TO OUTSIDERS, SPACEX’S SITE in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, where the company is ramping up to launch the world’s tallest rocket, inspires futuristic awe. Local officials are starry-eyed about the jobs it brings. But for Brownsville resident Emma Guevara, who grew up visiting Boca Chica Beach, life in the facility’s shadow has a more dystopian feel.
Since 2019, testing there has brought beach closures and explosions. Guevara sees rocket detritus and noise spoiling one of Texas’s least developed coastlines, a stunning matrix of public lands
