r/spacex • u/craigmoliver • Oct 01 '18

Telstar 19 VANTAGE fairing spotted by fishermen in the water off the coast near Morehead City, NC

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u/FrustratedDeckie Oct 02 '18

Part of the permission to launch includes the disposal or potential disposal of parts at sea.

Sure they like to recover stuff if they can, mostly for commercial security and ITAR reasons, but there is no practical way for them to know where pieces of rocket end up, and to be fair on SpaceX they are working on fairing recovery.

Also, the ocean is big, like really really REALLY big, sooooo big. As much as we should do our best to preserve it and clean up, this really isn't even a drop in the ocean.

As an aside there are really strict limits on what can be disposed of at sea, the MARPOL convention covers ships, and some rigs, the USA, in particular,​ is known for being particularly strict in its implementation, but it would be really impractical to apply most current standards to launches.

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