this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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They've been pretty transparent about their expectations for these early test flights, and today's achievements match those expectations. For example, they didn't bother securing all the thermal tiles because they didn't really expect to survive re-entry.
The rocket didn't go to LEO. This was intentional, because they knew that this flight was unlikely to survive and they're as concerned about space debris as you are. All the debris either burned up or fell into the ocean.
Look up what LEO region is. It's everything beneath 2000km. But the point still stands, it was big ship with big explosion. You can't be sure things didn't get thrown outwards. Also, SpaceX is not exactly known for respecting the environment. In fact they've been constantly criticized about that.
But isn't the key aspect here "orbit"? I get that the FTS would lengthen the trajectory of some of the debris, but would it be enough to create a stable orbit? The original trajectory was going to splashdown near Hawaii.
I certainly agree that there are lots of environmental downsides to space exploration that are increasingly overlooked, I'm just not sure that there's anything extra egregious about this flight.
Well, I don't know if there is anything egregious about this either. Last time there was a spaceship test it was touted as a great success while tons of concrete flew in all directions destroying everything in their path from cameras to people's cars. Most importantly launch site is in the middle of the nature's reserve and agency in charge of that already filed a number of complaints because of their reckless destruction. "Genius" in charge said it was planed and only concrete was just fine, until it wasn't.
So I never trust what their PR says. Last time it was also planned and great success but they managed to get their launch license suspended. Am just not quick to jump to conclusions about whether this made any damage or not. Hopefully none of the debris managed to destroy anything.
Yeah, the concrete storm wasn't great last time. They did have some engineering reasons to believe it would work for a single launch, but it seems like there was more subsurface damage to the concrete than they realized. As far as I know the only property that was significantly damaged was related to the company, but I'm sure there were some smaller residential insurance claims for the dust.
Part of the reason Saturday's launch was delayed was so that more environmental assessments could be performed. A few weeks ago there some government scientists taking samples at the launch site for a baseline measurement to compare against in the future, and the entire project was reviewed by environmental regulators. So, those agencies were very involved in approving the launch license and SpaceX can't just do whatever the owner wants them to. I guess my point is that it's not strictly PR-speak, there really are qualified people making these decisions. But I agree that it's not great to have the facility in the middle of a sensitive wetland, and no doubt there was backdoor politicking. I wish SpaceX would do more to offset the harm they cause, but I still think the StarShip project does more good than harm.