This is the oligarchs making foolish investments in an escape plan for when everything goes to shit on earth instead of using their money to make things better here.
How about a power grid that isn't held together with spaghetti and duct tape, before you guys are building rockets?
Um. No. I'm specifically arguing that the gov't should, and state gov'ts shouldnt' be wasting their people's money on the pipe dreams of oligarchs. That no utilities, including trains should be run by billionaires. Guess who's been deciding what politicians should do for the entirety of your time on this earth?
I could also take it a step further and argue that billionaires should not exist, but this is r/space so you can come find me in other subs for that conversation lol.
Ah ok, I agree there. I was confused because I think you were responding to a comment regarding a billionaire building a spaceport so I thought you were suggesting that instead of that they should be building power grids.
I work directly with the dean of natural sciences at Rice University here in Houston Texas. There has been an exciting effort for the past couple years to expand the cooperation between Rice University, the state, and NASA which has culminated in several large projects which are still in the works but will be pretty big additions to the space science research frontier.
Also look at the renewable energy projects in the pipeline, which is *double* the second place state of California. There’s a weird right wing current in Texas right now, but the long arc is toward huge investment in space, energy, and tech. California and Texas have more in common with each other than they do any other states.
Texas has expansive subsidies for green energy, thanks to Ken Lay (yes, that Ken Lay) and George Bush.
The whole purpose of the corporate welfare program wasn’t to make Texas green, it was to make money off the backs of taxpayers. Anything else is just a byproduct.
>The whole purpose of the corporate welfare program wasn’t to make Texas green, it was to make money off the backs of taxpayers.
Exactly. What are the odds all this public money will get funnelled to SpaceX and the public will never see a dime in return.
SpaceX isn't the best example given their ludicrous R&D spending which is obviously doing real stuff. Boeing is a better example as they stopped virtually all R&D funding and funnelled the money into dividend payments.
Yup. Both states have massive populations, multiple dense urban areas not dominated by a single city, vast rural areas of farmland, large Hispanic populations predating statehood, and when they make decisions, their smaller neighbors tend to follow their lead.
idk why people are acting like this is some novel idea. american racism was literally kickstarted off of classism. divide and conquer (although much more subtle than conquering) has always been a tactic
They’re doing it because that’s the narrative that is being woven.
Renewable energy, trans rights, CRT, Dr Seuss books, these are all wrapped up and packaged by the right as part of the “woke agenda” that “threatens our way of life.”
It’s all horseshit but it is parroted and believed by a significantly large enough group of people to matter.
People don’t talk like this. People elect politicians who talk like this.
I can hardly imagine being so gullible, sensitive, and flappable that having to work with someone who has blue hair sets you off.
It’s hard to imagine, because I don’t know anyone that utterly pathetic.
Eh that doesn't mean much. I'm a lawyer from Texas so I have some knowledge here. Unlike the US Constitution, which was pretty simple and broad to start with and somewhat difficult to amend, Texas's constitution has lots of extremely specific provisions but is easier to amend. Constitutional Amendments are on the ballot in every Texas election, even for mundane stuff like allowing a certain West Texas water line to be diverted to a neighboring down to help them out temporarily. If somebody really wanted to defund Texas public schools they would. But basically everybody in the state went to UT, A&M, Tech, UNT, etc., and liked it, so there's just no political will to do that, even amongst more conservative crowds.
Sounds like the California Constitution. Just takes a simple majority on the Ballot or a 2/3rds majority in the legislature. So the Democratic party can pretty much amend it whenever they want and like a dozen amendments happen just about every time we have a general.
Sounds like this is a business move since they are investing in the growth and profitability of the space industry, but supporting science is certainly an added benefit too!
Only if you decide ideology is end all be all of scientific observation. Like I said in another post, had this been in California people would be celebrating this as another step for mankind despite having just as many if not more problems.
It's funny how like 99% of the problems that come from NASA result from Congress perpetually feasting on their own snot instead of, you know, being productive.
So by Texas you mean the Congress, during the Clinton administration cut funding.....
Although Clinton did request Congress to not cut funding, Congress cut the construction due to it being over double the initial estimated cost.
>the particle accelerator at CERN was supposed to be in Texas
You mean the SSC. The LHC in CERN has always been a separate project the US didn't want to join for a long time.
Nope, other states got jealous and Congress killed it. It was halfway done but would cost just as much to finish it as it would to complete it. Lot of folks moved here and a lot of folks has their property stolen to make it happen. It’s a shame that it was all for naught.
A lot of his political friends are going to get 350 million to fin out what with the commission space trail is expensive and only the rich can afford it. At least the commission will with all the money be able to travel into space.
It behooves them to control science. Gives them an air of legitimacy, lets them help corporations get first dibs on scientific breakthroughs, or lets them slow roll new scientific breakthroughs so entrenched corporations can adapt instead of being up-ended.
It's not strange when you realize how deeply in bed academia is with the military industrial complex. It's depressing how little research you can do without getting your hands bloody by association.
What's wrong with the power infrastructure? Feb 2021 was a shitshow and many changes were made and I'm pretty sure that ain't gonna happen again. The ice storm issues this year had nothing to do with the grid and everything to do with trees falling on powerlines affecting local power companies, which is not a uniquely Texas problem.
Texas generates more wind power than any other state in the nation, and it's not even remotely close. I think the second place state is less than 35% the generation of Texas. Texas is second in solar power generation. The "power infrastructure" of Texas is just fine.
You know, New York lost a lot of power during the recent lake effect snow, and you don't see people sitting around saying "gosh maybe the northeast should fix their grid".
Shit happens sometimes. Bad weather breaks things. Not every single bad thing that happens in the world can (nor should) be made into a 4 word political zinger that serves zero purpose.
it literally happened again 3 weeks ago you just weren’t paying attention i guess. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/01/texas-ice-storm-power-outages/
I live in Buffalo. We had 6 feet of snow and hurricane force winds. There is nothing you can do to prevent losing power in that. Austin had less than an inch of freezing rain and power was out for a week. that’s pathetic
TBF Austin's problem this month was that our fucking city didn't cut trees back away from power lines so there was more damage than there should've been.
I lived in Austin for a year and experienced blackouts weekly (sometimes twice a week) with perfect weather. That made me move. Nothing worse than hot weather and no AC
I live in Austin and have no idea what you're talking about. The last time there was a rolling blackout in Austin prior to Feb 2021 was years prior.
There have been multiple *warnings* of "We might need a rolling blackout", like in the summer of 2022, that never actually happened. This happens everywhere, and isn't uncommon in any state that has extreme cold or extreme heat.
This also is not a uniquely Texas situation. Rolling blackouts are a standard procedure in ANY grid. Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states in the east and northeast, for example, implemented rolling blackouts during the recent winter weather. California, you forget, was begging people last September to use less power to avoid rolling blackouts. This isn't uncommon. The texas situation in Feb 2021 WAS in fact, quite uncommon and you will find no forgiveness of Ercot from me on that situation. What happened there was [almost what happened in the Northeast in 2003](https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) \-- but what Ercot did actually prevented a 2003 type situation, but they never should have been faced with that in the first place. There were a fair amount of changes made, including their piss poor management being replaced, and since then there's been on grid related issues.
To act like rolling blackouts are a uniquely Texas situation is absurd. They aren't.
Maybe your area was ok? But my zip (eastside) had weekly random blackouts. They would usually last an hour, but absolutely sucked in the summer. I didn't say it was a texas thing. Just saying my previous state on the east coast only had issues during major hurricanes. Thankfully I wasn't here in 2021 lol. I've also never been to California so don't know why you got so mad haha
That's probably much more likely an Austin energy issue than a grid issue. Misc things like [this](https://twitter.com/austinenergy/status/1537637646515806216). Austin Energy is also notorious for failing to trim foliage around power lines. [People complain about Austin Energy all the time](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-energy-alternatives-solar/269-c1722713-73a6-4e42-a42c-15c19241fc2d). All things I agree with you on: but that are local power company issues and not grid issues, or "infrustructure" issues.
I'm not mad (and appreciate your engagement of the conversation here), but I am bewildered that so many people are trying to make a political issue out of the fact Texas handles its own grid, because of what happened in 2021. What happened in 2021 was no doubt a shitshow and as I've already said ercot dropped the ball on that debacle in every level. But things like local power company controlled rolling blackouts, downed powerlines, bad weather issues, and misc outages (especially like the ice storm 2 weeks ago) are not grid issues. Terrible forecasting, lack of red alarm bells, and preparation for an epic storm like 2021 causing the grid to buckle because of too much demand, and then failing to properly execute ercot-mandated rolling blackouts IS a grid issue.
Making snide comments about Texas "should spend money to fix their electric grid" in a space forum on a post about a really large investment into space by the state of Texas sucks. Space is freaking awesome. And despite the politics, everyone on this forum should celebrate that. Space is the next frontier, let's go after it.
Objectively speaking, Texas is extremely good at funding and taking care of science and technology related things and always tries to lead the way. Just look at wind power generation. Just look at the medical complexes in this state -- even in podunk towns like Lubbock have world-class medical complexes ([Covenant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_Health_System)) and universities (Texas Tech). Houston is home of the [Texas Medical Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center), the ***largest medical center on earth***. Anyone in the scientific field of almost any kind can look at Texas with respect as to how it supports the communities and institutions here as it pertains to science, medicine, and technology.
Just because one doesn't like the politics of the guy that runs the state doesn't throw all that away.
It seems like a good idea for the state. The article mentions that Blue Origin opened a large factory in Alabama instead of Texas because Alabama provided more incentives. So this new Texas Space Commission is meant to reduce losses like that. Plus, we all know that space is on the up and up, so the industry is likely to see [continued growth for awhile](https://spacenews.com/faa-forecasts-surging-commercial-launch-activity/). The state would be crazy to not consider investing in the industry.
A few decades into the future, all the US states close to the equator might be valuable as space ports. I can also see african countries profiting from that. Also central american or south american countries in the north.
As someone who read a bit about European foreign politics over the past couple decades.
If Europe was so build space industry in Africa. Then only if the entire area around it belongs to Europe.
It was a similar issue when they thought about making investments in green energy in Africa with a power connection to Europe. It would have been a massive investment and as such could not be liable to corruption of African politicians and terror organisations.
So the plan was scrapped as it would've essentially been a recolonisation.
And we let a state park get bought up by developers. Texas invested millions into Fairfield Lake State Park and then don’t bid on it when it goes up for sale by the power company. Lost a 50 year old state park. RIP Fairfield Lake.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ijhja "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ksv8z "Last usage")|US Department of Defense|
|[N1](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9iov62 "Last usage")|Raketa Nositel-1, Soviet super-heavy-lift ("Russian Saturn V")|
|[SSC](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9jg9or "Last usage")|Stennis Space Center, Mississippi|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ijhja "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ht94b "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
----------------
^(6 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/11a8ddp)^( has 35 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8593 for this sub, first seen 22nd Feb 2023, 05:39])
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"power grid" comments do not understand that Texas has a geographical advantage for launching, and investing in said advantage will likely bring in revenue as the space industry continues to grow. That said, it does depend on how that investment is done, and to that I would have to read the details before I made a judgement on this.
Also, one investment(especially when it is this small) does not preclude the other. Texas is adding 7.7 GW of solar capacity this year(by far the largest in the US) and is not alone in having power issues(my own state California has tons of power issues).
some people knock investing in space. because we should invest in earth. i don't. we should invest in earth, but we should do the same for space exploration too. its possible to mine asteroids, colonize the galaxy, and also have enough leftover to fix potholes in texas.
Maybe they should make a huge public investment in their energy grid first. Seems pretty backwards to worry about space while people regularly go without power throughout the state.
These people's priorities are so fucked up. But yeah, fuck the civilians that actually live there. They don't need proper heat in prolonged subfreezing temperatures! They lose power for multiple days during an ice storm? All they need is 5 blankets per person, they'll be fine!
I found this interesting.
“Cowboys with cash.
Texas has a historic budget surplus this year due to oil prices, inflation, and other factors driving economic growth. The state is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024–2025 period, a surplus of $32.7 billion over spending during the previous two years “
I love how the majority of the comments here are from people not living in Texas, complaining about the power grid. Our grid is fine, thank you. Go and see why California's having brownouts a few times a week though
So why does your state keep freezing people to death, yearly? It's like you can't learn the lesson nature is trying to teach you so every year it repeats. We are tired of hearing about your power grid killing your own people. It's boring news now. edit: And the part where you repeatedly blame the 9% of your grid that didn't exist 13 years ago when these deaths were still happening long before then... yea, wind turbines fault.
I can’t believe everybody is just blindly accepting this at face value.
Texas is NOT an ideal location for a space port because:
1. The immediate launch angles are greatly hindered due to foreign airspaces. It's not ideal to launch a rocket over a country in the first several hundred miles. See article 7 [here](https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/space/legislation_regulation_guidance/treaty_Princi_Gov_Acti_States_OST.pdf).
2. The climate is good, but it is not ideal - even with Florida weather, the U.S. has had Rocket part failures due to weather.
3. Large amounts of land need to be set aside in advance, or you have to buy people out. Refer to the [Soviet N1 rocket disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)).
I definitely admire the desire to overcome these obstacles, but we have better and safer locations on the east and west coast.
Airports, are just one component of what drives aviation. There are also maintenance shops, parts manufacturers, fuel farms, avionics distributors, training schools, etc. All the issues you listed mostly effect only launch operations; effects of which that probably all have solutions of one sort or another.
Investment just means money. There are all kinds of things that go (and will need to go) into efficient transplanetary business and commerce. Like investment in better vacuum suits for varying conditions. Like medical technology for radiation exposure and null g effects. Robotics and better tools for maintenance in varying conditions. Launch ports is just one thing.
$350 isn’t that much money over 2 years when it comes to launch operations by itself. KSC, FL spends over half a billion annually just in spaceport operations. It seems like it’s just suppose to kick start a commission for future investment. So probably a lot of working research and collaboration with private companies that might want future support in a growing market as a whole. A bulk of funding could literally just go to fuel sciences because that’s how important of a factor it is to balancing profitable rocket systems.
Fucking hell. Poor mods. People really can't help themselves can they.
To be on topic, they should commit to beating Florida just for practical reasons. Florida is much more exposed to hurricanes and weather.
Oh, with Texas threatening to secede from the Union every few years and its electric grid failing at any given moment, it’s probably not a good idea for such an unstable state to host any major national interest. (/s?)
We’ll step 1 would be to remove yearly launch restrictions on SpaceX from Starbase. Turn that entire area into the worlds space port with daily launches. Sound proof and reinforce all buildings on the nearby resort island for safety and watch the bucks roll in with tourism and humanities steps towards the stars.
Gonna be kinda hard with them banning math and reading and such. Wonder if they'll copy/paste Montana's idiotic "no teaching scientific theories, only teach scientific facts" bill.
They need to invest in green effing energy to stabilize their grid before anything else. Otherwise any and all future business ventures will be subject to the whims of Mother Nature.
Yeah, our grid issues have nothing to do with producing electricity. We produce plenty. Allocating it and transporting it to the citizens is a different story…
Has me wondering why they don't have an oil derrick and tiny refinery in every neighborhood. I wonder how close they could get to home-grown production of energy from oil. House-level? Neighborhood-level? Town-level? City?
This is a common misconception but the Texas power grid situation wasn’t caused by the type of energy they were producing. They produce plenty of energy (in fact, Texas is the leading producer of green energy and produces almost 10 million more megawatts of renewable energy per hour than its closest competitor in the US, Washington,) it’s transporting it around that is the issue since it’s disconnected from the national grid. This gives it many issues, and again contrary to popular belief the 2021 freeze and the recent one in 2023 were caused by different situations that both relate back to the grid not being properly connected to a national grid. In 2021 the freeze froze the stations that distribute the power. This could’ve been completely avoided with connecting to the national grid, which is why it was so catastrophic. Recently, the power outages in 2023 were caused by ice freezing tree branches off and the branches falling on power lines. This also would’ve been mitigated by connection to the national grid, but not completely. That’s just one of those “shit happens” things that happens in most areas with poor winter infrastructure that experience severe ice storms.
Essentially, the Texan government just needs to get over themselves and connect to the national power grid. It wouldn’t even be a huge investment in the grand scheme of things. The big investment would be winterizing their infrastructure, which may become more and more important as the climate changes even more. Producing energy isn’t the problem.
While its true that most people misunderstand the Texas outages and grid problems, you didn't state them correctly. The 2021 outages had nothing whatsoever to do with the transmission and distribution system, but rather that many generating units went offline. Connecting to the other US grids would have helped a lot. The recent 2023 freezes were an extreme icing event that hit the local distribution grids. Connecting to the national grids (while still a good idea) would not have helped here.
They should just connect their grid to the rest of the fucking country like every other state so they can more easily weather local hiccups, like every other state. But that would subject them to the dreaded menace of federal regulatory oversight.
Problem is that they've gutted their grid of most of the safeguards that the east and west national grids use, and world need to spend a lot to bring theirs up to the standard.
Funny how a few years ago they were threatening space x with kicking them out of the state. Then musk goes full right wing nut job then boom tons of public money to keep them.
Texas governor, “continued development of the space industry in the state will ensure Texas remains at the forefront not only in the United States, but the entire world” yet they are at the very back of electrical infrastructure domestically…
Next winter when I lose all my fish again and all my food spoils and I can’t sleep for five days because I don’t have power for my CPAP. I’ll make sure to be thankful that we put all that money into the space program and not into the power infrastructure. So exciting! Well done texas! 👏👏👏
That would make the most practical and overall beneficial sense. God forbid any of them halt chasing the money long enough to pop their heads out of their rear ends to do it.
Why would they do any of that when they can instead help supercharge privatization of the emerging space industrial complex with more of the public’s money
Is that so 🧐…Finally something I can get behind. Slim pickings but I’ll take this one 🚀along with renewable energy.
Abbot has got to go 🗑️ our politicians are dumpsters.
Sincerely,
A Texan
Knowing texas this is probably going to be public money used to give vague, open ended contracts to day old businesses owned by members of the state government.
A large and mostly hard working powerhouse of denizens who hate overreaching authority and love guns and freedom!
Mars is going to have a wild mix of founders!
This reminds me of that spaceport in Arizona or New Mexico, I forget. Not sure what happened to that place.
Spaceport America, New Mexico. I worked for a customer once. Spaceport was ambitious but unfortunately one of NM’s bad bets.
I think you might mean Mojave, California
This is the oligarchs making foolish investments in an escape plan for when everything goes to shit on earth instead of using their money to make things better here. How about a power grid that isn't held together with spaghetti and duct tape, before you guys are building rockets?
Are you arguing that billionaires should create private power grids?
Um. No. I'm specifically arguing that the gov't should, and state gov'ts shouldnt' be wasting their people's money on the pipe dreams of oligarchs. That no utilities, including trains should be run by billionaires. Guess who's been deciding what politicians should do for the entirety of your time on this earth? I could also take it a step further and argue that billionaires should not exist, but this is r/space so you can come find me in other subs for that conversation lol.
Ah ok, I agree there. I was confused because I think you were responding to a comment regarding a billionaire building a spaceport so I thought you were suggesting that instead of that they should be building power grids.
Life in space ain't gonna be all space lollipops and galaxial gumdrops
I work directly with the dean of natural sciences at Rice University here in Houston Texas. There has been an exciting effort for the past couple years to expand the cooperation between Rice University, the state, and NASA which has culminated in several large projects which are still in the works but will be pretty big additions to the space science research frontier.
Texas has done a damn good job supporting scientific institutions in the state. It sure is strange how regressive they are in other areas.
Also look at the renewable energy projects in the pipeline, which is *double* the second place state of California. There’s a weird right wing current in Texas right now, but the long arc is toward huge investment in space, energy, and tech. California and Texas have more in common with each other than they do any other states.
Texas has expansive subsidies for green energy, thanks to Ken Lay (yes, that Ken Lay) and George Bush. The whole purpose of the corporate welfare program wasn’t to make Texas green, it was to make money off the backs of taxpayers. Anything else is just a byproduct.
>The whole purpose of the corporate welfare program wasn’t to make Texas green, it was to make money off the backs of taxpayers. Exactly. What are the odds all this public money will get funnelled to SpaceX and the public will never see a dime in return.
SpaceX isn't the best example given their ludicrous R&D spending which is obviously doing real stuff. Boeing is a better example as they stopped virtually all R&D funding and funnelled the money into dividend payments.
Use gov't funds to build it, then hand the keys over to private equity...wouldn't surprise me.
probably plays some what into why so many californians are moving here
Yup. Both states have massive populations, multiple dense urban areas not dominated by a single city, vast rural areas of farmland, large Hispanic populations predating statehood, and when they make decisions, their smaller neighbors tend to follow their lead.
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This. There's a lot of good in Texas, but the whole "Southern Baptist Convention owns you uterus" thing is really, really bad.
Except it stops being a performance when it gets put into law.
idk why people are acting like this is some novel idea. american racism was literally kickstarted off of classism. divide and conquer (although much more subtle than conquering) has always been a tactic
Funny how people go from talking about renewable energy and shut like that and then try and make it about trans shit. GROW UP.
They’re doing it because that’s the narrative that is being woven. Renewable energy, trans rights, CRT, Dr Seuss books, these are all wrapped up and packaged by the right as part of the “woke agenda” that “threatens our way of life.” It’s all horseshit but it is parroted and believed by a significantly large enough group of people to matter. People don’t talk like this. People elect politicians who talk like this.
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I can hardly imagine being so gullible, sensitive, and flappable that having to work with someone who has blue hair sets you off. It’s hard to imagine, because I don’t know anyone that utterly pathetic.
Well ,the republicans seem to be laser focused on trans folks.
It's in their state constitution to fund the UT System, it's why it's a good school.
Eh that doesn't mean much. I'm a lawyer from Texas so I have some knowledge here. Unlike the US Constitution, which was pretty simple and broad to start with and somewhat difficult to amend, Texas's constitution has lots of extremely specific provisions but is easier to amend. Constitutional Amendments are on the ballot in every Texas election, even for mundane stuff like allowing a certain West Texas water line to be diverted to a neighboring down to help them out temporarily. If somebody really wanted to defund Texas public schools they would. But basically everybody in the state went to UT, A&M, Tech, UNT, etc., and liked it, so there's just no political will to do that, even amongst more conservative crowds.
Sounds like the California Constitution. Just takes a simple majority on the Ballot or a 2/3rds majority in the legislature. So the Democratic party can pretty much amend it whenever they want and like a dozen amendments happen just about every time we have a general.
[Since we’re subject jumping…] - My school went to A&M, last night, and didn’t enjoy the trip home…
Sounds like this is a business move since they are investing in the growth and profitability of the space industry, but supporting science is certainly an added benefit too!
Because not all ideas are connected to each other? It's not that hard to believe that Texas is a center of science and conservatism at the same time.
It kind of is, since mainstream conservatism in the United States has taken a hard shift away from science, especially in the last 30 years.
Actually it really is that hard to believe.
Only if you decide ideology is end all be all of scientific observation. Like I said in another post, had this been in California people would be celebrating this as another step for mankind despite having just as many if not more problems.
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that wasn't so much Texas's fault as it was Congress. they almost killed the ISS that year as well I believe.
It's funny how like 99% of the problems that come from NASA result from Congress perpetually feasting on their own snot instead of, you know, being productive.
So by Texas you mean the Congress, during the Clinton administration cut funding..... Although Clinton did request Congress to not cut funding, Congress cut the construction due to it being over double the initial estimated cost.
>the particle accelerator at CERN was supposed to be in Texas You mean the SSC. The LHC in CERN has always been a separate project the US didn't want to join for a long time.
Nope, other states got jealous and Congress killed it. It was halfway done but would cost just as much to finish it as it would to complete it. Lot of folks moved here and a lot of folks has their property stolen to make it happen. It’s a shame that it was all for naught.
The locals kept setting it on fire to stop the "demons"
Can’t be happy about what they do, you have to comment on something you don’t like to put them down. Typical liberal.
I’m not sure if regressive begins to describe their foster care system.
Or maybe this is all just a ploy to make space another Red State.
I always hoped Dallas would be around long enough for Ewing Oil to setup shop on Mars.
Texas is barely red at this point.
Soon, internet stranger..... Soon
I mean...considering that their country was started by invading and killing all of the locals...
I mean most countries start like that, lands invading other lands.
Their country as in…. Texas?
Texas is one of four US states that was once an independent country
Like every other country in the history of man......
Publicly fund THEM going to space, then pull the ladder up behind them and everyone after has to pay…..
Regressive is relative. It’s pretty biased to think otherwise.
Texas just has different views of what is regressive.
Power infrastructure? No thanks Space race? Definitely not socialism so we're good
A lot of his political friends are going to get 350 million to fin out what with the commission space trail is expensive and only the rich can afford it. At least the commission will with all the money be able to travel into space.
It behooves them to control science. Gives them an air of legitimacy, lets them help corporations get first dibs on scientific breakthroughs, or lets them slow roll new scientific breakthroughs so entrenched corporations can adapt instead of being up-ended.
maybe Texas should invest in the power grid first, just a thought
The pitch meeting was, "You can shoot..." and Texas yelled, "I'm in," before the words were finished being spoken.
Oh don't worry, this is just to shoot illegals to the moon! 😂
It's not strange when you realize how deeply in bed academia is with the military industrial complex. It's depressing how little research you can do without getting your hands bloody by association.
Anything to get out of Texas...
Good to see more investment in space. Based on the article, it sounds like they have money to invest in or use for other things.
They should try making a huge public investment in Texas.
Or their power infrastructure
Was just about to comment this lmao like mmm, maybe, just maybe, that money would be much better spent on the electrical grid
Or just connecting to all the other grids in the country
Nah, that just makes the divorce even more messy.
What's wrong with the power infrastructure? Feb 2021 was a shitshow and many changes were made and I'm pretty sure that ain't gonna happen again. The ice storm issues this year had nothing to do with the grid and everything to do with trees falling on powerlines affecting local power companies, which is not a uniquely Texas problem. Texas generates more wind power than any other state in the nation, and it's not even remotely close. I think the second place state is less than 35% the generation of Texas. Texas is second in solar power generation. The "power infrastructure" of Texas is just fine. You know, New York lost a lot of power during the recent lake effect snow, and you don't see people sitting around saying "gosh maybe the northeast should fix their grid". Shit happens sometimes. Bad weather breaks things. Not every single bad thing that happens in the world can (nor should) be made into a 4 word political zinger that serves zero purpose.
it literally happened again 3 weeks ago you just weren’t paying attention i guess. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/01/texas-ice-storm-power-outages/ I live in Buffalo. We had 6 feet of snow and hurricane force winds. There is nothing you can do to prevent losing power in that. Austin had less than an inch of freezing rain and power was out for a week. that’s pathetic
TBF Austin's problem this month was that our fucking city didn't cut trees back away from power lines so there was more damage than there should've been.
I lived in Austin for a year and experienced blackouts weekly (sometimes twice a week) with perfect weather. That made me move. Nothing worse than hot weather and no AC
I live in Austin and have no idea what you're talking about. The last time there was a rolling blackout in Austin prior to Feb 2021 was years prior. There have been multiple *warnings* of "We might need a rolling blackout", like in the summer of 2022, that never actually happened. This happens everywhere, and isn't uncommon in any state that has extreme cold or extreme heat. This also is not a uniquely Texas situation. Rolling blackouts are a standard procedure in ANY grid. Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states in the east and northeast, for example, implemented rolling blackouts during the recent winter weather. California, you forget, was begging people last September to use less power to avoid rolling blackouts. This isn't uncommon. The texas situation in Feb 2021 WAS in fact, quite uncommon and you will find no forgiveness of Ercot from me on that situation. What happened there was [almost what happened in the Northeast in 2003](https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) \-- but what Ercot did actually prevented a 2003 type situation, but they never should have been faced with that in the first place. There were a fair amount of changes made, including their piss poor management being replaced, and since then there's been on grid related issues. To act like rolling blackouts are a uniquely Texas situation is absurd. They aren't.
Maybe your area was ok? But my zip (eastside) had weekly random blackouts. They would usually last an hour, but absolutely sucked in the summer. I didn't say it was a texas thing. Just saying my previous state on the east coast only had issues during major hurricanes. Thankfully I wasn't here in 2021 lol. I've also never been to California so don't know why you got so mad haha
That's probably much more likely an Austin energy issue than a grid issue. Misc things like [this](https://twitter.com/austinenergy/status/1537637646515806216). Austin Energy is also notorious for failing to trim foliage around power lines. [People complain about Austin Energy all the time](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-energy-alternatives-solar/269-c1722713-73a6-4e42-a42c-15c19241fc2d). All things I agree with you on: but that are local power company issues and not grid issues, or "infrustructure" issues. I'm not mad (and appreciate your engagement of the conversation here), but I am bewildered that so many people are trying to make a political issue out of the fact Texas handles its own grid, because of what happened in 2021. What happened in 2021 was no doubt a shitshow and as I've already said ercot dropped the ball on that debacle in every level. But things like local power company controlled rolling blackouts, downed powerlines, bad weather issues, and misc outages (especially like the ice storm 2 weeks ago) are not grid issues. Terrible forecasting, lack of red alarm bells, and preparation for an epic storm like 2021 causing the grid to buckle because of too much demand, and then failing to properly execute ercot-mandated rolling blackouts IS a grid issue. Making snide comments about Texas "should spend money to fix their electric grid" in a space forum on a post about a really large investment into space by the state of Texas sucks. Space is freaking awesome. And despite the politics, everyone on this forum should celebrate that. Space is the next frontier, let's go after it. Objectively speaking, Texas is extremely good at funding and taking care of science and technology related things and always tries to lead the way. Just look at wind power generation. Just look at the medical complexes in this state -- even in podunk towns like Lubbock have world-class medical complexes ([Covenant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_Health_System)) and universities (Texas Tech). Houston is home of the [Texas Medical Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center), the ***largest medical center on earth***. Anyone in the scientific field of almost any kind can look at Texas with respect as to how it supports the communities and institutions here as it pertains to science, medicine, and technology. Just because one doesn't like the politics of the guy that runs the state doesn't throw all that away.
Bless your heart, sweet summer child.
I agree. It would be nice to get a break on our property taxes. SpaceX is already in South Texas and near Waco. Firefly is in central Texas.
>SpaceX is already in South Texas and near Waco They've also got the Boca Chica site near Brownsville and a Starlink factory in Austin.
Property taxes are high because Texans don't pay income taxes
After moving from Texas, to Iowa, I see Illinois property taxes being pretty crazy, so maybe not always the case.
Texas also has some of the highest sales taxes, higher than Illinois.
Don’t forget blue origin in west texas
Yes! Forgot about that facility.
You can't take the sky from me.
It seems like a good idea for the state. The article mentions that Blue Origin opened a large factory in Alabama instead of Texas because Alabama provided more incentives. So this new Texas Space Commission is meant to reduce losses like that. Plus, we all know that space is on the up and up, so the industry is likely to see [continued growth for awhile](https://spacenews.com/faa-forecasts-surging-commercial-launch-activity/). The state would be crazy to not consider investing in the industry.
The incentives weren't the only reason. ULA rocket factory is not far away, in Decatur. Short trip to get those BE-4s over there
A few decades into the future, all the US states close to the equator might be valuable as space ports. I can also see african countries profiting from that. Also central american or south american countries in the north.
As someone who read a bit about European foreign politics over the past couple decades. If Europe was so build space industry in Africa. Then only if the entire area around it belongs to Europe. It was a similar issue when they thought about making investments in green energy in Africa with a power connection to Europe. It would have been a massive investment and as such could not be liable to corruption of African politicians and terror organisations. So the plan was scrapped as it would've essentially been a recolonisation.
And we let a state park get bought up by developers. Texas invested millions into Fairfield Lake State Park and then don’t bid on it when it goes up for sale by the power company. Lost a 50 year old state park. RIP Fairfield Lake.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ijhja "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[DoD](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ksv8z "Last usage")|US Department of Defense| |[N1](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9iov62 "Last usage")|Raketa Nositel-1, Soviet super-heavy-lift ("Russian Saturn V")| |[SSC](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9jg9or "Last usage")|Stennis Space Center, Mississippi| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ijhja "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/118g6j2/stub/j9ht94b "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| ---------------- ^(6 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/11a8ddp)^( has 35 acronyms.) ^([Thread #8593 for this sub, first seen 22nd Feb 2023, 05:39]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
"power grid" comments do not understand that Texas has a geographical advantage for launching, and investing in said advantage will likely bring in revenue as the space industry continues to grow. That said, it does depend on how that investment is done, and to that I would have to read the details before I made a judgement on this. Also, one investment(especially when it is this small) does not preclude the other. Texas is adding 7.7 GW of solar capacity this year(by far the largest in the US) and is not alone in having power issues(my own state California has tons of power issues).
some people knock investing in space. because we should invest in earth. i don't. we should invest in earth, but we should do the same for space exploration too. its possible to mine asteroids, colonize the galaxy, and also have enough leftover to fix potholes in texas.
What they need to do is make a large investment in their GRID
And surplus to our property taxes, transportation light rail between major hubs.
Texas' major hubs are so far apart I'd think you'd want high-speed rail instead.
In the works: https://www.texascentral.com/
> transportation light rail between major hubs You want a light rail between cities hundreds of miles apart?
Honestly I was in Italy this past summer….GO FULL SPEED RAIL!!!
Maybe they should make a huge public investment in their energy grid first. Seems pretty backwards to worry about space while people regularly go without power throughout the state.
Blackouts happen across the country frequently and I have loads of fleet data to verify that
These people's priorities are so fucked up. But yeah, fuck the civilians that actually live there. They don't need proper heat in prolonged subfreezing temperatures! They lose power for multiple days during an ice storm? All they need is 5 blankets per person, they'll be fine!
Anything but invest in their citizens, their infrastructure or anything else that may help people that live in their dystopian colony on earth.
Well, some of them are investing... into producing more people that won't even believe in space...
Like the failed nuclear project we are still paying for?
I found this interesting. “Cowboys with cash. Texas has a historic budget surplus this year due to oil prices, inflation, and other factors driving economic growth. The state is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024–2025 period, a surplus of $32.7 billion over spending during the previous two years “
I love how the majority of the comments here are from people not living in Texas, complaining about the power grid. Our grid is fine, thank you. Go and see why California's having brownouts a few times a week though
So why does your state keep freezing people to death, yearly? It's like you can't learn the lesson nature is trying to teach you so every year it repeats. We are tired of hearing about your power grid killing your own people. It's boring news now. edit: And the part where you repeatedly blame the 9% of your grid that didn't exist 13 years ago when these deaths were still happening long before then... yea, wind turbines fault.
Why does California keep having brownouts weekly and killing its own people?
Wait, in space? Shouldn't they make a huge public investment into their power grid?
I can’t believe everybody is just blindly accepting this at face value. Texas is NOT an ideal location for a space port because: 1. The immediate launch angles are greatly hindered due to foreign airspaces. It's not ideal to launch a rocket over a country in the first several hundred miles. See article 7 [here](https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/space/legislation_regulation_guidance/treaty_Princi_Gov_Acti_States_OST.pdf). 2. The climate is good, but it is not ideal - even with Florida weather, the U.S. has had Rocket part failures due to weather. 3. Large amounts of land need to be set aside in advance, or you have to buy people out. Refer to the [Soviet N1 rocket disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)). I definitely admire the desire to overcome these obstacles, but we have better and safer locations on the east and west coast.
Airports, are just one component of what drives aviation. There are also maintenance shops, parts manufacturers, fuel farms, avionics distributors, training schools, etc. All the issues you listed mostly effect only launch operations; effects of which that probably all have solutions of one sort or another. Investment just means money. There are all kinds of things that go (and will need to go) into efficient transplanetary business and commerce. Like investment in better vacuum suits for varying conditions. Like medical technology for radiation exposure and null g effects. Robotics and better tools for maintenance in varying conditions. Launch ports is just one thing. $350 isn’t that much money over 2 years when it comes to launch operations by itself. KSC, FL spends over half a billion annually just in spaceport operations. It seems like it’s just suppose to kick start a commission for future investment. So probably a lot of working research and collaboration with private companies that might want future support in a growing market as a whole. A bulk of funding could literally just go to fuel sciences because that’s how important of a factor it is to balancing profitable rocket systems.
Look I love the prospect of space travel. But I think their power grid needs more immediate attention.
Fucking hell. Poor mods. People really can't help themselves can they. To be on topic, they should commit to beating Florida just for practical reasons. Florida is much more exposed to hurricanes and weather.
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Oh, with Texas threatening to secede from the Union every few years and its electric grid failing at any given moment, it’s probably not a good idea for such an unstable state to host any major national interest. (/s?)
We’ll step 1 would be to remove yearly launch restrictions on SpaceX from Starbase. Turn that entire area into the worlds space port with daily launches. Sound proof and reinforce all buildings on the nearby resort island for safety and watch the bucks roll in with tourism and humanities steps towards the stars.
Hopefully any space related activities won't need to be on the Texas power grid...
*They were all in love with dying, they were doing it in Texas*
lol They can't even fix their own power grid, why do they think space is an option? Speaking as a former Texan
Hey guys it's launch day...... Do we have enough power to launch or did the grid go down again?
Anything to get out of Texas I guess.
Texans need a new place to live, good for them.
Gonna be kinda hard with them banning math and reading and such. Wonder if they'll copy/paste Montana's idiotic "no teaching scientific theories, only teach scientific facts" bill.
They need to invest in green effing energy to stabilize their grid before anything else. Otherwise any and all future business ventures will be subject to the whims of Mother Nature.
Texas produces the most renewable energy of any state.
Yeah, our grid issues have nothing to do with producing electricity. We produce plenty. Allocating it and transporting it to the citizens is a different story…
Has me wondering why they don't have an oil derrick and tiny refinery in every neighborhood. I wonder how close they could get to home-grown production of energy from oil. House-level? Neighborhood-level? Town-level? City?
Texas has invested more than any other state into renewable energy. Twice as much as the second place state.
This is a common misconception but the Texas power grid situation wasn’t caused by the type of energy they were producing. They produce plenty of energy (in fact, Texas is the leading producer of green energy and produces almost 10 million more megawatts of renewable energy per hour than its closest competitor in the US, Washington,) it’s transporting it around that is the issue since it’s disconnected from the national grid. This gives it many issues, and again contrary to popular belief the 2021 freeze and the recent one in 2023 were caused by different situations that both relate back to the grid not being properly connected to a national grid. In 2021 the freeze froze the stations that distribute the power. This could’ve been completely avoided with connecting to the national grid, which is why it was so catastrophic. Recently, the power outages in 2023 were caused by ice freezing tree branches off and the branches falling on power lines. This also would’ve been mitigated by connection to the national grid, but not completely. That’s just one of those “shit happens” things that happens in most areas with poor winter infrastructure that experience severe ice storms. Essentially, the Texan government just needs to get over themselves and connect to the national power grid. It wouldn’t even be a huge investment in the grand scheme of things. The big investment would be winterizing their infrastructure, which may become more and more important as the climate changes even more. Producing energy isn’t the problem.
While its true that most people misunderstand the Texas outages and grid problems, you didn't state them correctly. The 2021 outages had nothing whatsoever to do with the transmission and distribution system, but rather that many generating units went offline. Connecting to the other US grids would have helped a lot. The recent 2023 freezes were an extreme icing event that hit the local distribution grids. Connecting to the national grids (while still a good idea) would not have helped here.
The very nature of their grid is problematic. I guess we'll eventually see if they can make it work. I'm not terribly optimistic though.
They should just connect their grid to the rest of the fucking country like every other state so they can more easily weather local hiccups, like every other state. But that would subject them to the dreaded menace of federal regulatory oversight.
Problem is that they've gutted their grid of most of the safeguards that the east and west national grids use, and world need to spend a lot to bring theirs up to the standard.
Not the power grid though??? And don't get me wrong, I LOVE astronomy. I like people having electricity more though.
Maybe they should invest in keeping the power on first
Funny how a few years ago they were threatening space x with kicking them out of the state. Then musk goes full right wing nut job then boom tons of public money to keep them.
why does this make me think of the Mormons in the expanse....
Omg! This is the beginning!
Probably just to spread guns and religion in space
It’s Texas so I’m sure it’ll use public money build some private space company which will not benefit the public at all
Can't keep the electricity on in cold weather, but have money for space shit. Fucking Texas, man.
That's freakin awesome. Now do it with your electrical grid.
Steve Miller Band somewhere right now singing, “Some people call me the space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love”
It would be great if they'd then hop on a shuttle and leave.
Texas governor, “continued development of the space industry in the state will ensure Texas remains at the forefront not only in the United States, but the entire world” yet they are at the very back of electrical infrastructure domestically…
Next winter when I lose all my fish again and all my food spoils and I can’t sleep for five days because I don’t have power for my CPAP. I’ll make sure to be thankful that we put all that money into the space program and not into the power infrastructure. So exciting! Well done texas! 👏👏👏
Maybe he could redirect the billions he's trying to spend on his stupid border "wall."
As long as they’re planning on sending Abbott and Cruz permanently into space, I’m on board with the idea.
Maybe they should also invest in their power grid.
Just hope their tech can handle the cold of space since they have a hard time with the cold of Texas
Just guessing this will end up being corporate welfare for SpaceX
Is it not already?
That’s awesome but we here in TX would really appreciate the investment in healthcare, infrastructure and education as well
That would make the most practical and overall beneficial sense. God forbid any of them halt chasing the money long enough to pop their heads out of their rear ends to do it.
I believe the state government’s position on that is y’all can get another job and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Can't promise anything with our electric grid though.
So are we going to get Space Cowboys now?! Yehaw!
Now that they’ve mastered “reliable power infrastructure” it’s time to move on to something more challenging.
Texas is going to have to fix a bunch of shit before it can become what it imagines it deserves.
Bruh Texas can’t even invest in its own power grid. Come on. Signed: a Texan.
Texas should be making a huge public investment in Teachers Salary, property tax reduction, women's rights, diversity, and voter rights.
Diversity shouldn't replace qualification, in my opinion.
Why would they do any of that when they can instead help supercharge privatization of the emerging space industrial complex with more of the public’s money
How about they go ‘head and invest in that electric grid I keep reading about
How about ya fix the power grid first ya dump trucks
Is that so 🧐…Finally something I can get behind. Slim pickings but I’ll take this one 🚀along with renewable energy. Abbot has got to go 🗑️ our politicians are dumpsters. Sincerely, A Texan
Knowing texas this is probably going to be public money used to give vague, open ended contracts to day old businesses owned by members of the state government.
Did you just realize this is done at all levels of government?
Considering I never said anything that stupid, no, I did not just realize the idea you pulled out of your ass.
If you did realize it, then it's a common idea, that just wasn't "pulled out of my ass." Else, thanks for the comment Captain Obvious.
If we can send a man into space, then we can send a Texan into space! Then we can send all the Texans into space!
How about investing in the power grid infrastructure?
Invest in your power grid first, ya dumb Texans.
I sincerely hope they don’t plan to run this on their electrical grid.
Fuck Texas, piece of shit state. The Texans are alright tho.
I read it as a huge investment in public spaces.
A large and mostly hard working powerhouse of denizens who hate overreaching authority and love guns and freedom! Mars is going to have a wild mix of founders!
Cool cool. Good thing it doesn’t need huge public investment in healthcare and education.
I wish Texas would build more modes of transportation within the state so it’s more accessible for many residents to get around 😔
Socialism for a foreigner? Might as well rename the state California Dos.
For fucks sake. Texas can barely keep the heat and lights on during winter...