SpaceX plans to launch Starship Flight 13 this Thursday. The launch window will open at 5:45pm and close at 7:56pm. If they aren’t able to launch Thursday, they will try again on Friday.

The Super Heavy B20 has been sitting on Boca Chica’s Orbital Launch Pad B since last Thursday.

This is the third version of the Super Heavy, known as the V3 and it will also be the second test flight for this specific version. That last part is key given the first test flight wasn’t a complete success. While the first flight achieved most of its goals (including a soft landing), 5 of the Super Heavy’s 33 engines failed to relight during landing. Issue enough to warrant questions from the FAA who will be closely monitoring this second version.

SpaceX has been a marker for controversy in the area, and it should be, right? It’s a question of future human advancement vs preserving the current environment and wildlife. While I’m a birder and despise the damages caused to unique wildlife in the area, we are eventually going to run out of room on Earth (simple growth function) and need to become interplanetary.We don’t need to but I promise this is better than other alternatives people will come up with.

Why here? Because it’s the best situated area (for this type of thing) in the U.S. that is not a major metro / an area that would cause too much trouble for SpaceX from a regulation standpoint. Am I annoyed they came to my backyard, ahh yea. But I’m at least grateful for putting us in the spotlight and making a lot of people in the area wealthier. I promise this last bit is better for us in the long run as well even though it might not seem like it.

The best we can do is just make sure we are as strict as possible on the environmental stuff and don’t let them run ‘loose’. Obviously given current regulators and what not, but we just need to push back as much as possible. The end result might not be exactly what we want, but it’ll be better than what it would be was there zero pushback.

For full transparency, I am trading $10k of Google stock for SpaceX stock tomorrow at market open. Wish me luck.