President Theodore Roosevelt, speaking in 1899 to Chicago's Hamilton Club, famously said: "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
Elon Musk may have been listening. He's dared a lot in his meteoric career, and he's achieved a lot. Now, though, his biggest and most ambitious project to date is getting underway: The new SpaceX facility of Starbase, Louisiana.
Introducing Starbase, Louisiana – a high-cadence launch site that will enable Starship to open a pathway to the stars for humanity.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2026
Thank you to @LAGovJeffLandry and the great people of Louisiana for all of their support as we work together on this audacious project →… pic.twitter.com/hq308hvg2g
This new Starbase, the greatest such effort Musk has planned and carried out to date, has the potential to make space flight routine. It's an ambitious project with an ambitious timeline; Musk said recently in a pre-recorded statement that the first launches are planned for 2030.
On Tuesday, tech trillionaire Elon Musk and top SpaceX leaders announced the planned construction of Starbase Louisiana in a highly produced video filmed last week during a secret trip to the Louisiana coastline.
The video detailed SpaceX’s planned $100 billion rocket launch facility that will be built in Pecan Island, an unprecedented project that promises to forever change a strip of Vermilion Parish marshland.
“It’s going to be a fantastic partnership with Louisiana,“ Musk said in the video as he toured the planned facility site after being dropped off by helicopter.
Let's hope that new facility will be hurricane-proofed. But any location will come with its own unique issues. And this is an ambitious project which will require plenty of room, including, very possibly, room to expand. One of Musk's long-stated goals with SpaceX is to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and on Mars, and it seems likely that this new Starbase LA facility will be key to any such effort.
The new base will be huge:
As part of an effort to launch thousands of satellites into orbit and a broader mission to someday reach Mars, SpaceX officials said Tuesday they will build five launch pads, a mission-control center, office buildings, power plants, a propellant factory and employee housing on a tract of coastal land abutted by wildlife refuges some 50 miles south of Lafayette.
The facility, which will employ thousands of workers, will be larger than SpaceX's three other launch sites, including its Starbase headquarters near Brownsville, Texas. And Musk plans to move fast, with construction starting in 2027 and the first rocket taking off in three years.
I've said, and written, for years that when mankind goes into space for good, establishing bases on the Moon, Mars, and in the asteroid belt, it would be the private sector that takes us there. My own science fiction writing predicts just that. There is a lot of mineral wealth in the asteroid belt, along with volatiles (water, methane) there and on the moons of the gas giants. The resources are there. It's just a matter of getting to them.
Even more than that, though, it's good to see someone, as Theodore Roosevelt said, daring mighty things. Never let it be said that Elon Musk thinks small, or backs away from a challenge. To accomplish big things, you have to attempt big things, and this Starbase LA is a mighty big thing, and that's for sure and for certain.
You can see SpaceX's new Starbase LA's official website here.