More "Pie-In-The-Sky" Rather Than Solutions to Real Problems

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon

In four years, Starbase, Texas will be the city of tomorrow. Rockets will be blasting off from launchpads just off the Gulf coast. Starbase will be a company town owned by Elon Musk and SpaceX that will replace the city that once stood watch and defined the Texas border with Mexico.

Brownsville will slowly be replaced by Musk's futuristic dream Utopia.

Colonists wanting to start a new life on Mars will begin their journey at what was once Boca Chica Beach — one of South Texas' last undisturbed beaches.

Citizens will be able to drive their electric cars from one end of the city to the other, via a network of private toll roads built by one of Elon Musk's companies. Those fortunate enough will even be able to use Musk's tunnel connecting the Lagunas to Boca Chica Beach at Starbase.

Tens of thousands of visitors will visit Starbase to witness these shiny rockets blast into space and take their passengers to start their new lives on Mars.

Another futuristic aerospace company has joined the South Texas Space Race. The Brownsville Herald has reported Paragon Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aerospace has committed to building and maintaining 50 drone-style "air taxis" that will ferry passengers all around Brownsville and would have the range to shuttle passengers around the Rio Grande Valley. The taxis would seat 9 passengers and produce zero carbon emissions.

In addition to dreams about traveling into outer space, now we'll have an aerospace company setting up shop at the industrial park wanting to put remote controlled helicopters in the air — yet more misdirection to keep the citizenry from focusing on the problems that really plague Brownsville and Cameron County.

Who cares if our infrastructure is crumbling? What does it matter if people can't wait for a city bus in comfort? Why worry about building bus shelters? Soon we're going to need to build helipads and heliports so our air-taxis will be able to buzz all around Brownsville dropping passengers off at all different points of the city.

Why bother worrying about things like health care, or public safety, or the scores of illegal immigrants being released out into the population never to be heard from again? We're going to have rockets blasting off into outer space and drones taking us from point "A" to point "B."

It's not a problem. Our hopes and prayers will keep tropical storms and hurricanes from inflicting millions of dollars in flood and storm damage to the region.

When will our city and county leaders ever learn to prioritize legitimate problems versus the cosmetic ones? Sure, air taxi flight sounds like fun, but who is going to be taking a ride on an air taxi when they van barely afford to pay the fare on the city bus?

Will Paragon give control of their drone sky taxis to the city? Will Brownsville Metro need to train a whole slew of pilots to navigate these 50 flying transports all around the city? 

Priorities, priorities, priorities. Do we need drones and bike trails or do we need better infrastructure and more public safety? Do we need futuristic companies promising things they can't deliver or do we need a world class hospital and medical center dealing with diabetes?

When will we finally wake up and try to solve the problems we need solving rather than spend money, time, and effort on making us look hip and cool?

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