SpaceX rocket debris strikes the Moon, punching a new crater near Einstein Crater

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The space industry treats the sky as a place to dump what it no longer wants. We must develop a new model of accountability

On 5 August, a piece of a derelict SpaceX rocket traveling at 5,400 miles an hour met with the moon and punched a fresh hole into it near Einstein Crater . Astronomers were thrilled. The European Southern Observatory caught sodium and lithium flaring in the debris plume and called it a bonus. The media called it a light show. Nobody was physically hurt, so nobody is responsible, and within a week the story was gone.

I have spent 20 years tracking the junk humanity leaves behind in space for a living, and I want to tell you plainly what that crater actually is: a receipt. It’s what you get when an entire industry treats the sky, and now the moon, as a place to dump what it no longer wants, and calls the dumping “normal operations” or “space exploration”.

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