Practical Eschatology: Signs Of Late Empire: How Texas Dems Could Ground Space X

Friday, November 13, 2026

Signs Of Late Empire: How Texas Dems Could Ground Space X

This article from Texas Monthly, "How Texas’s New Leaders Could Ground SpaceX," explains that Texas has a state constitutional provision giving Texans a right to access public beaches, which includes Boca Chica Beach.

But in 2013, the Texas Legislature passed a statute enabling the General Land Office to allow closures for spaceflight activity. This was done as the state was enticing SpaceX to build a spaceport in Cameron County. Without this exemption, Boca Chica Beach couldn’t be shut down on SpaceX’s behalf, meaning its rockets couldn’t fly from Starbase.

Now incoming land commissioner Benjamin Flores, once he’s sworn in on January 19, plans to “request an opinion from the Attorney General on the constitutionality of the beach closure statute,” Flores’s chief of staff, Alex Martinez, told Texas Monthly.

The AG’s job is to serve as general counsel for the governor, the Legislature, and state agencies. If Attorney General–elect Nathan Johnson were to determine that the exemption for spaceflight activities is unconstitutional, that opinion would provide legal guidance for the GLO and other state agencies. Flores would keep Boca Chica open. SpaceX’s federal permitting does not allow for launches in that case.

The article points out that SpaceX would probably sue, but, in Texas, these guidances from the AG's office are apparently given a great deal of deference by the courts. Failing a lawsuit, however, the article points out:

Musk will soon have other places to launch rockets, if Blue Texas proves inhospitable. One of two new Starship launchpads in Florida is already complete, with an inaugural launch expected before year’s end. SpaceX this year also announced the formation of Starbase Louisiana, a much larger version of the manufacturing and launch facilities now in Cameron County. The new spaceport may have as many as ten launchpads, compared with Starbase Texas’s two.

There are other ways that the new Democrat leaders of Texas will be able to hurt SpaceX:

A moratorium and subsequent regulation of data centers could kneecap Musk’s plans for one at Starbase. State approval for a natural gas power plant there, with a pipeline, also could be slower and more particular than the company is used to. The governor-appointed Public Utility Commission of Texas could become a crucial gatekeeper. SpaceX may want these projects to scale up its operations, but they aren’t strictly needed to host the launches it needs to develop Starship for NASA.

Musk’s plan for the city of Starbase was to create a self-sustaining town, complete with its own private school, accredited police force, and employees-only bar. But each piece of infrastructure that’s denied increases Starbase’s reliance on the rest of Texas, and the planet. “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk posted on X just after Hinojosa’s win was announced.

Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, hypothesized a lunar colony declaring independence from Earth's governments, but perhaps it will come sooner and at low earth orbit.

What we see unfolding against Musk is common in the late stages of Empire. Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, is premised on this behavior, although in her book it was a railroad tycoon that was targeted rather than the man leading the charge into space. But it recurs over and over in dying empires as the video below describes. As the video explains, this is part of a great inversion: "Every dying institution reaches a terminal threshold where the men who build the foundation are treated as criminals and the men who loot the treasury are elevated as guardians." The video alternates between applying this to polities and businesses.