Approved by Space Florida in December, what has been known as Project Hinton was announced this week as the new Starship operations headquarters for SpaceX. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said billionaire Elon Musk’s company will build launch and landing facilities for the Starship launch vehicle — designed to eventually provide millions of tons of payload to Mars — at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX said testing and design of the vehicle will continue in Texas. “Florida is the present and future of the space industry with leading space companies —like SpaceX —investing in the Free State of Florida,” DeSantis said Monday night in a prepared statement.
In December, members of the Space Florida Board of Directors agreed to negotiate providing up to $65 million toward an anticipated expansion of the then-unidentified company. The state money would be spread out from what is known as the Spaceport Improvement Program over several years. It would include a match of up to $50 million for a “high-volume production facility, high bay, and related infrastructure,” and up to $15 million for utility improvements that include industrial wastewater treatment.
In return, the state expected at least $1.8 billion of SpaceX capital investment, along with the creation of 600 jobs that carry an estimated average annual wage of $93,000.
–News Service of Florida
Dennis C Rathsam says
Thanks president TRUMP, & Elon Musk, for bring great jobs to Fl
Bobby says
He sure has our country under his wing, he is scamming us and we keep letting him. How foolish we are.
Joe D says
😉
Wow…NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST THERE!?!
(That was SARCASM for those that missed it)
Especially interesting, since NASA regulators (who were CHALLENGING approval of Spacex’s continued launching and renewal of a GOVERNMENT CONTRACT, due to safety concerns)…were just subject to massive Federal layoffs in the past few weeks.
Whatever happened to CONFLICT OF INTEREST concerns (when you took a government position where you made decisions that BENEFITED YOUR OWN BUSINESS OR PERSONAL INTERESTS)?
I think that concept went OUT THE WINDOW…when Tump 1.0 took office without FULLY stepping aside from running his personal Trump empire.
I ESPECIALLY appreciated his forcing government employees to drive 200 miles away from meetings and conferences in Europe, past much cheaper accommodations, JUST SO THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO STAY IN (MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE ) Trump owned resorts!…the guy’s gotta make a buck…RIGHT!?!***SARCASM AGAIN!***
Deborah Coffey says
Great. I’m sure we can all benefit from the debris cast over homes in Florida from Musk’s blown up rockets.
Joe D says
Isn’t the MUSK MOTTO: “Move FAST and BREAK THINGS?”
Well looks like SpaceX’s program is following the same pattern of breaking things.” I just didn’t expect them to be OVER MY HEAD!
“Disruption of Florida COMMERCIAL AIRSPACE”…oh yeah…Orlando/Daytona/ Miami…I’ll bet!!!
Does my Homeowners Insurance cover “falling space debris?” I’ll guess I’ll have to check the latest INSURANCE RIDER…considering Elon Musk’s EGO, it’s probably not covered…I do remember seeing an exclusion for damage cause by ACTS OF “GOD.”
One more reason to have my insurance premiums go up! Really NOT KIDDING.
Skibum says
Oh Elon, Elon! Where have you gone when your company needs you the most? I was listening to former Republican Party chair Michael Steele’s comments this morning, and he made some excellent points which I would like to point out to you. Elon, your SpaceX rockets are exploding in mid air just like our federal government is exploding under your DOGE destruction efforts. You are a very talented individual, nobody can deny that. But Elon, your space company needs your expertise badly right now, so why aren’t you concentrating on your day job? Your technical inventiveness and innovation which launched SpaceX should inform your existence helping navigate your company’s efforts in that field, especially when a huge amount of money, hundreds of millions, perhaps BILLIONS of dollars that have been forthcoming from federal government contracts, are our taxpayer dollars which have gone BOOM and disappeared in spectacular fashion with the two back to back explosions and destruction of your two largest rockets. You say “rockets are hard” as an excuse why your company is still experimenting and trying to figure out how to get those rockets into space without blowing them up. Well, I have some news for you… federal government work, helping those in America you need the services provided is hard too! Sure, there are ways to be more efficient and cut waste, but you don’t just go out and blow up the entire government, or like you so aptly demonstrated on stage… take a chain saw approach to every federal agency and program and then go “OOPS” and have to try to claw back essential federal employees you fired and restore programs and agencies you cut and/or eliminated! Why don’t you concentrate on what you do best, and leave the running of govenment, and the detection of waste and inefficiency, to those experts who KNOW the federal government? Michael Steels thinks there should be a federal investigation into YOUR company that is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars blowing up very expensive rockets in the sky. Taxpayers could save a whole hell of a lot of money that is currently being wasted there, couldn’t we?
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=rockets+redglare+in+song+lyrics&mid=E7C8108F163FA7456FB9E7C8108F163FA7456FB9&FORM=VIRE