Notices by Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social), page 9

Puppy break

I'm going to CBC studios in Toronto tomorrow morning for an interview and coffee with a science journalist that I'm totally going to fangirl about! This is exciting (but it means I have to shift 2 other interviews I had already scheduled...haha this is so hilarious)

I have now done 5 interviews about Saskatchewan space junk from a random empty classroom at University of Toronto.

Augh I have an interview written on my calendar happening soon but I can't find it anywhere in my email.... oh noooooo I need a better system.

...and let me just say that it is fucking surreal to get texts from my partner about baby goats while I'm trying not to completely freak out walking through downtown Toronto after a CBC interview.

Nicole Mortillaro gave me a hug after the interview! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

After meeting him, I drove around the area - if that big a piece (it's 100 pounds and 4 feet by 6 feet) made it to the ground intact, then smaller pieces definitely did too. We didn't find anything, of course. It's a HUGE area to search.

But I got a piece of paper and wrote "Did you find space junk? Call me!" with my name and number and left it on the small town co-op bulletin board, and I talked to the small town newspaper journalist who first wrote about it.

So the saga will continue...

Legally, he's supposed to turn over the space junk to the owners, and he doesn't want to fight SpaceX, especially if they are being polite and provide a healthy donation to the Ituna skating rink as he requested.

But it's totally unclear if Canada has any laws on the books that could be actually used to compel a Canadian citizen to hand over a piece of space junk to a company in another country. So, from a space law standpoint, it would be a lot more "fun" if he refused. What would happen?

So...this saga is ongoing, but here's the latest. I met the farmer on Saturday. He is incredibly nice, and his memory and deductive reasoning powers are impressive! It was really fun to chat and learn from him all the information he pieced together on his own, just from studying the piece of space junk. Farmers = engineers!

He also showed me the official lawyer-y-but-polite email he got from SpaceX. They said they will come pick up the piece from him, and they will compensate him. Good!

I'll write much more about this later, but... this happened:

Got 2 interview requests within 3 minutes. People are still interested! Excellent.

And I saw a media statement from the Canadian Space Agency that said people who find space junk shouldn't contact them, they should contact local emergency services. Which is... really dumb? What is an RCMP officer stationed in small-town Saskatchewan going to do with space junk?! I'm super not impressed.

The saga continues...

I learned that SpaceX is only going to pay the farmer $5,000 for the space junk that could have killed him. I'm glad they're paying, but that's piddly for a megacorporation owned by an awful billionaire that dumped hazardous garbage on his property.

He said he passed along SpaceX's contact info to others nearby who he thinks may have also found pieces of junk (he hinted that someone nearby may possibly have found an even bigger piece than his).

The only time I go to my campus office in the summer is for media interviews about space junk, apparently?

(Also, today I learned CTV journalists do it all themselves! This impressive journalist set up the camera shots and did all the filming while also interviewing me. Wow.)

This article really covers a lot of the interesting grey areas of international law and satellites dropping on people: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/space-debris-responsibility-1.7211473

And Jonathan McDowell hinted that a piece of one of the other Dragon Trunks that fell near Colorado Springs has been recovered. So that means giant pieces of debris have been found for 4 out of 5 reentries that were possible to recover.

SpaceX, you suck. Stop dropping giant space junk pieces on us. Maybe stop making space junk, period?!

I just did a double interview with Jonathan McDowell for a (very overwhelmed) reporter in North Carolina! Again - very glad people are starting to care!

I learned from Jonathan that there have been 23 Crew Dragon Trunk reentries so far. 10 have been over water, 8 are in inaccessible places (deep desert/jungle/lost), and 3 of the remaining 5 have now had very large pieces found on the ground. Not great odds...

I'm going to go outside and snuggle goats now. Wowee what a week.

Just to keep this crazy thread going: https://m.ai6yr.org/@firefly/112497343686542787

So, this is a new piece of SpaceX junk (from the same type of "fully demisable" Crew Dragon trunk as the piece in Saskatchewan), that fell on North Carolina, USA. Maybe the American gov't will pay more attention now? (Maybe the Canadian gov't too, who knows)

Why does SpaceX think it's ok to experiment with dropping giant pieces of space junk on us?!

(How many TV news interviews can I be on wearing the same sweater?)

Today I listened to a bunch of talks on local Indigenous traditional knowledge, went for a hike during the conference lunch break with my partner, talked with an elder at a First Nation that might have SpaceX junk on it, answered a bazillion emails on car ride home, had a pre-interview for a local TV news filming tomorrow while I was simultaneously making dinner and making cheese, had a friend over for dinner+farm tour, helped another goat give birth.

This is all so great, but WOW I'm tired.

Good morning from baby goat land. I got over a gallon of milk from 3 goats this morning, I started draining my second batch of chevre, there's beautiful grass for the goats to eat, and we're up to 12 baby goats this season. I am so grateful!