SpaceX’s Starship created a cloud of dust and dirt in Texas – 04/23/2023 – Science

When the most powerful rocket ever built rose from its platform in Boca Chica, Texas, last Thursday (20), the launch shook the earth and raised a growing cloud of dust and debris, shaking houses and sending a shower of dirt. brown that reached an area of ​​kilometers.

In Port Isabel, ten kilometers to the northwest, at least one window shattered and residents were alarmed.

“It was terrifying,” commented Sharon Almaguer, who was at home with her 80-year-old mother at the time of the launch. She said that in previous releases she felt some tremors in her house, which is made of masonry, but “this one was on another level entirely”.

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship exploded minutes after taking off and before entering orbit. Close to the launch site, residents of Port Isabel, known for its imposing lighthouse and less than 10 miles from the Mexican border, had to clean up the mess themselves.

Virtually the entire city “ended up covered in this kind of coarse, granular sand that fell on top of everything,” said Valerie Bates, a spokeswoman for Port Isabel. Footage posted on social media shows the cars of townspeople covered in brown debris.

The owner of a fitness gym, Luis Alanis, said that one of the windows of the establishment cracked. He was at home at the time of launch and said he felt “a rumble, like a mini-earthquake”. He estimated the cost of repairing the window at $300.

Closer to the launch site, large pieces of debris were filmed flying through the air and crashing into an unoccupied car. Louis Balderas, founder of LapPadre, which films SpaceX launches, said it was common to see some debris, smoke and dust, but that the impact of Thursday’s liftoff was unlike anything he had ever seen.

“There were chunks of concrete the size of bowling balls that went flying out of the launch pad area,” he said, adding that the blast created a crater he estimated was eight meters deep.

In a statement posted on Facebook, Port Isabel City Council said Cameron County’s emergency management department confirmed that the dust “is sand and soil from close to the SpaceX launch pad thrown into the air by the force of liftoff”. A spokesman for the department said that all questions about the dust from the explosion should be directed to SpaceX.

On Thursday, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. ordered the closure of Boca Chica Beach and a section of State Highway 4 by 2 p.m. Friday “to protect public health and safety during cleanup efforts.” after an anomaly”.

Bates, the spokeswoman for Port Isabel, said that based on current information, “there is no immediate concern for the health of the population”.

Eric Roesch, an environmental compliance and risk assessment specialist who has been monitoring SpaceX’s rocket launches, said in an interview that he and others have long warned about risks to the surrounding region’s environment. But without a chemical analysis of the dust and debris, he added, it’s hard to say whether or not they were harmful to human health.

In any case, Roesch said, “the presence of dust signals to me that the impact modeling was insufficient, because this effect was not cited as a possible impact.” In June, the Federal Aviation Administration’s environmental assessment concluded that SpaceX’s orbital launch plans would not have a significant impact on the Gulf Coast region.

Roesch, who maintains the WSG Hound environmental policy blog, said he believed the dust and debris had largely come out of the giant crater formed on the rocket’s liftoff. Typically, large launch pads are built with a trench or water system that helps deflect rocket flames off the ground and dampen the impact, he explained.

“They didn’t do that,” Roesch said. “Looks like they just launched this rocket and that’s it.”

Neither SpaceX nor the FAA immediately responded Thursday night to questions about the dust and debris.

Port Isabel resident Sharon Almaguer said that while Elon Musk’s company has brought jobs to an economically struggling region, the brown grime that has covered her city serves to remind people of the environmental downsides and is a sign that things are getting better. got out of hand.

“The local population here is being sacrificed,” she said. “He [Musk] I just wanted to get that thing out there, and to hell with everyone.”

Translated by Clara Allain.