Time and again, rockets from SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led company based in South Texas, have exploded. Now, the debris from the latest explosion is creating political fallout across the border in Mexico.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico is considering taking legal action after one of SpaceX’s giant Starship rockets disintegrated in June in a giant fireball, as it was being fueled for a test firing of its engines. No one was injured in the explosion, which rained down detritus on the beaches of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
“We are reviewing everything related to the launching of rockets that are very close to our border,” Ms. Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Wednesday. If SpaceX violated any international laws, she added, “we will file any necessary claims.”
The quarreling over SpaceX’s pollution comes at a time of ratcheting tensions between the United States and Mexico over issues including migration, fentanyl trafficking and the name of the body of water near Starbase, the company town founded by Mr. Musk near the border between the two countries.
Ms. Sheinbaum, whose leftist party holds enormous sway around Mexico, was responding to calls to take action against SpaceX amid a growing outcry among scientists, regional officials and environmental activists over the impact that the company’s operations are having on Mexican ecosystems.
Environmental activists in Tamaulipas, across the border from Starbase, have said that the debris from SpaceX’s latest explosion of a Starship rocket had caused a large die-off of marine life including fish, dolphins and sea turtles. Residents of Matamoros, a city in the state, have reported finding pieces of metal and entire canisters on local beaches.
A SpaceX spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal Anaya, said that the authorities were examining whether “the internationally required distances are being respected in order to have these types of facilities, so that there is no risk to urban centers.”
The debris also became a source of discussion among Mexicans on social media, with many highlighting the power dynamics at play among Mexico, the United States, SpaceX and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, who has tied himself closely to President Trump and holds aspirations of one day sending humans to Mars.
“How much longer will the greed of a few be allowed to marginalize the many and put life and our planet at risk or in peril of destruction?” María Elena Álvarez-Buylla Roces, a professor of molecular genetics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, asked in a social media post.
Mexico is not alone in grappling with the problem of debris from SpaceX, which recently got authorization from U.S. aviation authorities to increase its annual Starship launches from Starbase to 25 from five. Another explosion in March disrupted air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
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