Elon Musk Wants To Dig a New Tunnel Near his Texas Spaceport

But he'll have to pay for it himself.

Hammer Vision

Among the local Texans who live near SpaceX's Boca Chica Starbase facility, one of the biggest complaints is the fact that the company frequently blocks the highway while shipping rocket parts or shuts it down altogether for launches, cutting off would-be travelers from the area.

As the saying goes, to the man with a tunnel-digging company, everything looks like, well, a great spot for a tunnel. Representatives from Elon Musk's The Boring Company met with representatives from Cameron County, Texas in order to pitch them on a new tunnel from the southern tip of South Padre Island to the northern end of Boca Chica Beach, The Brownsville Herald reports, arguing that it would allow others to circumvent the blocked highway and still travel to the parts of the beach that aren't shut down for safety purposes.

Eh, Maybe

The tunnel wouldn't help with SpaceX operations — apparently the rocket parts will all stay above ground. Instead, it would allow SpaceX commuters living on the coastal island to shave off a huge chunk of their commute while allowing the public to travel to the beach when SpaceX has the highway blocked or closed.

However, the tunnel may be immensely challenging to dig. As Ars Technica notes, South Padre Island and Boca Chica Beach are divided by an active shipping channel. That means that the tunnel would need to be dug considerably deeper than average — a major test for The Boring Company.

Plenty of work needs to go into determining whether the tunnel is feasible, and SpaceX is already still in the middle of an environmental review for its Starship launch site, so it's not clear whether this tunnel will ever exist. And then there's the question of money. As Cameron County officials told the Brownsville Herald, The Boring Company shouldn't expect any financial aid from the government if it wants to start digging.

READ MORE: Elon Musk proposal: A tunnel from South Padre Island to Boca Chica Beach [The Brownsville Herald]

More on SpaceX: Elon Musk Wants To Name a Texas Town "Starbase"