SpaceX, the multi-billion dollar company started by Elon Musk to create reusable rockets and make it to Mars, is damaging not only our atmosphere but also the wildlife around it. The ozone is depleting very quickly from releasing chlorine and alumina right where the ozone is. Solid rocket fuel is the worst for ozone depletion. With constant launches to attempt to catch the rocket, more and more fuel is being released.
SpaceX has two main known rockets, Starship and Falcon 9. In this year alone there were roughly 117 Falcon 9 missions. One Falcon launch releases about 79,000 metric tons of CO2. This means that just with Falcon missions alone this year, 9,243,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide have been released into our atmosphere. To put it in perspective, the average American produces 16 tons of CO2 a year from everyday tasks.
So not only is it affecting CO2 levels. But it also destroys the ecosystem around the launching sites. For example “the yellow smear on the soil in the same spot that a bird’s nest lay the day before.” New York Times journalist Eric Lipton writes. ”None of the nine nests recorded by the nonprofit Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program before the launch had survived intact.”
Now some people would push past this saying that everything and everyone is already damaging the environment. But what about the staff at Spacex? At Elon Musk’s SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas, Lonnie LeBlanc and his co-workers realized they had a problem. They needed to haul foam insulation to the company’s main hangar but had no straps to fasten the cargo. LeBlanc, a fairly new employee, offered to hold down the load by sitting on it. “After the truck drove away, a gust of wind blew LeBlanc and the insulation off the trailer, slamming him headfirst into the pavement.” Reuters Journalist Marisa Taylor writes. “He was pronounced dead from head trauma at the scene.” But thats not it, thats just the most recent this year. Taylor’s article, “At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk’s rush to Mars,” goes on to note:
“they documented at least 600 injuries of SpaceX workers since 2014. Many were serious or disabling. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were ‘crushed,’ and nine with head injuries, one skull fracture, four concussions, and one traumatic brain injury. There were also five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, 12 injuries involving multiple unspecified body parts, and seven workers with eye injuries. Others were relatively minor, including more than 170 reports of strains or sprains.”
SpaceX is harmful and misleading to millions of people. The idea of the Mars mission sounds appealing, but looking into it, and finding out how the workplace is alone kills the idea. SpaceX has only one death, LeBlanc’s, but even so, there were so many ways to prevent it. SpaceX, moreover Elon Musk, should be stopped. But what is even more concerning is when someone googles “How does SpaceX endanger humans” the first thing to come up is LeBlanc’s death. When the same Google search is done with NASA instead of SpaceX. The page to come up is NASA’s website, specifically, NASA’s workplace safety PDF. If this isn’t concerning, what is? Of course, NASA has had many deaths, but none on site. All from failed in-action space missions. Ultimately, as we stand on the threshold of unprecedented change, the choices we make today will shape not only our future but the very fabric of humanity itself.
