Pecan Island: SpaceX Louisiana Research

On August 25, 2026, Louisiana and SpaceX announced Starbase Louisiana: a $100 billion launch site on about 125,000 acres of coastal marsh at Pecan Island, in Vermilion Parish. The deal was negotiated in secret, under more than 30 nondisclosure agreements, and the people of the parish never got to weigh it.

This paper sets out what is known. What Louisiana gets, what it gives up, and what is promised but not yet guaranteed. What the people of Pecan Island have asked for. What else Louisiana could build. And what a deal good for all three sides, the state, the parish, and SpaceX, could look like.

It doesn't argue that Louisiana should refuse SpaceX, or that space travel is the problem. It asks two questions any honest trade has to answer: is the growth real, and who gets to weigh it?

Every factual claim is linked to its source, so you can check it yourself.

Version 3, October 9, 2026. 45 pages. You may copy and share this paper freely, complete and unaltered, with its notice. Updates will be posted here.

Photographs © Matthew D. White, used with his permission: matthewwhitestudio.com.