Der Feuerball der SpaceX-Rakete ist mit einer markanten Wolke aus Lithiumatomen in der oberen Atmosphäre verbunden und markiert den ersten direkten Nachweis einer Verschmutzung durch wieder in die Erdatmosphäre eindringenden Weltraummüll.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd8z4eqlxno
10 Kommentare
Remember when we thought of Elon Musk as a Tony Stark type?
.. then we found out he was like combining Justin Hammer with Red Skull.
2012: „I’ll put the first man on Mars!“
2026: „I invented a new form of pollution!“
The difference?
$500,000,000,000+ richer in 2026 than 2012
😑
Mining the Lithium from deep within the Earth, burning it into the atmosphere. Appalling.
Is this creating more or less pollution than a coal plant operating for an hour? I’m no Musk fan but I am tired of the media focusing on the smallest sources of pollution and giving a free pass to the biggest ones.
Can we get the conspiracy theorists who are hamming on about chemtrails to believe that Elon Musk is using Space X to douse the population with lithium to make them docile so they don’t rise up against the Oligarchs?
Externalities. Since he’s leaving this rock, what does he care?
Fine him like Three Mile Island style and make him clean it up
Eh, I’m not sure this is accurate. I remember watching Mir de-orbit in 2001. They certainly detected that debris entering earth’s atmosphere… On national fucking TV.
And there’s no doubt pollutants used in mirs construction. While much of it was decommissioned, the base building materials would have included lead and asbestos at the least.
This is noteworthy, because if we start launching really large number of rockets this could be a problem. But the immediate concern is small. The per a rocket pollution this way is pretty small.
it to mention a few starships have failed high up, releasing a couple thousands tons of methane into the upper atmosphere each time