Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches

Much of the world watched on in wonder and excitement when, on 13 October 2024, a rocket from Elon Musk’s commercial space company SpaceX boosted a spacecraft into orbit and was successfully retrieved at its launchpad. However, what was a genuine breakthrough in space exploration was viewed quite differently by some residents of Brownsville, Texas, which is located next to the SpaceX launch site on Boca Chica Beach. In this short documentary, the directors Ái Vuong and Samuel Díaz Fernández highlight how little regard the company and lawmakers have shown for the human and nonhuman animal populations that have called this slice of land home long before SpaceX broke ground there in 2014. For their portrait of place, Vuong and Fernández pair stunning footage of the serene seacoast and its wildlife with interviews of locals, including Native American Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe members, who’ve long held Boca Chica Beach to be sacred. In doing so, the filmmakers make a compelling argument to consider the footprints SpaceX is leaving on our planet in its quest to reach beyond it.