SpaceX Wants to Incorporate Starbase as a New City in Texas
SpaceX wants to incorporate Starbase as its own city in Texas. The Starbase production site in Cameron County, Texas, is home to development of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
Kathy Lueders, former NASA official and general manager of Starbase, submitted a petition to Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. on Thursday requesting an election to determine whether Starbase should be incorporated into its own city.
“To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Lueders wrote. “Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space.”
Lueders argued that SpaceX performs some civil functions around Starbase because of how remote the area is, including road management, utilities, schooling, and medical care. “Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate body,” she wrote.
Earlier this year, SpaceX founder Elon Musk declared his intent to move SpaceX’s headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase in Texas.
Cameron County Judge Treviño’s office released a report on SpaceX’s local impact in June of this year, reporting that more than 3,400 full time SpaceX employees and contractors work at Starbase. The report states that Starbase has indirectly generated more than 21,400 jobs in the community, and has generated more than $800 million in state and local government capital income and indirect business taxes.
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