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.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    What makes you think the moon landings of 1960s/1970s were great achievements, but spaceflight today is not?

    probably because we literally invented digital computers for the purposes of doing it. The amount of technical construction and mathematics knowledge required to design build and manufacture the hardware of that era is lost, the space shuttle is one of the most incredible technical achievements of the US to date.

    SpaceX doesn’t even use large rocket engines because they’re hard to build and impractical, but we managed them perfectly fine in the 70s