The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

ON January 16 this year, just after sunset, the skies lit up in flames over parts of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Pictures and video soon started whizzing around social media showing streaks of fire and debris across the early evening sky.

Was it a meteor? No. Aliens? Definitely not. It was in fact the SpaceX Starship. You could say it exploded – with typical understatement, the company called it a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.

The cause, according to preliminary reports, was leaking fuel that built up pressure in the cavity above the engine firewall. That burst into flames, soon after so did the rest of the craft.

Flights near the falling debris had to be diverted, according to the Federal Aviation Authority, and after the videos of the shooting stars of the rocket’s remnants stopped circulating, soon came the pictures of piles of debris found in the Turks and Caicos from the “disassembly”.

A resident there told CNN of the boom she heard even from inside, while one of the dogs panicked.

Outside next morning, she found broken hexagon tiles that were probably part of the Starship’s heat shield across the roadway and the nearby beach. Other parts were floating in the ocean.

No one was harmed, and only one incident of property damage was reported – a car that was struck - but the explosion has raised questions.

A “Debris Response Area” was set up by the FAA, and debris was reportedly found all over the islands according to the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund.

It would be a one in a million chance to be hit by the debris though, right? Well, as it turns out that is the probability that is used. The FAA says SpaceX has to map out the “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… No Caribbean islands, including Turks and Caicos, exceeded this threshold.”

For their part, SpaceX on its website urged people to refrain from touching debris, and to contact SpaceX about it instead.

By the time people found out about that, plenty had picked up and piled up the debris. No specific nature of the possible damage was spelled out – leaving people to wonder what the impact would be if they didn’t pick it up and just left it there in the environment.

The danger lies in any possible chemicals that might remain on the debris – or even the risk of some parts of fuel tanks that could be unstable and potentially blow up. It is unlikely, but not worth the risk.

Environmental campaigners in the Turks and Caicos meanwhile were unaware of efforts to evaluate the environmental footprint from the explosion.

Elon Musk, meanwhile, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the explosion was “barely a bump in the road” in his plans to fly people to Mars on board more Starships.

Overlooked in the focus on the explosion was a part of the mission that was a success.

One of the most eyecatching part of the SpaceX missions has been the landing of the boosters used to propel the vehicle skywards.

On the mission in question, that happened just as planned, the booster rocket being caught in its cradle just as planned.

And now SpaceX is coming our way, here in The Bahamas, for just such a landing.

On February 17, off the coast of The Exumas, the Falcon 9 booster rocket will come down from the skies and land, announced with much fanfare by Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper.

Mr Cooper also holds the title of Minister of Tourism, and was eager to tout the positive side of what this might mean for The Bahamas, putting us in view of the global spotlight.

His ministry said that senior officials “are fully engaged to ensure all safety, regulatory, and operational measures are in place for the scheduled landing. Every effort is being made to facilitate this historic event while maintaining the highest standards”.

Details about things such as environment impact assessments were not forthcoming.

Back when the possibility of such a landing, environmentalists raised concerns. Among them was Joe Darville, as persistent a voice in protecting The Bahamas as you will find. After the date of the landing was announced, he repeated the same concerns.

He does not overstate the case, saying that in the past there have not been catastrophic results from rockets landing in the ocean, but wanting to be sure that caution will be exercised.

Mr Darville talked of the risk to wildlife, particularly birds, and said that the public should, no… must be informed of any risks.

All perfectly valid concerns, very reasonably expressed.

A previous explosion for Starship in 2023, the first launch in fact, destroyed not just the rocket, but also the launchpad. Debris went flying through the air to land as much as six miles away.

After that incident, the deputy vice president of conservation programmes at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) in the US, Sarah Gaines Barmeyer, said: “It’s hard to watch these huge explosions. The amount of environmental destruction they cause with the debris, and the potential for fires, air and water pollution – we would like to see more security and testing before we’re launching spaceships near protected areas.”

Look across to Russia and the effects of space travel at its Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, the world’s first spaceport, and you will find the surrounding area badly affected by carcinogenic fuel.

The Bahamas government has yet to outline the monitoring that will be carried out before and after the launch to ensure the protection of the environment – nor indeed have we learned, to put it bluntly, what is in it for us?

A foreign company in pursuit of goals that have nothing to do with our nation’s goals wants to use our environment to park their rockets in – so other than some photo opportunities and a chance to get an up-close look at some frontline science, how do we benefit?

Will this be repeat business, or is this one and done? How much are we being paid to accommodate this?

Should there be a “rapid disassembly” and our waters be filled with fuel and debris, what will the cost of clean-up be? Will it affect the resources we have been touting as important for climate change carbon credits? What will be the impact of that?

And what will it look like as we say to others to cut emissions while welcoming a rocket landing on our literal doorstep?

All of this is not to say we should not be part of the march of scientific progress – but we’d better be sure what we’re getting out of the deal. If the deal’s not good enough, go park your rocket elsewhere.