SpaceX’s Starship Launch Dust That Covered Cars Wasn’t Concrete Says Research
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The dust from SpaceX's Starship launch that residents of Port Isabel were showered with in April might just have been sand from the beach, according to fresh analysis. The first Starship orbital test flight was quite an event - stunning observers with the scale of the rocket that successfully flew on its first test flight attempt and shocking them due to the damage left to the launchpad and the dust that fell on nearby Port Isabel in the aftermath.
Now, it appears as if residents of Port Isabel might have encountered sand from the beach instead of chunks of concrete and Fondag from the launch pad shows a spectral analysis of the dust samples.
Dr. Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, ran the analysis of the dust samples from Port Isabel. He has decades of experience in space flight, and has previously researched debris resulting from the launch of NASA's Space Shuttle. Before joining the University of Central Florida in 2014, he worked at NASA for nearly three decades starting from 1985.
His initial spectral analysis of the dust that covered cars in Port Isabel shows that it did not contain elements of the concrete and Fondag that rained down on the beach close to the launch site. Fondag is a special form of concrete that is known for its high strength and durability. According to SpaceX's chief Mr. Elon Musk, his firm had bet on the Fondag being able to withstand the massive forces from the world's rocket launch at the time of launch, but SpaceX was proven wrong as the concrete disintegrated instead.
According to Dr. Metgzer, neither the dust's
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