this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
1030 points (98.5% liked)

News

22877 readers
4621 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Elon sucks, but for the same amount of money, NASA can either launch 150 tons of science missions 1 per year on SLS, or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.

Maybe the latter is like, bad for the planet?

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/state/2024/06/28/spacex-is-destroying-earths-ozone-layer-elon-musk-new-study/74171065007/

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca -3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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....

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What exactly do you think SpaceX is regularly launching into space? Because it isn't Starship.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 -2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

You have literally said that nothing anyone does at SpaceX is worthy of praise and complained that people praise SpaceX's genuine accomplishments.

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

But they're not, they're slightly slowing it's rate of recovery. This is not a problem on the scale of CFCs that actually destroyed the ozone layer, both in terms of damage being done and potential scale it can grow to (4000 satellites vs millions and millions of refrigerators and freezers), and it's one that we literally just discovered now and have literally only started trying to address now.

Doing new things will have unexpected results and won't be perfect the first try. News at 11. You wanna demonize the engineers who try and build new things for not having them 100% perfect the first time, then you're free to be a Mennonite and separate yourself from all of t chbogy and modern society's benefits too.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You have literally said that nothing anyone does at SpaceX is worthy of praise and complained that people praise SpaceX’s genuine accomplishments.

Literally? Please quote me.

But they’re not, they’re slightly slowing it’s rate of recovery.

Please do show a study that rivals the University of Southern California which claims the exact opposite.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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....

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They are literally monitoring it and telling us. You just don't like what you're being told.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It was a rhetorical question.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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/

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Lol I know. Then you brought up their methane missions.

Your 'bashing everything remotely associated with a villain' is just as flawed as people's hero worship. You see company's as their CEO, I see them as a large collection of workers.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Good thing that's not what I'm doing then.