Gary Zhou 
It appears that SpaceX is not only looking to transport mankind to Mars; the private space company of Elon Musk is also bent on keeping the wildlife as safe as possible at its Boca Chica location. This was recently highlighted by Elon Musk when he responded to an update about the situation of numerous sea turtles in Boca Chica.
Texas is currently plagued by frigid weather and blackouts, a risky mix for animals who appear to get cold-stunned, such as sea turtles. They essentially get frozen when sea turtles get cold-stunned, stopping them from raising their heads out of the water to breathe. Organizations like Sea Turtle, Inc. are then responsible for ensuring that the endangered species are rescued from the beach and kept healthy.
Unfortunately, Texas power outages struck Sea Turtle’s Boca Chica plant, and it occurred at a time when hundreds, if not thousands, of sea turtles were in desperate need of shelter. This situation was eventually brought to the attention of Elon Musk on Twitter, and it prompted the CEO to respond quickly. The SpaceX team is going to aid in the sea turtle rescue efforts, according to Musk.
What is very interesting is that Boca Chica’s SpaceX workers are currently qualified to deal with cold-stunned sea turtles. In a statement to ValleyCentral News, this was something discussed by Wendy Knight, executive director of Sea Turtle Inc. “SpaceX has now trained its employees to react during cold-stunned events,” she said in a previous statement.
Knight further clarified that SpaceX actually enables them to use their drone equipment and ATVs before and after each launch to patrol for turtle activity. Before and during the construction of the Boca Chica site, SpaceX was also in frequent contact with Sea Turtle Inc. The former executive vice president of the Economic Development Council of Brownsville, Gilberto Salinas, shared some insights into the planning involved in the design of the Starship facility at SpaceX.
“We knew that the project was going to have to go public but essentially it was going to have to go through a public hearing, two separate federal public hearings. It would be required to have special lighting that they would have to use at night that way whenever the baby sea turtles would hatch, they wouldn’t get disoriented and think that the SpaceX—or operation’s lights is the moon,” he said.
Elon Musk did not specify precisely what kind of assistance SpaceX employees are going to provide to the ongoing sea turtle rescue efforts, but given their training, it seems fair to say that the employees of the private space company will help retrieve the animals and transport them to facilities such as Sea Turtle Inc. Hopefully, Tesla, the other company of Elon Musk, could also step in and provide some assistance, maybe in the form of battery storage units such as the Powerwall, which, considering the power outages in the area, could help Sea Turtle Inc. keep its lights on.
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