By Malcolm Strachan

I PROMISED a return to local issues last week after the Ukraine-US debacle – and yet then we see an interruption from space!

Elon Musk’s latest test flight for his Starship vehicle ended in an explosion over The Bahamas, raining debris down from the skies.

If we needed a clear demonstration of the potential risks of allowing SpaceX to land rocket boosters in our waters, here it was.

Sure, it’s a different vehicle – a much bigger vehicle – but it is an indication of what we need to be aware of.

More worrying still was the shockingly weak response from the government.

Little to no guidance was immediately available for what to do if you encountered debris from the Starship – with the government finally issuing a statement late at night that read like a whitewash rather than a demonstration of being on top of the situation.

Indeed, it almost read like the government was more concerned about SpaceX than the Bahamian people.

The statement was full of deflection. After noting the loss of contact with the spacecraft and the sight of debris “observed streaming over The Bahamas”, it said: “The Bahamas has no regulatory authority under The Bahamas’ Civil Aviation (Space Flight and Re-Entry) Regulations, 2025 over SpaceX’s Starship operations and this incident is not part of The Bahamas’ existing relationship with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 programme, which involves controlled booster landings in Bahamian waters following launches from Kennedy Space in Florida. The FAA issues the launch licence for Starship exercises.”

You can safely read that section as “hey, we didn’t have anything to do with it”.

It went on to note that a notice to mariners was issued as required by treaty (although that notice was not sent out to the regular media). It then said that debris “fell into our airspace in the Southern Bahamas”.

This prompted “SpaceX contingency measures, which includes immediate and continual communication with Bahamian officials”.

The statement said SpaceX “has assured the government” that the debris contained no toxic materials, and no significant impact on marine life or water quality is expected.

Oh, well, if SpaceX says their rocket that blew up in our skies is not a risk, that must be true. I’m sure we can accept the word of all other potential polluters just the same.

The only trouble with that is this is not SpaceX’s first explosion to deal with – it’s not even the first one this year. A month ago, ahead of the first landing in The Bahamas of the Falcon booster, I wrote about the explosion that took place on January 16 over the Turks and Caicos Islands.

That explosion too could be seen from The Bahamas – but it was the Turks and Caicos where the debris rained down.

People found debris in the streets, on the beach – one car was struck by the falling debris.

At the time, SpaceX warned people not to touch the debris, and to contact SpaceX about it instead.

This was the exact same vehicle as exploded over The Bahamas – yet Turks and Caicos gets a warning not to touch the debris, and we get told that the debris is not toxic and will not cause any impact to our waters.

The concern over the debris in Turks and Caicos was that some parts of fuel tanks could be unstable and potentially blow up – or that some chemicals might remain on the debris. So what is different now?

At the time last month, I asked: “Should there be a ‘rapid disassembly’ and our waters be filled with fuel and debris, what will the cost of clean-up be?”

No answer was given at the time – and I take no pleasure at having asked the question only to see the event come to pass.

The government went on in its statement to “emphasise that this Starship is not a part of The Bahamas’ Falcon 9 programme”.

So what? There is not one extra safety procedure for the Falcon landings that is not being conducted for the Starship programme, is there? Just because it is one space vehicle blowing up and not the other, they are both from the same company.

And it is not as if the Falcon 9 programme is without mishaps. This very month, one of the boosters was lost after landing.

On March 2, a booster landed on the same dropship that caught the booster in the Bahamian landing, only to topple over after touching down.

During its flight, it suffered a fuel leak that triggered a fire.

The director of NASA science missions at SpaceX, Julianna Scheiman, said a fire broke out less than a minute after landing.

She said: “That fire eventually resulted in the deterioration of the structural integrity of the landing leg in that booster and toppled over.”

Engineers at SpaceX were still trying to identify the source of the leak – with SpaceX vice president of build and reliability Bill Gerstenmaier saying: “It’s pretty difficult to determine what was cause and what was effect from the fire. The fire was pretty extensive. It melted a lot of aluminium components, so it’s difficult to see.”

The leak had begun after liftoff – but only caught on fire on touchdown having had no oxygen in the compartment in the air.

So there has been a succession of incidents – and yet we do not seem to be striking a firm tone in our response.

The government went on to say SpaceX teams would be in The Bahamas “to conduct full debris recovery and cleanup efforts”, observed by Bahamian agencies. The statements said the government “will continue to monitor the situation to ensure proper recovery actions are carried out”.

No word of fines. No call for people to report debris as it is found. We get a sterner response when a cruise ship discharges waste in the sea.

Still, perhaps I should not complain too much. A fire at a scrap yard sent clouds of smoke containing goodness knows what across New Providence on Saturday – and there was even less of a response from the government by the time I sat down to write this article.

We talk a lot about being custodians of the environment. It would be nice if we lived up to our words.