What's worse, is that the quote comes from a US government employee?
The megarocket instead relies on liquid methane and oxygen for propellant — but “any kind of fuel is going to … have a bunch of chemical energy inside it,” according to Marlon Sorge, the executive director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research center.
“Even if it isn’t as dangerous as hydrazine, where you touch it or get close to it and you’re in trouble — it’s still volatile, like gasoline,” Sorge added. “And there are other things on board spacecraft, like batteries.”
He added that it is possible for entire rocket fuel tanks to survive the trip down to the ground: “If they’re weakened, you touch them, they blow up.”
I assume quotes are taken out of context by the article author. But that last quote appears pretty idiotic. I would hope that an executive director had more nous (technical and PR).
That last quote is saying that if tank hits the ground but it's not compromised enough for pressure to escape, disturbing it could cause it to release all that pressurized fuel at once ("explode"). Hopefully in the original context they explained that this is not very likely.
I think composite-overwrapped pressure vessels could survive intact, though those are technically not fuel, but inert pressurant gasses. I believe Starship uses both helium and CO2.
One of the Falcon ones reentered as space debris in Washington state, in 2021,
The steel on the fuel tanks of Starship is only four millimeters thick. The chance of it surviving are basically non-existent.
I imagine the journalist was just fishing for expert quotes that fit their predetermined narrative and leaving everything the expert said about the unlikelihood out.
