Boca Chica Resort

[launchwatcher]

Madder and madder....

It would be rather an eyesore but...

Build a longish pier on stilts, quite a long way across South Bay, to massively reduce the need for dredging! I assume piled or similar foundations could be done just by pilling, and no cores would have to be drilled out. Even if some were it would still be much less disturbance of the waterway, and life than dredging a channel.

Tug and other boat movements however could be destructive, so it should be limited to SS and SH transport, and not SX general marine fleet!

Nawww...solve all your problems at once! 

What idiot designed that crazy thing?  Miss all the arresting wires on landing and you probably get sucked into the forward port-side lift fan.

[docmordrid]

What idiot designed that crazy thing?  Miss all the arresting wires on landing and you probably get sucked into the forward port-side lift fan.

Marvel & Disney. In the Marvelverse Helicarrier carries Quinjets, VTOL via lift fans.

[Mandella]

What idiot designed that crazy thing?  Miss all the arresting wires on landing and you probably get sucked into the forward port-side lift fan.

Marvel & Disney. In the Marvelverse Helicarrier carries Quinjets, VTOL via lift fans.

Plus, the fans are folded down when the Helicarrier is in "surface stealth" mode. It looks like a regular floating carrier and aircraft can take off and land normally.

That said, they messed up the logic a bit by showing planes launching horizontally off the decks while air born.

[cuddihy]

Extract from NOAA Chart 11302 showing Boca Chica and South Bay, the place under discussion, with soundings (depth) in feet at mean lower low water:

Thanks Arb! Looking at this, maybe it would be a lot better to put a pier across from launch site in the tongue of Boca Chica Bay that has the depth. You'd still have to do some dredging near the neck to make the trip less risky of running aground.

I guess you could also leverage Tesla / The Boring Company automated transport to move people from a pier at the launch site to the factory.

-so: a bit of dredging at "the neck", some channel markers in South Bay & the tongue that goes near the launch pad, some dredging (for a basin) & a pier across from the launch site, and then a small "station" & 5-6 Tesla model Xs to move people from the launch site to the factory & back...probably also need to pave a back road to make this happen without being a bit too dangerous on the highway.

Timewise: You're looking at 30-40 min to transport from a pier at SPI or Port Isabel to a pier at the launch site, then you have to wait for the Teslas to show up and take you to the factory -- say 15-20 min? OOPS, no faster than driving from SPI...

[Nomadd]

 One of the attractions will be "The Esperson Quicksand challenge".

[Llian Rhydderch]

Extract from NOAA Chart 11302 showing Boca Chica and South Bay, the place under discussion, with soundings (depth) in feet at mean lower low water:

Would be much easier to get to the resort via the bay some days.

For example, today.  After a couple days of winds from the north...

the South Bay was almost at road level a mile or so west of the the build site today.
And down by the SN 7.1 tank-that-still-exists, perhaps as testing was affected by heavy rain last night, it's even higher down that long reach of South Bay that touches the launch site proper.

[Azular]

One of the attractions will be "The Esperson Quicksand challenge".

Hovercraft. No problem. In normal use they fly over the ground/water not in/on it   

Used in environmentally sensitive areas because of the ease of access and negligible disturbance of everything they fly over

Used in personally sensitive applications like under water munitions detection (good to not get blown up)

For passenger carrying a good starting point would be the Griffon Hoverwork model 12000TD

Capacity of 80 passengers and/or up to 12 tonne. 50 knots, so South Padre to Boca Chica less than 10 minutes.  Door-door let's say 15 minutes

Necessary infrastructure is minimal - a concrete pad to set down on for embarkation/disembarkation

These babies are powered by two diesel electric engines, total 1586 kw

If you don't like the diesel then I would like to believe that it would not be beyond the whit of a collaboration between Tesla and Griffon Hoverwork to replace these by electric motors 

Bernard

[ShaunML09]

Of course the one time Elon replies to a tweet I wrote, its about a Tiki Bar in Boca Chica...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1319009651694993409

[Cheapchips]

All that gantry crane talk and it should have been about whether they'd install a bar at the top.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1319396588293222400?s=19

[WiresMN]

Someone here did say that it would be a perfect spot for a VIP viewing Room. VIP's do like to drink too. Now will it be a tiki bar as well? One can only hope.

[Texsun]

The Bali Hai-bay Tiki Bar might be apropos?   

[darkenfast]

A bar owner in my town tried to re-model one of his places into a tiki bar.  He had grown up in Hawaii and really liked the style.  Unfortunately, he is White and a local university professor of something-studies started a protest against his businesses for the crime of "cultural misappropriation".  He had to abandon the plans and publicly grovel to the PC crowd for having offended them.  It would be interesting to see what happens when a similar attack is launched against Musk for either this or a mariachi band.  It's ridiculous but true. 

[launchwatcher]

A bar owner in my town tried to re-model one of his places into a tiki bar.  He had grown up in Hawaii and really liked the style.  Unfortunately, he is White and a local university professor of something-studies started a protest against his businesses for the crime of "cultural misappropriation". 

Tiki Bars Save Lives:

Divine Intervention: Priests on a Floating Tiki Bar Rescue Man on Lake George

A man from Albany was saved from possibly drowning in Lake George earlier this month by a Tiki Tours charter carrying seven Catholic priests from the Paulist Fathers.

Jimmy Macdonald, a former amateur boxer who now is a drug treatment counselor, was kayaking along the shore just north of Lake George Village when things started to go badly. ...

Source: https://www.glensfallsliving.com/blog/hometown-news-august-26

[edzieba]

Given it's a 360 viewing area, it could be called the Really Really Low Earth Orbit.

[aip]

I've been going through old posts and saw a potential match for this piece in the SpaceX jigsaw puzzle:

And one metallic mystery module.

Might this be a prototype for the high bar viewing windows? It kind of makes sense to base the bar window design off of the Crew Access Arm at 39A.

[Johnnyhinbos]

I've been going through old posts and saw a potential match for this piece in the SpaceX jigsaw puzzle:

And one metallic mystery module.

Might this be a prototype for the high bar viewing windows? It kind of makes sense to base the bar window design off of the Crew Access Arm at 39A.

Or - the bar IS a swing arm...

[Johnnyhinbos]

Okay - I’ll just toss this out there once...

They set up a finished stand behind or beside the high bay. Plunk down SN5 or 6 on it. Add a fairing section to make it full size. Cut out the bulkhead centers. Run an elevator up inside it to a internal deck inside the nosecone. Put in a hatch (door). Connect it with the “swing arm” to the high bay top level - Star Bar.

Just sayin

[DistantTemple]

Okay - I’ll just toss this out there once...

They set up a finished stand behind or beside the high bay. Plunk down SN5 or 6 on it. Add a fairing section to make it full size. Cut out the bulkhead centers. Run an elevator up inside it to a internal deck inside the nosecone. Put in a hatch (door). Connect it with the “swing arm” to the high bay top level - Star Bar.

Just sayin

High bay 81m?     SH 72m,     SS 50m     Stand ym?     So some combination needed... or a fake launch stand... most likely a shortened SH..... but most impressive would be the full 122m. However to make best use of the lift several exits and bridges to the HighBay at various levels would be useful! Quite a bit of strengthening needed to make it a permanent structure, however there is plenty of room inside for this.

[Kit344]

I was reading about the history of Boca Chica on a couple of other websites, including Wikipedia.

I'm just trying to understand how many original residents of Boca Chica village are still living there ?

It seems to be possibly less than 10.
Does anyone here know the answer to this ?

I hope that this is appropriate for this forum, if not could you please point to a more suitable place.

[Lars-J]

I was reading about the history of Boca Chica on a couple of other websites, including Wikipedia.

I'm just trying to understand how many original residents of Boca Chica village are still living there ?

It seems to be possibly less than 10.
Does anyone here know the answer to this ?

I hope that this is appropriate for this forum, if not could you please point to a more suitable place.

Check out this thread, much more info and probably a better place to ask: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49090.0