There's an unexpected sequel to the explosion of a SpaceX rocket in June this year: part of the wreckage has now washed up in the Scilly Isles, off south-west England, having travelled across the Atlantic from Florida. Here's the inevitable
BBC article.
Some points that might be of interest:
- It's travelled over 4,000 miles in almost exactly 5 months - that's 25-30 miles per day.
- The rocket section has picked up a nice crop of goose barnacles, so much so that parts had to be scraped off to work out what the wreckage was.
- Not reported in the article, but under English law there will be some interesting questions about ownership and responsibility for the wreckage. Is it flotsam (something washed off a ship, hence ownership unchanged) or jetsam (deliberately thrown overboard, i.e. abandoned, so ownership transfers to finder)? Or is there some other category for part of a space rocket (blown up by its owner), fallen through the air, washed across the sea, and now come to land?