USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida Starship has made headlines this year for a series of explosions after launching from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in Texas for uncrewed flight tests. During the first of 3 scheduled public hearings on Florida's Space Coast, most of those who spoke addressed potential environmental effects from Starship rocket launches. The hearings come amid plans for billionaire Elon Musk's commercial spaceflight company to bring Starship production and launch capabilities to Florida potentially by the end of 2025. Floridians finally have the opportunity to provide some public feedback on SpaceX's plans to expand operations of its massive Starship rocket to the Sunshine State. And unsurprisingly, residents are already expressing some of the same concerns that SpaceX opponents in Texas have long had about the spacecraft, which is being developed and tested for future human missions. Ultimately, though, SpaceX has ambitious plans for the construction of its 380-foot-tall Gigabay in Florida. The massive building, which will be used to stack and finalize the 232-foot-tall Super Heavy boosters, or lower stages, with the Starship vehicle before flights, is under construction near SpaceX’s facility on Kennedy Space Center grounds. What is SpaceX's Starship rocket? Starship, regarded as the world’s largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, towers over SpaceX's famous Falcon 9 rocket – one of the world's most active – which stands at nearly 230 feet. When fully integrated, the launch system is composed of both a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage spacecraft, or capsule where crew and cargo would ride. Super Heavy alone is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines that give the initial burst of thrust at liftoff. The upper section, also called Starship or Ship for short, is the upper stage powered by six Raptor engines that will ultimately travel in orbit. SpaceX is developing Starship to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning both the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions. The Starship is due to play a pivotal role in the years ahead in U.S. spaceflight as NASA eyes a return to the moon and Musk has dreams of the first humans reaching Mars. Why does Starship keep exploding? On June 18, Starship unexpectedly exploded while SpaceX was preparing for an upcoming flight test. No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred as the Starship spacecraft was standing alone on the test stand prior to being mounted on top of the rocket booster. The mishap, which SpaceX later referred to on its website as "a sudden energetic event," completely destroyed the spacecraft and ignited several fires that caused damage in the area surrounding the test stand. While SpaceX is investigating the mishap, Musk said in a post on X that preliminary data suggested that a pressurized tank failed at the top of the rocket. The explosion was the latest fiery mishap SpaceX's Starship has encountered during – and, now, prior to – its flight tests in 2025. Starship's most recent demonstration came May 27 when the spacecraft spun out of control roughly halfway through its flight and disintegrated in a fireball. Though Starship was unable to achieve its most important objectives, the distance the vehicle traveled far surpassed the previous 2025 flights in January and March, when Starship exploded within minutes. The company has frequently stressed that its rapid and frequent testing is expected to sometimes lead to such explosive ends, but that even failed launches can provide data that helps engineers improve Starship's design.