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.
When sending probes to Mars or other rocky bidies, NASA is very careful about biological contamination. They don’t want to seed the planet with some extremophile, or contaminate their own samples and mistakenly think it’s native life.
When SpaceX wants to go to Mars and is also doing this shit, why should we trust them to take the same care?