Subscribers of this blog know that I have a satellite office in-land from Cape Canaveral. While my little desk rattles from the Brightline Death Train whizzing by, I can see the endless launches from the Cape.
The days of NASA putting up a rocket a year are long gone. Space X, which I call Space Junk, goes up over twice a week. Each rocket has a dozen or so satellites. Cape Canaveral is across from the mainland. It is separated by the Indian River, a half-mile wide lagoon stretching down the coast about 150miles.
Only in the last few years has the county government started giving lip service to the health of the lagoon, contaminated by continuous development on both the mainland and the barrier island. The lip service has yet to overhaul inadequate sewer systems, and other realities. No one even mentions pollution from the space industry, which is now the growth engine of the area's economy.
There's an old blogger in a small office by the railroad tracks...
screengrab:Florida Today
Why do you call SpaceX “Space Junk”?
ReplyDeleteThey’ve made incredible advances in space flight over a time that NASA lost its purpose and even rescued NASA astronauts earlier in the year.
Their booster retrieval system is something out of science fiction books, and they will likely be the first to make a manned trip to Mars.
I don’t know where America’s space program would be today if SpaceX wasn’t around.
anon@7:44: I agree about SpaceX accomplishments.(the rescue was Boeing's bad, not NASA.) My issue is the number of satellites being launched in orbit. Between Musk's own system, and the ones he puts up for other companies and countries, it is becoming very crowded up there (not to mention satellites being launched by other countries.)
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