So last Wednesday I was up at 4am. I got myself a bowl of Weetabix and a hat for the sun and was picked up at 430am in an Uber.
The airport was easy.. I just had carry on so straight though customs using the MCP pre USA border app and sat waiting for the flight. (No anal probes or getting thrown into jail for being Mexican for me!)
One of our friends Rob who is dad to Hannah's mate Bowie was in the queue for the same flight too, so we had a quick chat as we boarded. Then headed to our seats.
I was supposed to be at the back of the plane near the toilets, but my seat was swapped and I ended up on the window seat on row 11 which was much nicer.
We arrived at Minneapolis on time and I spent an hour leisurely wandering the airport and enjoying the freedom of no kids to herd!
There was an art exhibit from airport staff and families so I took a lingering look at all the photos and paintings here before heading to my gate. I love airports.. There's always so much to see because I love people watching. There are so many interesting people! I saw a guy carrying cymbals, another with a guitar case. An old lady being pushed in a wheelchair wearing pink headphones. A mum attempting to cut a bagel with a plastic knife as sharp as my arse while her kid sits patiently waiting for her to spread cream cheese onto it using the same crap knife. So much to see.
My second fight takes me from Minneapolis to Harlingen, Texas. Just a short drive from the Rio Grande , which forms the USA/Mexican border. It also runs alongside the road that leads to Mars. At least that's the Elon Musk master plan.
A 45-minute drive takes me to Boca Chica village and what just 5 or 6 years ago was a peaceful town of a few hundred people and only 35 houses. No schools restaurants, shopping malls. It was a quiet, laid-back nowhere town where people went for peace and quiet and to get away from everyone else. But quiet and peace has been replaced now by noise, heat, flame and steel. Lots of steel. Lots and lots of steel!
This steel makes up the buildings, the trailers used by workers and the cars and trucks.
Some steel is also rolled flat, made into circular rings 9 metres wide. These rings are then stacked higher and higher on tope of each other into two huge tubes. One 70 metres long and one 50.
What happens next?
Well the people here stick a nose cone at the top of the small tube to make a pointy end and add 6 of the mightiest full flow staged methalox combustion engines at the bottom. These are called Raptors!
Get the taller tube and attach 33 more of the crazy engines. Then guess what - all you do is put the little tube on top of the taller tube. What do you get? A 120-metre-high monster of a rocket. Its called Starship and its Elon Musks idea apparently (He IS a bell end, but he does have a lot of people working for him that know how to build cool shit)
This what I'm here to see. Starship, boosters, stage 0 (The launch pads) and everything else.
I have been watching this place grow for 5 years on a Youtube channel called NSF. To me its the equivalent of Brunel building huge ships, railways and bridges back in the 1800s. I love engineering, and sciencey stuff, I love rockets and robots, and I am so excited to be here. There is nowhere else on the planet you can get so close and personal with a fucking rocket launch pad and the world's most powerful rocket.
Now I won't see a launch this week, but I do have a few days to take it all in. To see the launch pad , the boosters and the ship itself. Im going to stay on South padre Island and take a few trips back here to Starbase over the next few days to take it all in and generally mellow out.
I headed straight to Starbase after landing in Harlingen, the closest airport in Texas with direct flights to Minneapolis. It was just about an hours drive, but I was surprised that I was 10 minutes and 5 miles away when I got my first glimpse of the buildings, the rockets and the launch pads.
They are THAT big that they are clearly visible!
After getting closer I set up a camera on the dashboard and drove past the build site, Starfactory and then another 2 miles to the launch site. It didn't disappoint, as it is spectacular.
Massive, noisy, dusty and dirty but just amazing.
I wandered around and watched for a while as the workers build pad 2 and the trucks bringing in the propellant and everything else going on. It's unbelievable how much is happening everywhere
Soon though it was getting late and apart from an apple and a granola bar I hadn't eaten since breakfast. So I bid farewell for the day and took the hour-long drive to go around the port of Brownsville and head to south padre Island and my hotel for the next couple of nights.
After checking in, I headed over to padre Island brewing company and enjoyed a good dinner with a couple of local beers before heading to bed for the night.
And yes - I know my hair is carnage!
Ill leave it there for now and update in a couple of days - with a hat on!
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