Southwest Marine (Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy)

On the morning of March 19, 2018, Reddit user /u/OGquaker posted a quote from a report issued to the Port of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners. This report requests that the board approve a project to issue a 10 year lease (with an option to renew for 2 more 10 year leases) for the construction of a facility to manufacture “large commercial transport vessels” at Berth 240, the site of the historic Southwest Marine shipyard.

While the summary of the report does not specifically mention rockets or the BFR, it does explain that the “finished vessels would need to be transported via water due to their size”. The summary continues by mentioning that Space Exploration Technologies (the formal name for SpaceX) would be utilizing this facility for off loading boosters that have landed at sea on a drone ship.

Port of LA Berth 240 (wikimapia.org)

Southwest Marine is the last remaining example of the historically significant shipbuilding industry at the Port of LA. Originally constructed in 1917, this ship yard was owned by Southwest Shipbuilding and broke records for the speed at which they were able to deliver vessels. Following the end of WWI, the site was first leased by and then sold to Bethlehem Steel, in 1925. The ship yard was then used to maintain cargo vessels for a period of time before its ship building capacity was reactivated and used extensively in WWII for the construction of ships for the US Navy, primarily destroyers.

Following the end of WWII, the yard returned to a ship repair stance and was eventually sold to Southwest Marine in the early 80's, which continued to repair ships at the site. During the early 2000's, the site changed hands a few times before eventually reverting ownership to the Port of Los Angeles. The site has been used in a number of TV shows and movies including: Dexter, CSI, Spider-Man, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, among others.

SpaceX BFR (2017 edition) (SpaceX)

SpaceX has received a lot of attention lately with the historic launch of the Falcon Heavy from LC-39A and the subsequent deployment of the Starman payload to an orbit that extends out to the orbit of Ceres. Now that it is flying (next launch of Falcon Heavy is expected in mid summer), the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful launch vehicle currently in operation. According to SpaceX’s website, it is capable of carrying up to 63.8 metric tons to low earth orbit. Incidentally, that would be the approximate weight of a M1A2 Abrams main battle tank.

However, the Falcon Heavy is not the end goal of SpaceX. The primary mission has always been to send humans and equipment to Mars for the purposes of colonization. The Falcon Heavy, as powerful as it is, is not capable of such a grand task. Instead, for this purpose, SpaceX is developing the BFR or Big “Falcon” Rocket (keeping it clean, there are kids present). And SpaceX isn’t dragging this out. They expect the space ship portion of the BFR system to begin test flights in 2019. So there is an obvious need to get started with construction.

BFS (2017 edition) dimensions (SpaceX)

The challenge with the BFR is that it is massive. The expected dimensions for the space ship portion alone are 9 meters wide and 48 meters long. Far too large to transport on the highway and, in fact, too large to transport on the mighty Anotov AN-225 cargo plane. The only option is to build the ship at the edge of the ocean and move it around with barges. Given the proximity to the company’s Hawthorne headquarters, the Port of LA is an excellent choice, allowing engineering and construction teams to be within a short car trip from each other. However, discerning which building they might have picked has proven to be something of a challenge.

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that SpaceX has not typically made large purchases or agreements in its own name, but rather uses subsidiaries. For example, the company that made the arrangements for the Boca Chica launch facility in South Texas is named DogLeg Park, LLC. In this case, the mysterious company in question is WW Marine Composites, LLC. While there is no official commentary on this company’s affiliation with SpaceX, the registered agent for the company does claim to represent “ a diverse client base that includes PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk”.

Artists interpretation of BFS (SpaceX)

Regardless of all this, if Berth 240 is in fact the new construction facility for the BFR, it will be continuing it historic legacy of ship building. This time however, it won’t be building ships to sail on the water. Instead, it will be building ships that may very well send humans back to the moon, to Mars, and beyond. A mighty legacy, to be sure.