes, yes. Border walls, maybe. But the gleaming metal rockets that began hurling themselves into the sky atop pillars of flame were unexpected, to say the least.
When Elon Musk announced that his aerospace company, SpaceX, was considering the small coastal village as a potential location for their facilities in 2013, Boca Chica was a sleepy backwater at Texas’ southern tip. Today, an interplanetary spaceship is being built just down the road.
And, along with SpaceX came a glut of aerospace geeks, rocket enthusiasts and SpaceX fans. Some drive from Brownsville, the nearest city up the coast, or farther afield, while legions more tune in to the round-the-clock webcams broadcasting the company’s actions. To support our burgeoning obsession with the minutiae of spaceflight, a cottage industry of homegrown SpaceX observers has sprung up in this retirement paradise. They’re drawn by a simple, shared mission: to watch the future unfold.
