I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

Prof. Sam Lawler

WELL I just looked at the cute little prairie newsletter in my inbox from The Flatlander https://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!

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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??

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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

Prof. Sam Lawler

Wait wait wait wait... a piece of the SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk that landed in North Carolina last week actually hit someone's house?! https://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-men-find-suspected-space-debris-same/story?id=110809039

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

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: https://www.joshuasokol.com/)

Prof. Sam Lawler

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...

Prof. Sam Lawler

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).

Prof. Sam Lawler

The space junk pick up will be by:

Prof. Sam Lawler

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.

Prof. Sam Lawler

If I bring donuts for the reporters coming to watch SpaceX pick up the space junk today, should I give any to the SpaceX people?

Prof. Sam Lawler

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...)

Prof. Sam Lawler

IT WAS A UHAUL

I CANNOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP