Regulators are investigating reports of property damage from SpaceX Starship’s explosion
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/17/science/spacex-starship-explosion-investigation/index.html
Regulators are investigating reports of property damage from SpaceX Starship’s explosion
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/17/science/spacex-starship-explosion-investigation/index.html
20 Comments
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Article has ZERO tangible examples of actual/real property damage.
Like: maybe ok, this damage actually occurred? But this article gives you ZERO examples of that! So what’s the point of this post on Reddit, or this article exactly???
So ya.. I’m not sure when, but dang it: CNN has become such a bad/poor understanding of any source of news.
🙁
Obviously, they should investigate that, but based on the trajectory and lack of photos, I would say they won’t find much
I am sure there was no nightmarish aeresolized metals raining down on the Caribbean, socialize the costs, privatize the profits right! Move fast, break things, ask forgiveness after causing the damage. But of course keep the profits.
This shit is the future. Surprised that CNN did this
Good. These agencies think they can pollute the earth with impunity when their rockets go wrong. I’m not a big fan of putting toxic materials into our atmosphere, accidental or not!
CNN is not credible to report on science and technology.
The internet destroyed the business model for media companies that was dependent on their monopoly on distribution to drive advertising terms. The internet evaporated this model by driving distribution costs to near $0. [By around 2008 according to The New York Times most media companies had fired their technical editors.](https://archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science-coverage-imploding-at-cnn-beyond/) They no longer staffed those with the background to credibly write on the topic because media companies could no longer afford to pay that talent.
The business model media companies settled on was social media click bait more aligned with supermarket tabloids. The game was to use salacious clickable fear and outrage gossip stories to get users on social media to click the headline, and drive advertising traffic. This model didn’t require being credible or accurate. All that mattered was driving attention by any means. Media replaced themselves with the equivalent of reality television information products.
They are not transparent with their opinions. Especially when conflict of interest in funding may result in sustained storytelling campaigns against companies that compete with the companies that still pay the media company for advertising or marketing.
For this reason CNN should not be an acceptable source in /r/space. Their organization design does not allow for credible information.
This had me thinking about liability for space objects. We always assume it won’t hit anyone because statistically speaking it shouldn’t. But with more private rockets and satellites going up, maybe it’s worth putting a standard together and getting private space groups some coverage. Or we wait until someone sues the pants off SpaceX and giggle at Elon. One or the other.
Meanwhile in China [booster falling down on a populated area](https://youtube.com/shorts/1zmC39vU85E?feature=shared)
I seriously doubt anything significant made it to land. Here’s why I think that’s the case.
1. The breakup happened over land as evidenced by the videos
2. The vehicle was at 140+km altitude and over 20k km/h according to the SpaceX telemetry at time of loss of signal
3. *Columbia* broke up at a similar velocity and altitude. The breakup happened over west/central TX, but nearly all debris was found in east TX and western LA
Given those factors, I’m pretty confident that anything small enough to dump enough energy to maybe make it to the ground likely burned up, and anything large/heavy enough to survive reentry likely continued far out to sea.
Maybe I’ll end up being wrong, but right now I’d be *incredibly* suspicious of anyone claiming to have found Starship debris (not counting maybe stuff washing up on shore). I’d be even more suspicious of anyone claiming damage or injury from such debris.
It’s good to know none of the Musk fluffers in the replies would have a problem with me throwing a handful of flaming marbles at their vehicles.
Could one of the island governments ban overflights or be in the path of this stuff going up and down?
Makes no sense as the debris didn’t fall on islands. They fell in the ocean. The CNN article doesn’t say anything about the damage either. They’re just regurgitating the FAA statement.
I wonder how much of that is fake. Since it blew up over the ocean and most pieces found with video or photo proof are washed up ashore.
Companies launching these things need to have insurance coverage to pay for damages to property, people, livestock, infrastructure, historical sites, landmarks, etc.
Simple enough.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7p51wp “Last usage”)|European Space Agency|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7pbsb0 “Last usage”)|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[LOS](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7pa9km “Last usage”)|Loss of Signal
| |Line of Sight|
|[RUD](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7p6ucy “Last usage”)|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unintended Disassembly|
|[UDMH](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7p1wsb “Last usage”)|[Unsymmetrical DiMethylHydrazine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsymmetrical_dimethylhydrazine), used in hypergolic fuel mixes|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/1i3pxyc/stub/m7p1wsb “Last usage”)|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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^(6 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1i2kauy)^( has 25 acronyms.)
^([Thread #10991 for this sub, first seen 17th Jan 2025, 21:41])
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There can’t be any property damage as the orbital track and velocity made it impossible for debris to come down in a populated area or even on land. The launch profile was explicitly chosen as to prevent and reentry over land in case of failure.
Isn’t this standard procedure for failed launch things?
Does anyone (besides SpaceX and the FAA) know the lat, long, altitude and velocity at the moment of disassembly? Without that info, speculation regarding the boundaries of the possible debris field is just uninformed guessing.
On the other hand, if the FAA is taking the reports as worthy of investigation, then the islands probably do lie within those boundaries.
What about the clean up of this mass littering event?