The city of Houston and many members of Texas’ congressional delegation, including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, have expressed concerns about the encroachment of commercial space on NASA’s budget for human spaceflight activities.

Their belief is that money invested in private spaceflight companies will take away from the space agency’s budget to build its own rocket and space capsule, and that in turn money taken away from those activities will ultimately hurt Johnson Space Center.

One wonders how their views might change if the private company SpaceX, which is building its own rocket (Falcon) and capsule (Dragon), moves forward with plans to build a launch site in South Texas.

Today the space company filed its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (see .pdf) for the proposed launch site in Cameron County approximately 3 miles north of the Mexican border on the Gulf Coast. It is about 5 miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

Facilities at the vertical launch site would include a hangar, a launch pad and stand with its associated flame duct, propellant storage and handling areas, a workshop and office area, and a warehouse for parts storage.

According to the company, the site’s operations would consist of up to 12 launches per year with a maximum of two Falcon Heavy launches. All Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches would be expected to have commercial payloads, including satellites or experimental payloads.

In addition to standard payloads, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy may also carry the Dragon capsule.

The crafts would launch to the east, over the Gulf of Mexico.

There are things the state of Texas can do to help bring this about. A group called the Texas Space Alliance has been lobbying for legislation that would support commercial space in the state, seeking zero liability for passengers who choose to fly, and tax breaks for spaceports.

“I think this is fantastic and as you know have been calling for it for a while,” the group’s president and founder, Rick Tumlinson, told me of SpaceX’s plans. “We are putting together a macro legislative agenda for the next session to enable this and much more. It is up to Texas to make this happen or blow it.”

Indeed.