Texas officials argued Thursday that it is legally permissible for SpaceX to restrict access to a public beach during rocket launches, a policy that critics believe violates the state’s constitution.
Several liberal groups in the Rio Grande Valley brought a lawsuit against SpaceX, challenging a 2013 law that allows Elon Musk’s company to temporarily close Boca Chica Beach multiple times a year to conduct launches. The Texas Supreme Court is now considering the case, as lawyers on both sides debate over whether constitutional language guaranteeing residents “unrestricted access” to public beaches is in conflict with the law.
Beth Klusmann, deputy solicitor general for the Texas attorney general’s office, argued on behalf of SpaceX. She said unrestricted use of property does not mean it is not subject to the state’s power.
“That’s also within the police power of the state to decide that it wishes to further the space industry,” Klusmann said. “I could give someone the unrestricted use of my backyard, but the cities can still come in and say you can’t put a gas station there.”
Marisa Perales, an attorney representing Save RGV Sierra Club and the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, argued that the right to access public beaches is more absolute.
“The state essentially gave away something that belonged to the public and that the voters voted to make sure would remain with the public and that the beach would never be given to a private entity,” she said, referencing a 2009 constitutional amendment approved by Texas voters that guarantees public access to beaches.
Court decisions are typically released between September and June.
Boca Chica Beach stretches for roughly 3.5 miles in South Texas. It is adjacent to SpaceX’s town of Starbase, which was created last year as a community for company employees. SpaceX has been testing rocket launches from the beach area since 2014, necessitating brief closures of the location each time. In May 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration granted SpaceX permission to launch the rockets from the beach up to 25 times per year.
SpaceX is playing a key research and development role in NASA’s mission to return astronauts to the moon and expand space exploration.
“I think Elon Musk is probably the greatest engineer and entrepreneur of the last, I don’t know, half-century — easy,” NASA Administrator Jared Issachman said during a New York Times interview last month.
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“Since the 1960s, NASA hasn’t undertaken these kinds of world-changing endeavors alone. We have always gone after it with industry. … SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke, Rocket Lab, and all these. And I’m grateful,” he said, adding thanks to Musk and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company for financing space activities.
“We spent 4.5% of our discretionary budget in the 1960s to build out these extraordinary capabilities for the good of America, for humankind to go to the moon and back,” Issachman said. “Right now, we’re at one-quarter percent, and it’s in large part being supplemented by folks like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk being willing to throw resources well in excess of what we’ve contracted them to do, to provide a capability that someday could enable us to go to Mars.”