A commute to Musk town – podcast

“This is the future, man,” a SpaceX fan tells Oliver Laughland as they appear over at a large rocket. “It’s a weird combination of the wild wild west and the brand new future!”

The rocket stands in Starbase, Texas, and the Guardian US southern bureau leader was once visiting at an excessively explicit time: as the world house to Elon Musk’s pioneering house corporate was once poised to vote in an election to formally turn out to be where into its personal town.

As Laughland tells Michael Safi, he met close by citizens lengthy exasperated by means of the presence of the corporate – and its hulking rockets – using up rents, and accused of spoiling native seashores. But he heard too from SpaceX super-enthusiasts, a few of whom have moved around the nation simply to are living with regards to Starbase, the HQ with ambitions to ship other people to Mars.

Why does Musk need Starbase City? And, as he leaves his professional function in Trump’s management in the similar month, what does it let us know about his ambitions forward?