In general, Turks and Caicos residents have expressed disappointment in the response from SpaceX. “I’m into the launches and what (SpaceX CEO Elon) Musk is doing — but I think he should be liable for the cleanup, too,” said Amos Luker, the owner of a car rental business on Providenciales called Scooter Bob’s. “There’s not been big warnings going out whatsoever,” he added, referring to limited communication about the potentially hazardous nature of the debris. Pictured here is the coastline outside the Beaches resort on Providenciales, the main island of Turks and Caicos. robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo/FILE SpaceX did not share any information about the location of the explosion or how to handle debris on X, where the company’s account has nearly 40 million followers. The company did say in a statement on its website that people should contact SpaceX if debris is found and refrain from touching the objects. That post also noted that SpaceX believed “surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.” (Initially, the statement described debris as falling “into the Atlantic Ocean” — but the language was amended the day after the accident to remove that phrase.) In the same statement, SpaceX sought to frame the Starship flight as a milestone, saying, “success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary.” Cynthia Filo, the manager and captain of Silly Creek Water Sports in Providenciales, told CNN she has also found wreckage — a fact that she finds “unsettling for the areas that I found it in, because it’s way up in the pond area. “So it’s already come in from the ocean and gone miles inland,” Filo said. On Wednesday, she told CNN she discovered a fragment next to her house, which she said she believes may have fallen off the roof days after the incident. Zimmermann of the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund said she is aware that “a multiagency response is being planned with the key focus on cleanup.” And a recent dispatch from authorities showed that local officials met with several members of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, an arm of the United Kingdom’s Department for Transport, last week. But residents are still waiting for something to be done. “We’re just trying to put forward a plea to at least help assist us in financing the cleanup that’s being done through volunteers,” Zimmermann added. Growing frustration Kaine, who lives on Providenciales, said she began to collect detritus from Starship the day after the January 16 explosion. A view of debris on a beach in the northeast point of west Caicos, on January 26. Mathew Slattery Debris from the Starship vehicle, collected by Providenciales resident Lori Kaine, is pictured in a pile. Kaine said she has gathered more than 200 pounds of wreckage. Lori Kaine The objects she gathered left her hands covered in soot and grime. She estimated there are now “easily 200 pounds (91 kilograms)” of debris in her collection, stashed away in garbage bags labeled with the location where she picked up the debris. Plenty more still litters the beaches, she said. But it was not until the day after the explosion, on January 17, that Kaine became aware that interacting with the debris could be dangerous. The Turks and Caicos National Security Secretariat posted a notice to Facebook, saying the government is “not aware of any specific risks” — but “space objects can sometimes contain hazardous materials which can cause serious harm to health.” The notice recommended residents not touch the debris and to contact the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) government or SpaceX. Kaine said she grew frustrated. For one, it was over 24 hours before she learned that exposure to the materials could be dangerous. She also worried that the debris, left alone, would soon be covered by sand — literally burying the fallout from SpaceX’s explosive mishap and perhaps further threatening the ecology of the island. SpaceX also took a week to respond to a voicemail she left with the company’s hotline, Kaine told CNN. And even then, she was told representatives from the company would not arrive for another few days. “There’s not going to be a problem finding debris when they get here,” Kaine said of SpaceX. “If they want me to find it, I can find it.” According to a January 23 Facebook update from the local government, SpaceX representatives were scheduled to be on the island that day. Neither the company nor the government responded to requests for comment. Kaine said she still has the debris stored at her home. Potential hazard to health Hours after sending out its first communication on January 17, the day after the explosion, the TCI National Security Secretariat issued another dispatch, saying “initial discussions between the UK Space Agency and SpaceX” have “confirmed that no Hydrazine was on board the Starship rocket.” Hydrazine is a type of propellant used on some spacecraft that can cause nausea, vomiting, inflammation of the nerves and even a coma following exposure. Starship debris is seen streaking through the sky after the January 16 explosion. Brian Henry SpaceX’s Starship does not use such fuels. The megarocket instead relies on liquid methane and oxygen for propellant — but “any kind of fuel is going to … have a bunch of chemical energy inside it,” according to Marlon Sorge, the executive director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research center. “Even if it isn’t as dangerous as hydrazine, where you touch it or get close to it and you’re in trouble — it’s still volatile, like gasoline,” Sorge added. “And there are other things on board spacecraft, like batteries.” He added that it is possible for entire rocket fuel tanks to survive the trip down to the ground: “If they’re weakened, you touch them, they blow up.” That’s likely why local authorities advised residents not to touch any debris “out of an abundance of caution,” as the Turks and Caicos government wrote in a January 17 notice. “It’s not that it’s a death sentence to get close to one of these things,” Sorge said. “Mostly they’re probably OK, but it is potentially risky. And it’s not worth people getting injured.” But many people who came across the detritus have started to collect the objects — some individuals took them home as souvenirs, while others are aiming to sell them for profit. One eBay listing for a heat shield tile allegedly recovered from Turks and Caicos has a bid for $3,000. A look at previously sold remnants of destroyed Starship spacecraft show the items have fetched up to $2,000. But selling or keeping a piece of a SpaceX craft could be legally questionable, Sorge noted. According to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, “technically, (the debris) still belongs to the launching organization.” Environmental impact Zimmermann said on Monday that, although cleanup efforts may be underway soon, she is not aware of concrete plans to evaluate the Starship explosion’s environmental footprint. Morgan May Luker, sister of Amos Luker, took this photo of SpaceX Starship debris while on walk along the north side of the island of Providenciales, in an area called Wheeland on January 19. Morgan May Luker She added that she hopes there will be a formal assessment that would include testing the waters for signs of contamination and conducting exploratory surveys that might use drones to hunt for large pieces of debris at sea, which could be impacting sensitive ecosystems. “But all that requires a lot of coordination and a fair amount of funding — and both of those are limited here,” Zimmermann said. “It’s not been the best response,” she added. “I think there’s not a lot of precedent for this type of event either in such a populated area. But there’s debris as small as a third of a fingernail and as large as a car scattered around.” Kaine said she’s grown wary of SpaceX’s response to the ordeal and the Starship program in general. She said she’s not interested in keeping any of the debris she collected. Her goal is to keep the roadways and beaches she frequents clean and free of dangerous materials. “You need to come pick this up,” Kaine said of SpaceX. “And my concern has grown on a larger level about these launches, because now that I’m reading about it — there’s such limited information out there.” Enable Javascript to view this content This is usually found in your web browser's settings Ad Feedback