Spaceflight aficionados, like many sports fans, love memorabilia. Space-related apparel, books, mission patches, stickers and other items sell at a brisk pace, and that’s just the bottom end of the market. The most valuable pieces are “flown” — meaning that they were either a part of or aboard a given mission. Many of those pieces are well out of reach for the common man – they are relatively rare and often quite expensive, at least for artifacts with certain authenticity. Others are affordable, at least to a dedicated collector, and can be bought for a few hundred dollars or less.
The Ebay Connection
Recently some pieces of debris from SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 have turned up on Ebay. The January 16th flight of the company’s in-development Starship Heavy rocket ended with the loss of the “Ship,” or the second stage of the vehicle. The next day, reports came from Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Department, that parts of the lost Ship were washing up near Providenciales, the third largest island in the Turks and Caicos archipelago. Soon afterwards, they were for sale online.
These items seem to be legitimate, given that they are coming from the right place, that the event was recent and that they look like what a Starship heat tile piece ought to look like. At the same time, a buyer should remember that some items sold on Ebay are not at all what they are sold as, in other words, they’re counterfeits. Caveat Emptor. Let the buyer beware.
Most Expensive Pieces Sold So Far
The three most expensive pieces with completed sales range from $3,500 down to $550, plus shipping.
The “Low” End Of Starship Flight 7 Debris Sales
Based on a quick perusal of all the items currently for sale on Ebay, prices seems to be in the $100 to $250 range, plus shipping for Starship Flight 7 debris.
That’s more or less in line with other “minor” flown mementos, such as a NASA patch that was recently flown and is on sale for $150 plus taxes and shipping. For example:
Is It Legal?
Officially, SpaceX states “If you find SpaceX debris, you can contact SpaceX’s debris hotline at 1-866-623-0234 or email recovery@spacex.com.” They also caution to not handle or retrieve the object, ostensibly due to the piece(s) containing hazardous material(s).
In commonly accepted international maritime law, “flotsam” — unintentionally lost cargo from a ship — can generally be claimed by the original owner if it washes ashore. In other words, SpaceX can claim all pieces of Starship from Flight 7 are rightfully theirs because debris from Flight 7 was certainly an unintentional result of the mission. On the other hand, “jetsam” — cargo intentionally thrown overboard — typically becomes the property of whoever finds it. The difference is that jetsam is considered abandoned once it is jettisoned, however, specific legal outcomes can vary depending on the jurisdiction and the circumstances of the situation.
All considered it is almost a certainty that SpaceX owns the pieces that have landed on the shores in Turks and Caicos, in the eyes maritime law.
Inconsistent Recoveries
For their part, SpaceX has been a responsible corporate citizen when parts of their spacecraft wash ashore or survive re-entry and land. That has happened from time to time, and is no real surprise considering the number of missions SpaceX completes. The company has always retrieved its major debris and almost certainly always will.
Photo via X.com
For example, in July of last year, a piece of a SpaceX Cargo Dragon trunk (a part just aft of the capsule) survived re-entry and landed near a campground in North Carolina. SpaceX was quick to retrieve the pieces that were found, and the area was restored quickly.
In other events such as those in the early days of SpaceX’s test flights of Starship, pieces of the Starship heat-shielding tiles have washed ashore after a failed flight. These pieces were relatively few and far between, and locals reported that the company would advise them to just throw away anything they found, and that those pieces were not dangerous. That’s almost certainly the case — none of the heat shield tiles’ materials are toxic or even an irritant to human skin. More or less the company abandoned the debris, and it was finders-keepers for those fortunate enough to find it.
SpaceX Is Allowing The Ebay Sales…For Now
We reached out to SpaceX for comment, and they have not replied at the time of this writing. That said, however, it does not appear that they are protesting and stopping the Ebay sales and that people who sell pieces of the tiles are making a decent amount of money selling them to space fans. That seems to be a win-win, as the beaches are cleaned up, the finders make some money for their effort (such as it is) and collectors can get a piece of history if they want to pay for it.
