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Comment by Avshalom | Hacker News Reader

maybe but the water deluge system seems to drain directly into protected US waters

https://blog.esghound.com/i/135551935/spacexs-permitting-woe...

This is this guy's opinion, it may or may not be a valid interpretation. SpaceX is by far the world's largest operator of space launch deluge systems and other than south texas operates 3 coastal pads, with dozens of launches per year...each.

In this case, a retention pond and collection system does exist. However, when the system is starting and stopping there is overspray outside of the launch area that doesn't get collected. This water is potable and ambient temperature though.

those other three sites were built by the US government though, SpaceX operates them.

SpaceX had to rework the business end of the deluge systems at LC39A and likely also at the other pads when they were rebuilt to launch the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy.

If it weren't for the salt, I'd expect them be using locally sourced water. They are not deliberately adding any contaminants to the water, just heating it with flames from burning methane. It should be relatively harmless, but we'll see if there's a show stopper soon.

At a minimum there’s probably also going to be soot, particles of burned engine metals, and trace impurities from the fuel. Protected land isn’t the place you normally go dumping _anything_.

ATV's also leave those things, and they're allowed in the area.

I can’t comment on the comparability of air emissions to water emissions for this environment. Just pointing out that it’s more than pure methane combustion byproducts.

Hot water is a huge environmental hazard.

So is water with unknown contamination.

Hot water is a huge environmental hazard? Riiiight. Maybe from a nuclear power station. Not from this.

Get an aquarium, and pour in some boiling hot water into it. Let me know how many creatures survive.

Also USA news from literally just few weeks ago - https://apnews.com/article/florida-ocean-heat-climate-coral-...

Environments are much more fragile than you think.

SpaceX isn't pouring boiling water into an aquarium.

Get a lake. Pour some lukewarm water into it. Let me know how many creatures survive.

> Also USA news from literally just few weeks ago

That is the entire ocean heating up. I think you're getting a bit confused about the thermodynamics.

Even few degrees can mess with the environment. So yes, lukewarm water can totally mess with a lake ecosystem, if you happen to pour it in the right place. Will it kill the whole lake? No. But life that happens to be at the spot where you poured the water? Dumping chemicals is also fine, as long as they aren’t strong enough to kill everything in the lake?

And spacex launch site is literally surrounded by protected lands, that were there long before their site. Will spacex kill some protected life nearby? We don’t know. But let’s not pretend that dumping hot water is safe.

And that news is about parts near Florida reaching reef threatening levels. Based on your reasoning it’s fine, as only reefs near Florida were impacted, ocean is fine, so what’s the big deal, right?

It’s really stunning to me, that spacex fans, whose mission is to basically “safe humanity” care so little about the environment, that you know, humanity needs to live.

> Will it kill the whole lake? No. But life that happens to be at the spot where you poured the water?

Unless it's very hot (like over 50C) I doubt that would be affected much, and even if it is, so what? I don't think the goal is zero deaths. A few insects and some algae dying does not matter.

The main thing to prevent would be toxic chemicals getting into the environment because unlike hot water they can have long term effects.

> care so little about the environment

I care about things that actually affect the environment. If you cared so much about it you'd spend more time worrying about actual issues.

> Based on your reasoning it’s fine, as only reefs near Florida were impacted, ocean is fine, so what’s the big deal, right?

Ok you really don't understand the scales involved here. Go and look up how much energy is involved in heating the Florida ocean by one degree, and compare that to the energy heating all the water from the deluge system by 100C. It's 1.3 million litres apparently.

> I doubt that would be affected much, and even if it is, so what? I don't think the goal is zero deaths

So thank you for finally agreeing. Hot water is dangerous.

No one says goal is zero deaths. But brushing over it, "oh, just some things will die" especially if you're talking about wildlife preserve is oil baron type of argument.

> I care about things that actually affect the environment. If you cared so much about it you'd spend more time worrying about actual issues.

You care about things that affect part of the environment you care about, right? Other environments - that's their problem? You know that EPA considers heated water a hazard, right?

> Ok you really don't understand the scales involved here. Go and look up how much energy is involved in heating the Florida ocean by one degree, and compare that to the energy heating all the water from the deluge system by 100C. It's 1.3 million litres apparently.

I don't believe you argue in good faith, if you don't understand why I brought this example, and try to make it sounds, that unless spacex heats the water to 100C, then it's ok. Bye, it's not worth my time.

Is that a problem? It's a kerosene engine, there's nothing harmful in the exhaust.

And if there was something in the exhaust (there isn't) it goes in the air and lands on that area anyway.

Starship runs on methane and oxygen, but same deal.

They use different engines because there are no petrochemicals on Mars, but there is CO2 and H2O, so you can produce CH4 and O2 locally if you have a power source (presumably solar or RTG).

Also methane burns cleaner, which helpful when you want to launch a rocket multiple times per day. Performance is pretty great too.

Its cheaper too.

Won't they have the same launch problem on Mars with their engines blasting debris everywhere? I guess a smaller gravity well means less thrust, but it still is a lot of thrust.

Yes. This is an active area of research. In general they want to have a ship that is pretty resilient. On Mars your T/W ratio is gone be really good and with no atmosphere the ship will take of quickly.

However this is a problem that needs more study, the are various projects on how to quickly make a functional launch pad.

They only plan to send the second stage to Mars [1]

[1] To Mars and back diagram: https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/

Same problem on the moon.

So far, there has not been public information about what they're going to do about it.

A render of the moon landing Starship showed engines higher up that have been speculated to be used for landing and lunch to reduce the problem.

> Same problem on the moon

You need a lot less thrust to get off the Moon’s surface. That probably puts the problem back into a familiar envelope.

Releasing heated water over a certain temp can be considered a pollutant.

It's not likely to burn perfectly, and the law treats air pollution and water pollution differently.

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