SpaceX Will Build Its Next Generation “BFR” In The Port Of Los Angeles
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced on Twitter that SpaceX will build the rocket colloquially known as the BFR — which may or may not stand for the Big Falcon Rocket — in Los Angeles.
The announcement came as part of his annual State of the City address where he updates residents on all things good or bad that have transpired in the city or that are coming up for the City of Angels.
Getting down to the nuts and bolts of the deal, SpaceX has signed a 30-year lease for an 18-acre site in the Port of Los Angeles in late March. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said of the announcement:
“SpaceX has called the Port of Los Angeles home to our west coast recovery operations since 2012. The Port will play an increasingly important role in our mission to help make humanity multi-planetary as SpaceX begins production development of BFR — our next generation rocket and spaceship system capable of carrying crew and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond.”
The BFR was initially announced in September of 2017 as the next major milestone for SpaceX. Ironically, this was done before Falcon Heavy even took its first flight a few months later in January. The BFR is the next step in SpaceX’s mind-boggling push to not only get humanity to Mars but also to move people around the world in a fraction of the time that it takes today.
This would be accomplished by launching a reusable rocket into the atmosphere and carefully navigating it to another location on the planet and landing again. This essentially turns SpaceX’s rockets into super fast vertically launching and landing airplanes.