Island residents are still dealing with the fallout of exploded Starship

[LorenDB]

https://archive.ph/EyuTt

[russdill]

Somehow the author of the article discussed how liquid methane and liquid oxygen would be dangerous to touch.... Without mentioning that it would absolutely not be present

[robocat]

What's worse, is that the quote comes from a US government employee?

  The megarocket instead relies on liquid methane and oxygen for propellant — but “any kind of fuel is going to … have a bunch of chemical energy inside it,” according to Marlon Sorge, the executive director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research center.

  “Even if it isn’t as dangerous as hydrazine, where you touch it or get close to it and you’re in trouble — it’s still volatile, like gasoline,” Sorge added. “And there are other things on board spacecraft, like batteries.”

  He added that it is possible for entire rocket fuel tanks to survive the trip down to the ground: “If they’re weakened, you touch them, they blow up.”

I assume quotes are taken out of context by the article author. But that last quote appears pretty idiotic. I would hope that an executive director had more nous (technical and PR).

[dahart]

> The agency also said that, before the test flight launched, it required SpaceX to map out “hazard areas sufficient to ensure that the probability of casualty to a member of the public on land or on board a maritime vessel does not exceed one in one million.”

The way this is worded makes it sound like it could be a one in a million chance separately for every individual. So for example if the chance is exactly one in a million per person, then the probability of someone in a town of 1000 people dying would be one in a thousand, and the statistical expectation of having a city of 1M people in the “Debris Response Area” is that one person would die.

I hope my reading is wrong. Can someone correct me - is the rule that the total probability of any 1 person in total dying is 1:1000000 or less, or is it really per-person? For context about why 1:1000000 per person is pretty bad, that’s almost as risky as skydiving (1:370000 per jump) and much riskier than driving in a car.

I feel like I’m okay with “rapid iterative development” when the company assumes any and all risks, and takes responsibility for any & all failures. It seems to be crossing a line if the risks are externalized to the public & national agencies, especially when the risks aren’t fully communicated or when veto choice is not given to everyone involved, right?

[binoct]

It’s common in this type of statement for “A member of the public” to refer to any person rather than just one person.

[cwillu]

Your reading is wrong.

[michaelteter]

CNNs new paywall essentially locks up Firefox on iOS.

Once their paywall pops up, I cannot do anything with the app except swipe left to go back. The Firefox menu is inaccessible as are any other features of the browser.

This is the most hostile UI I have seen in years; and I will quickly learn to never click any CNN link.

[Y_Y]

I would also blame Firefox (or underlying Safari) for this. The browser shouldn't cede control to the page, even things like modifying the right-click menu are iffy and should be easy to override.

[ericrallen]

You can replace the `www.` in the URL with `lite.` to get the text-only version[0] which has no ads, no paywall, and no images.

Not sure if it will continue to work for the paywalled articles, but it’s a much more pleasant reading experience if you do find a CNN article you want to read.

[0]: https://lite.cnn.com/2025/01/30/science/spacex-starship-expl...

[walrus01]

Page works perfectly fine with Firefox on Android, with ublock origin, which also seems to strip out the paywall

[seltzered_]

Related: a long podcast talking about the issues with starship locally: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/32-spacex-wastewater-l... (from https://deceleration.news/podcast/ ) , also https://deceleration.news/spacex-is-colonizing-south-texas-e...

[627467]

So many words to say: spaceX clean up your sh*t. It's fair ask. But it's also spreading "concerns" with little justification to do reputational damage to a public figure.

[sebazzz]

> “I just never have seen colors like that in the sky,” said Lori Kaine, a resident of Providenciales, the main island of the Turks and Caicos archipelago. “At first, I thought it was an actual plane that had exploded.”

Starship broke up in beautiful rainbow.

[PicassoCTs]

Souvenirs- get your piece of starship now

[gangstead]

Seriously. I met a guy on Hwy 4 in front of the Starship launch pad that was selling found bits out of his truck. He was asking a couple thousand dollars for a whole TPS tile. I'd buy a tile to help pay for the cleanup.

[justinclift]

No mention of visitors from foreign adversaries doing a bit of beach combing?

[wslh]

I imagine SpaceX will clean the debris as much as possible. No pun intended.

[dismalpedigree]

Since when is CNN paywalled?!?

[reaperducer]

Since when is CNN paywalled?!?

Recently. There's been a few articles in the newspaper lately about CNN having a new guy in charge.

From memory: he wants to follow the New York Times/Washington Post model of news delivery -- which as much as people on HN hate -- seems to be working, financially speaking.

To that end, he's putting CNN news behind a paywall, firing 200 TV journalists, and hiring 200 digital people.

He's also pushing for more of CNN's video to be shot vertically.

[gosub100]

This is hilarious. I can't think of a dumber move.

[exabrial]

This is hilariously common, but because SpaceX is involved, the media spotlight is centered on it.

(No other opinions implied or denied btw, just my observation)

[diggan]

> This is hilariously common

Falling debris from space is common, it seems (NASA says "1 piece per day" on average), but they tend to burn up upon re-entry. Falling debris causing any sort of damage seems to be relatively uncommon, unless I've gotten a lot worse at searching for information.

What numbers are you looking at that makes it seem like it's "hilariously common"?

[ryanackley]

I'm gonna disagree and say that rocket debris from exploded launches is not "hilariously common" without some citation.

The case could be made that it's similar to other debris that washes up on most beaches every day though.

[benreesman]

They got Capone on tax evasion. I don’t really care what they get Elon on as long as it’s true.

[rob74]

As the article mentions, because Starship is being launched from Texas, it overflies inhabited areas. If it were launched from Cape Canaveral, it wouldn't - and debris falling into the ocean gathers much less attention than debris falling in someone's back yard...