This article really covers a lot of the interesting grey areas of international law and satellites dropping on people: cbc.ca/news/science/space-debr…

And Jonathan McDowell hinted that a piece of one of the other Dragon Trunks that fell near Colorado Springs has been recovered. So that means giant pieces of debris have been found for 4 out of 5 reentries that were possible to recover.

SpaceX, you suck. Stop dropping giant space junk pieces on us. Maybe stop making space junk, period?!

Hey Calgary! I'll be live on QR Calgary/630 CHED radio at 11:30 MDT/CST today talking about space junk (I'm going to set an alarm for myself right now so I don't forget)

And Global News interviewed me and the farmer who found the debris a few days ago and that story is up now: globalnews.ca/news/10523044/sa…

I talked to the farmer over the weekend and he said he called our MP who called him right back within 30 minutes! I called him over the weekend and he hasn't called yet... will he call me later?

Space junk falling on Saskatchewan farmland prompts question: who’s liable?

Barry Sawchuk farms with his three sons near Ituna, close to Regina, and was checking out the moisture in his fields at the end of April when he found the item.

^{Sean Previl (Global News)}

Since the Outer Space Treaty that covers space junk is a nation-to-nation treaty, that could be a pretty interesting way to assert some First Nation sovereignty if any SpaceX pieces are found on First Nation land...

I just cold-called the band offices of 2 First Nations that own reserve land right near where the space junk was found and offered to help make connections if anyone finds space junk on their land.

Time for audience participation: have any of you seen any news articles about the SpaceX pieces in Saskatchewan or North Carolina where SpaceX has publicly admitted that it's theirs? Or even responded to a journalist in any way at all? I think they still haven't publicly admitted it

(Although I saw a printout of the email from SpaceX to the farmer, so they have certainly admitted it to him)

Oops apparently the radio show I just got interviewed for was in Edmonton, not Calgary. Hi Edmonton! I was maybe a little pessimistic on that interview, sorry, especially when I ended with "Clear skies... and look out for falling space junk!"

I'll be on another radio show for 900 CHML in Hamilton at 3:20 EDT. I'll try to make sure I'm in a less darkly sarcastic mood...

Got an email from my MP's office saying they'll forward the email on to the actual MP to read. So... maybe I'll have to talk to him today haha.

Now I'm trying to figure out an email chain with someone in the Canadian gov't who actually wants to come out here and look for debris, but they email only in bureaucrat-ese so I'm not even sure exactly what they're asking or when they might come or who to ask for help... This could be very interesting, or really frustrating and weird, not sure...

WELL I just looked at the cute little prairie newsletter in my inbox from The Flatlander theflatlander.ca/ and uh... that's me in the picture for story number 2, despite me not having been interviewed by them.

Time for bed!

Turns out I've had a giant misunderstanding with someone who's been talking about going out to find pieces and map out the debris field... I thought they were planning to come here, but they were actually asking me to price out my "university research services" doing the fieldwork. My university doesn't have magical "research services" to do fieldwork, and I'm the only astronomer, so it would just be ME.

That is...a lot to ask me to do, especially since I'm not trained for this...sigh.

I talked to Barry again this morning. He wasn't able to convince SpaceX to give him any more than $5k, but he convinced them to give $5k per piece, and he+family found 3. They are supposedly coming to pick it up from him early next week (but that's what he said last weekend when I talked to him, so who knows... I'd imagine this is a cross-border logistical nightmare and I'm glad SpaceX has to deal with that).

Apparently SpaceX made him write them an official invoice??

He said his whole payment will go to the Ituna skating rink. He was hoping for more, but I guess this is all he's going to get from a company owned by a fucking BILLIONAIRE.

While there are many things I'd rather raise money for, I'm quite tempted to start a fundraiser for the Ituna skating rink, just to show that communties are way better than billionaires... hmmm I'll have to think more about this.

My MP didn't call me back, CSA says local law enforcement should deal with it, and I even called the "Saskatchewan Poachers and Polluters" hotline and the Ministry of Environment yesterday and neither of them wanted to touch this.... so I still have no idea what people are supposed to do when they find space junk.

It's going to become a LOT more common to find space junk, and I sure hope the answer isn't "just wait for SpaceX to track you down," because that seems to be the answer right now.

One aspect of this story I haven't really let myself get angry about until just now: this particular SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk that dropped garbage on Sask. was from the Axiom 3 "private astronaut mission."

"Private astronaut" = billionaire space tourist.

Billionaires own companies that other billionaires pay for joy rides that drop potentially lethal garbage on us from orbit. This is fine.

I already knew billionaires are horrible, but this particular situation really lays it out starkly.

Thanks to @markmccaughrean for correcting my assumptions! I guess "private astronaut" really is the correct terminology here - they were all trained astronauts with their tickets paid by their government or employers (I guess other Axiom missions were more for space tourists?) Still kind of weird.

And it would still be great if SpaceX *and* Axiom would publicly admit they made a big engineering mistake and state they will fix it, rather than just giving farmers piddly little private payments.

Anybody remember that documentary filmmaker who brought a crew out here back in Feb? His whole film "Shifting Baselines" is effectively about how recklessly dangerous SpaceX is.

The Sask space junk fell about 30 km away from where the film crew and I went to access Bortle 2 dark skies, only a couple weeks later.

So, I just chatted with him again! Editing is almost done on his documentary, but he thought he could squeeze in a bit of a recording of me talking about space junk for an epilogue.

I talked to the farmer again and apparently SpaceX is coming on Thursday to pick up the space junk. He said he'd be happy to host some journalists at his farm to record the hand-off and keep SpaceX honest.

So, I just emailed a large fraction of the local journalists who have interviewed me about this to give them a heads-up 😈

The farmer called me earlier today to let me know SpaceX won't be coming up until next week (exact date unknown).

Again... I cannot even imagine what a bureaucratic disaster it must be to take pieces of an American private company's spacecraft (which I recently learned are legally considered to be "munitions" by the US gov't) that fell in another country across an international land border.

HA HA HA HA good luck to whichever poor SpaceX employee drew the short straw on that job.

Most hilariously absurd email I've received related to space junk so far:

Apparently I should pay some enterprising web-scraping company $200 for a plaque commemorating the incredible moment that an article from the Canadian Press with quotes from me was reprinted by the Hamilton Spectator.

Truly a historic moment worthy of a plaque.

I just got to chat with Josh Sokol about space junk and all other aspects of satellite pollution. He's an amazing writer and currently working on a book about how we're collectively losing the night sky. He talked to my astro 101 class years ago about being a science writer, and we've chatted a lot about satellite pollution.

Everything he writes is totally amazing, I'm really excited about his book (seriously, his articles are fantastic, read some of his writing here: joshuasokol.com/)

The farmer just called to let me know that SpaceX is coming to get the junk pieces from him tomorrow morning!

Time to email a bunch of reporters again! And decide if it's worth going up there myself to watch. Hmmm...

Already got 3 positive replies from journalists. YES. Thank you, journalists, for helping keep giant companies accountable! This could be fun!

(Or maybe SpaceX will cancel again. Who knows).

• low-level SpaceX employee/rented Uhaul (25%, 147 votes)
• high-level SpaceX employee/Cybertruck (1%, 10 votes)
• very confused professional courier service (39%, 232 votes)
• some local random hired dude/tractor (33%, 192 votes)

Well, I didn't get any of the "real" work I had planned done today, but there are journalists from at LEAST 6 different news outlets coming to watch SpaceX pick up their space garbage from that farm near Ituna, so I feel like I accomplished something useful.

I am *very* much looking forward to watching some poor SpaceX employee walk in to a media circus that I created for them on a remote farm. Oh gosh this is delightful.

• Yes (0 votes)
• No (0 votes)
• Only if they apologize for dropping junk on us (0 votes)

Required apology is the clear frontrunner already. I can imagine how hilarious this will be... "Ok, guys, I have some delicious donuts here, but do you have something you want to say first? Perhaps say it to the TV camera over there?"

(But yes, odds are they are low-level SpaceX employees who drew the short straw and had to travel to the middle of nowhere to pick up garbage, I probably am not mean enough to withhold donuts. But we'll see how obnoxiously tech-bro they are in person...)

IT WAS A UHAUL

I CANNOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP

THAT WAS INCREDIBLE

ok I'll try to tone down the all caps but I'm really excited

That was so much better than I was even imagining...now I'm sitting in a library so maybe I can write it all out and share some photos. WOW.

There were journalists from Global News Regina, CBC Saskatchewan, 980 CJME, CTV Regina, the Canadian Press, CTV National, and the Ituna Times

I brought donuts and set them up on the back of some giant farm truck. It felt like a party!

Barry had a whole bunch of family and neighbours there, and all the reporters were all excited and chatting.

I had passed a Uhaul pulled over on the side of the dirt road to the farm and I thought that had to be the SpaceX people. It's so unlikely anyone else would have a Uhaul way out in the middle of nowhere like that.

We all chatted and waited for them to navigate the muddy road in the Uhaul.

Barry had his neighbour bring over the terrifyingly huge piece he found for a great photo op for all the journalists. That particular piece was 9 feet long, weighed 80 pounds, and was shaped like a freaking spear. It is shocking to think about that falling at terminal velocity.

I am grinning like an idiot because I was REALLY excited.

There was about 250 lbs of junk here. SpaceX has never shared how much a Crew Dragon Trunk weighs, I'd guess this is a significant fraction!

Then the Uhaul arrived! There were 2 very young, very nervous looking engineers who got out and walked over to face the throng of reporters.

I had hoped they'd actually be chatty, but of course they weren't. They wouldn't even admit they were from SpaceX at first! It wasn't until the whole pack of journalists followed them across the yard asking questions that they finally admitted they were SpaceX employees. (Thanks, journalists!!)

The reporters were amazing! They shamelessly recorded as the SpaceX guys opened up the Uhaul, put on gloves, and picked up each piece one by one to load in the back (some of the pieces required both of them working together). They kept also asking questions, which were completely ignored.

It was SO AWKWARD.

So, once they were done loading, I decided to make it even more awkward by walking into the clump of reporters with the box of donuts, invitingly open. I asked nicely if they'd like any, and that broke through the ice just a little bit. They both smiled tentatively at me.

One of the journalists behind me said "It's ok, she's not a journalist, you can trust her!"

And I said, "Nope, I'm an astronomer" and I'm pretty sure my innocent smile turned positively evil.

They did not take any donuts.

At this point, the engineers were obviously trying to escape into a side room with Barry, away from the reporters.

I quickly tried to get in my one question "How much do these trunks weigh? That info isn't public" and they smiled at me and didn't answer.

I followed along as they walked to the side door with Barry and asked if they were worried about taking it across the border. One of them looked nervously at the Uhaul, smiled nervously, and walked away. Well, I tried.

Then while they negotiated with Barry, it was time for a proper media scrum. This was pretty fun, actually, especially since I was so pumped up at this point (I was actually jumping up and down with excitement more than once as I watched reporters following the poor SpaceX dudes around). The reporters were all having a great time and happily chatting with each other. Very good vibes.

Special highlight, one of the local reporters took Astro 101 from me my first year teaching here!

Everyone filmed the Uhaul driving off once the engineers were done with their private chat with Barry, then it was time to media scrum with Barry (hats off to this guy! It took me years of practice to be comfortable with this kind of interview, and he just waltzed into it. Well done, sir! Farmers are just good at everything).

Then all the reporters gradually packed up, many writing portions of their articles on their phones while packing (impressive!), and some took a donut for the road.

So...now what?

After all that, I am really not sure if what just happened was 100% legal.

I'm not sure what Canadians are supposed to do if they find space junk.

I have a nice map of where several pieces were found (along about 50km of the projected ground track), and I'm sure more pieces will be found in the coming months/years. What are people supposed to do with them? (The SpaceX dudes did not answer that question.)

So, I'm sure this story's far from over.

But I'm SO HAPPY about how everything went today!

Journalists chasing down SpaceX employees on a grain farm in the middle of nowhere!

SpaceX maybe getting held accountable! (Well, big maybe, but I did my best here, and I'll keep fighting!)

Donuts, Uhauls, snuggly farm cats, and international law. Wow.

Well...they played Duel of the Fates just before they quoted me about SpaceX being awful on my local CBC radio station! Wowee, that was awesome. I think it's time for me to get off the computer and snuggle goats for a while.

cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/s…

THIS IS IT!! THIS IS THE BEST ONE! WATCH THIS ONE

youtube.com/watch?v=p48yz7VXMq…

They even included me trying to give them donuts and smiling evilly after saying "I'm an astronomer"

I need to give some more donuts to the Global News team. SO GOOD.

SpaceX employees visit Saskatchewan farm to collect company's fallen space junk

Pieces of a SpaceX craft landed on Barry Sawchuck's property in late February. "At the end of it all, it belonged to somebody," Sawhuck reflected. He says th...

^YouTube

It looks like maybe SpaceX has just publicly admitted (via NASA) that they have a debris problem. So much of a problem that they have set up a debris reporting hotline!! (I am sooo tempted to call it - but I'm sure they wouldn't answer any of my questions either)

I tried searching for this statement from NASA but the only source seems to be a screenshot of text on twitter (that a journalist sent me)

(...could it be a prank? That would be a *hilarious* prank)

Just put on my Professor Sweater (TM) to do a quick CBC interview about Starlink reentries destroying the ozone layer. I made sure to heavily reference the giant pieces of SpaceX debris that landed near me as evidence that they need better oversight and regulation.

I still don't know if this "offiical NASA statement" twitter screenshot thing is real or not, and none of my space policy friends know either! This is... so weird.

The reporter emailed me back! It's a screenshot of an email that NASA public affairs sent to him.

So, except for the Australia junk in 2022, SpaceX has still not publicly admitted to any of the Crew Dragon trunk debris falls. But apparently NASA thinks they have admitted to all of it. INTERESTING.

Hey, finally made it into an American news story! So far, SpaceX has not contacted the people in North Carolina who found SpaceX debris. Interesting. I hope that news stories like this will push them to take some responsibility here!

wlos.com/news/local/professor-…

Canadian rofessor: SpaceX's lack of accountability for space debris 'frustrating'

The WNC mountains aren't the only places where debris from space has fallen. A professor from Canada said SpaceX's lack of accountability is "frustrating."

^WLOS

This is the best way possible to (maybe?) end this epic thread!

Here is the story of the Saskatchewan SpaceX debris fall, written by me, published by Scientific American: scientificamerican.com/article…

Many of you got to see this story unfold in real-time toots, but this is the whole thing, plus some extra science context. Extra special thank you to @NicoleCRust and @laurahelmuth for encouraging me to pitch the story to SciAm! I am so excited to publish in a magazine I read all the time as a kid.

When Space Junk Fell on My Neighbor’s Farm, the Law Had Few Answers for Us

A Saskatchewan farmer’s near miss with potentially lethal debris falling from orbit highlights the skyrocketing risks and murky politics of space junk

^{Scientific American}

...of course, it would sure be nice to publish an article in Scientific American about my actual research, rather than the garbage that gets in the way of my research. It's ok though, I'm glad to get to share this bizarre story, and the warnings it presents us.

I hope that it will make a few people think a bit harder about how we as a species are currently using outer space, and how we need to do a *much* better job on that.

Further reading suggestion: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/b…

Astrotopia

A revealing look at the parallel mythologies behind the colonization of Earth and space—and a bold vision for a more equitable, responsible future both on and beyond our planet.

^{University of Chicago Press}

This video by @skrishna includes a lot of really detailed spaceflight context (both law and spacecraft design, as well as SpaceX's operating practices) which is really helpful for understanding the whole debris-fall situation I described in my SciAm article above.

If you liked my article, give this a watch!

youtu.be/Ndqzl6zUw4Q

Interesting. I guess all the negative press from SpaceX dumping large pieces of garbage on Saskatchewan did actually make a difference? spacenews.com/spacex-to-move-d…

Of course, they still plan to dump large pieces of garbage upon reentry (plus huge amounts of atmospheric pollution on both launch and reentry), but now the garbage pieces will go directly into the ocean, far away from annoying astronomers who have lots of journalist contacts.

Sigh.

SpaceX to move Dragon splashdowns back to West Coast - SpaceNews

SpaceX will move Dragon spacecraft splashdowns from off the coast of Florida to the West Coast in 202 to reduce risks from reentering trunk debris.

^{Jeff Foust (SpaceNews)}