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Comment by bigtex88 | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this an absolutely horrible idea to build this here? What happens when the next Category 5 hurricane hits this area? It's an absolute certainty that they will get another Category 5 at some point.

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Do you know where NASA's launch facilities are? The Florida coast.

Take a look at this site: https://tropicalcyclonedatabase.com/storm_tracks.html?_v=90

Filter Lifecycle Intensity by category 4 and 5.

You won't see any lines close to land near Cape Canaveral. Though to be fair, Vermilion Parish seems to be far enough west in Louisiana that it doesn't get direct hits either (but some are close).

Then look at the NHC Storm Surge Risk map: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/203f772571cb48b1b8b...

Cape Canaveral is mostly 0-3 ft with some >3 ft. Meanwhile the entire immediate coast for the new Louisiana SpaceX location is >6 ft to >9 ft.

I think they'll probably have more a lot more trouble with storms than Cape Canaveral. The dynamics along the Atlantic coast are a lot different from the Gulf.

The Florida coast isn't defined by a huge, meandering river. Take a look at some satellite surveys that showcase how the Mississippi River changes over time. We've of course damned up the shorelines upstream where people live in places like New Orleans so there's no inherent seasonal risk of mass flooding, though of course lose the deposited silt and hence further erode the land we've "saved". Further down south toward the mouth, it's marsh land defined by however the river chooses to meander. I'm not sure where exactly SpaceX is planning to setup in LA, but the entire coastline there is chronically very poor, very unpopulated, and not supported to weather flooding of any kind, especially not hurricanes.

Pecan island is 40 miles away from the nearest distributary of the Mississippi (the Atchafalaya river), and there are several towns (and a highway) in between. It's the ocean & weather that erode the coastline in that area, not any rivers.

The distance from the Mississippi's flow or mouth is irrelevant compared to the sediment that flowed out of it before levees forced it to exit the way it does today.

Erosion from that decision was already an issue 50 years ago; weather events accelerated the pace, but so have upriver dams that cut off sediment supply, and also shipping canals that have carved gaps into it that push surges further inland than they would otherwise, and also the chéniers that diverted floodwaters regardless of cause into more fragile marshes, and also farmland that was in active use as far south as Pecan Island up until Rita salted it, and also 50 years of oil-industry support infrastructure, and also the Deepwater rig explosion that leaked oil that killed off marshes (the settlement of which is how the state ended up capable of awarding this land), and also rampant invasive nutria that negated efforts to use agricultural fresh-water discharge to reverse previous damage.

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11042/

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/44432/noaa_444...

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/45895/noaa_458...

https://gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/media/document/2018-07...

https://www.usgs.gov/publications/accelerating-elevation-gai...

I guess the launch pads get soggy? I figure one of the benefits of the area is there isn't much development for those reasons.

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