SpaceX’s Starship launches at the company’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, have allegedly been contaminating local bodies of water with mercury for years. The news arrives in an exclusive CNBCreport on August 12, which cites internal documents and communications between local Texas regulators and the Environmental Protection Agency.

SpaceX’s fourth Starship test launch in June was its most successful so far—but the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ever built continues to wreak havoc on nearby Texas communities, wildlife, and ecosystems. But after repeated admonishments, reviews, and ignored requests, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) have had enough.

    • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Hmm, did you read that article before posting it?

      Because Im struggling to see how Starship, a fully reusable spaceship made out of stainless steel, is going to deplete the ozone the way that aluminum satellites do when they are deorbited and burned up…

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          You literally quoted me talking about Starship, and the article OP linked is about Starship.

          SpaceX is going to launch the ~4000 satellites it has permits for, starship doesn’t change that in any way shape or form.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.

            Your words? Because, again, it’s not Starship they’re launching every two weeks.

            • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              Yes, it is. That is using their projected budget and the launch cadence that’s possible with both SLS and Starship. SLS can at most launch twice a year, Starship will be able to launch every two weeks, and costs orders of magnitude less.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                And meanwhile, SpaceX will destroy the ozone layer with endless Starlink launches, so maybe let’s not praise them, like I initially said?

                • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                  3 months ago

                  My god. What do you do for a living? Does it have no effect on the environment in any way shape or form?

                  They literally just discovered that Starlink satellites are having that effect, and you have given them precisely zero time to even try and address and fix it. And in the meantime I literally just came back from a remote first Nations community that only has high quality internet because of it, amongst virtually every rural community in the world.

                  Honestly, disconnect yourself from the internet before you spend any time looking into the environmental impact of your phone, the servers you use, and the billions of miles of fibre optic cables that connect everything. Because if that’s the kind of blood that prevents you from praising a company that is literally revolutionizing space launch, then literally nothing any of us ever do is worth praising because it’s all built on a giant foundation of blood.

                  Hell, those solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to reflect light onto molten salts originally killed a whole bunch of birds. Are they bastards for trying to build out a new technology, realizing there’s environmental consequences, and then finding ways of addressing it?

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    My god. What do you do for a living?

                    I don’t. But even if I did, working for a company is not the same as being the company. I don’t blame an Exxon oil rig worker for global warming.

                    Does it have no effect on the environment in any way shape or form?

                    Not to the extent SpaceX will since it’s destroying the ozone layer. Not sure why you seem to think that’s trivial.

      • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Do you know what the clouds coming out of the engines at shut down and start up are? Methane and oxygen. Do you think injecting methane into the upper atmosphere does the earth any favours?

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          Huh, if only NASA Earth’s science budget could stretch farther somehow so they could better monitor and tell us… now I wonder how they could reduce their mission costs by orders of magnitude…

            • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              No they’re not. You’re sitting here asking open ended questions like “do you think that will be good for the upper atmosphere”.

                • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                  3 months ago

                  No, you said that NASA is monitoring methane emissions in the upper atmosphere and that it’s harming us.

                  Please provide your source for that claim.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    The article I showed you about SpaceX destroying the ozone layer was not talking about methane:

                    Researchers at the University of Southern California released a study saying that satellites are significantly damaging Earth’s ozone layer. As their materials burn up upon reentry, leaving behind particle pollutants made up of aluminum oxides, which are “known catalysts for chlorine activation that depletes ozone in the stratosphere.”

                    Since 2016, the ozone layer has seen eight times as many of those pollutants, with an estimated 17 metric tons in 2022

                    I guess you didn’t read it.

                    But yes, NASA does monitor methane emissions.

                    https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/