A view from Boca Chica Beach towards two SpaceX launch pads, in south Texas.
Reynaldo Leaños Jr./For NPR
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Reynaldo Leaños Jr./For NPR
STARBASE, Texas — On a scorching August afternoon in south Texas, Bekah Hinojosa, the co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Center, blasts the A/C in her car.
As she drives down Highway 4 towards Boca Chica Beach, large 18-wheelers and silver glistening Cybertrucks zoom past her on the opposite lane.
“This road is always under construction,” said Hinojosa. “SpaceX is rapidly colonizing and changing the entire landscape of Boca Chica.”
Very soon the newly created city of Starbase, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, could change this area by the Gulf of Mexico, even more. This city was established in 2025 and is now asking its residents to consider annexing around 7,100 acres of surrounding land, including state and private property.
The city was created, in part, as a way to help grow its SpaceX workforce and increase its capacity for developing, and the manufacturing needed for more rocket launches.
In April of 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration approved SpaceX’s request to increase launches from its Boca Chica Launch Site.
These operations include, “up to 25 annual Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches, up to 25 annual landings of Starship, up to 25 annual landings of Super Heavy, and vehicle upgrades,” according to the FAA document.
All this is part of Musk’s stated plan to build a complex from where SpaceX could launch humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
The current SpaceX complex is home to launch pads, manufacturing and test sites. Starbase controls road access to a nearby beach, and a nature reserve during launches.
According to documents that Starbase provided to neighboring landowners, and has posted on their website, the city said part of what a possible annexation would allow for is, “more efficient coordination with federal and state partners including the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services and others.”
Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, parks her car on a property that Starbase wants to acquire through annexation.
Reynaldo Leaños Jr./For NPR
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Concerns about the environment
Hinojosa grabs her steering wheel and veers off the highway onto a dirt road with vegetation all around.
“We’re on beautiful pristine land owned by a property owner who doesn’t wanna get sucked up into Elon Musk’s city of Starbase,” she said.
Activists like Hinojosa and several private land owners are concerned about the impact that the Starbase expansion will have in their community. She’s been in touch with several impacted landowners, like 56-year-old Barbara Buckner.
Buckner’s grandmother was a Holocaust survivor who fled Poland, lived in Chicago and purchased property in south Texas. She is opposed to the proposed annexation. She asks: Who will Starbase prioritize? Residents? Or SpaceX?
“How can you be supporting residents when you work for SpaceX?” Buckner asks.
Currently, the mayor of Starbase, Robert “Bobby” Peden, and one of the two city commissioners, work for SpaceX. Peden did not respond to several requests for an interview.
Buckner believes that the proposed annexation is just the beginning. “ I think they’ll keep trying to expand,” she said.
A Starhopper, an early prototype of a SpaceX rocket to test engines, sits in the company’s complex in south Texas.
Reynaldo Leaños Jr./For NPR
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Gerold Podraza, an 83-year-old landowner, said he’s also opposed to the proposed annexation.
“ It just represents that the people who have money are able to do things that they, shouldn’t be allowed to do,” he said. “The only reason why that’s happening is because they have leverage with politicians, and they can influence politicians to make judgments that are not good for the community that they represent.”
In 2024, NPR reported that the Environmental Protection Agency found that SpaceX had violated the Clean Water Act after tens of thousands of gallons of industrial wastewater were discharged into the surrounding area. It’s this kind of environmental concern that Hinojosa fears could increase with more rocket launches.
“I’ve come out here several times after a SpaceX launch to document all of the debris,” Hinojosa said. “I have photos of metal shrapnel blown up into this area that we’re on.”
SpaceX did not respond to NPR’s questions about the environmental impact of its rocket launches.
Sofia Benavides, a Cameron County Commissioner representing the area where Starbase is located, said the law clearly allows Starbase to expand.
“There’s nothing that we can do to stop it,” Benavides said.
Starbase has until August 18 to hear back from potentially impacted landowners about the annexation plan and determine if they have the necessary signatures needed to move forward. The city then is required to hold two public hearings before voting in September on whether to annex, or not.
Hinojosa’s organization is looking into possible legal action to prevent the annexation.
“They call it Starbase. You pull the curtain back, it’s the SpaceX annexation,” Hinojosa said. “SpaceX threatens the Rio Grande Valley. And that’s why we’ll continue to resist.”
Vegetation grows in a piece of land next to the Starbase, in south Texas.
Reynaldo Leaños Jr./For NPR
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