Waiting for those SpaceX warm fuzzies in Louisiana

This week’s announcement of SpaceX’s plans to build a rocket launchport in coastal Vermilion Parish has me recalling the heyday of space exploration just before and during my early years.

Even when considering the thousands of jobs that Elon Musk’s $100 billion undertaking promises, the vibes just aren’t the same. What looks to be a landmark project could ultimately benefit Louisiana in many ways. 

But so far, it lacks that spirit of promise and hope that buoyed America’s first forays into space.

Somewhere at my mom’s home, likely deep inside a long ignored closet, is a large box of home movies shot on Super 8 film. They include footage of our family gathered around the television set for the first moon landing — July 20, 1969. This silent, grainy footage, in all of its washed-out color glory, is my only memory of the event. 

I had barely reached the toddler stage when Neil Armsrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins held the world’s attention. However, my much older siblings (just kidding, guys) were all very engrossed in the Space Race as it unfolded during their childhoods. I would eventually enjoy all of their hand-me-down memorabilia when I was old enough to appreciate it.

An entire drawer in our study was filled with Viewmaster reels featuring crisp images of Apollo astronauts, the New Orleans-built Saturn rockets and the many modules that carried man into space. The impossibly blue skies over Florida’s Space Coast provided the backdrop. 

As we came of age, children from my era began to grasp America’s extraplanetary endeavors were also incursions in the Cold War with Russia. But because they brought science fiction to life and made heroes out of our best and brightest, our viewpoint was biased. We saw these missions as necessary to maintain our nation’s standing, and we believed it was our obligation to push the boundaries of science and technology for the sake of mankind.

The SpaceX plans for Louisiana aren’t producing the same warm fuzzy feelings that the Space Race or space shuttle era did. Even through moments of tragedy, the public has continued to rally around NASA. This favorable sentiment has been rekindled with the Artemis missions thanks largely to the “public” part of the public-private partnership that will take us back to the moon.  

The solely “private” side of the space industry doesn’t create the same sense of pride or national unity, and Musk’s involvement adds the wedge of political divisiveness.   

While Starbase Louisiana certainly has the potential to provide the state with an unprecedented economic boost, there’s no overriding sense of purpose attached to the investment. It’s simply a business deal that, while certainly monumental, will help Musk further cement his status as the world’s richest person.

How rich? Forbes places Musk’s net worth at $862 billion. That’s why it’s no real strain for SpaceX to provide $25 million annually for the next 25 years for the Vermilion Parish police jury, school board and sheriff’s office to split. That total payout comes to just 0.07% of Musk’s current value and is far, far less than the property taxes SpaceX would have paid the parish over the incentive period.

I’m no rocket scientist, but my math tells me Musk could cut a $25 million check today for all 4,000-plus public and private schools in Louisiana and still have 88% of his fortune left.

Will it take that level of grand gesture on Musk’s part to win over his critics? Perhaps we’ll look back in 10 or 20 years (because it can’t wait longer) to find that SpaceX was the catalyst for coastal restoration at a major scale that permanently reversed Louisiana’s decades of wetlands degradation, and that it launched an economic rebirth that propelled the state from the bottom of so many quality of life lists.

Gov. Jeff Landry has touted the project in exactly these terms. Though he has an ample number of skeptics, even they hope he turns out to be right because Louisiana could use another moon-landing moment right about now.

SpaceX indeed has the potential to be something Louisiana remembers forever, or it could turn into yet another politically tainted disappointment that we rather forget.