Mic Drop: Elon Musk, come and get your space junk.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Click Here – "Mic Drop: Elon Musk, come and get your space junk"

Release Date: January 17, 2025

Introduction

In the episode titled "Mic Drop: Elon Musk, come and get your space junk," Recorded Future News' podcast Click Here delves into the intriguing tale of Jordan Hobbs, an Australian cattle farmer who became an unexpected link between Earth's rural landscapes and the vast expanse of space. Hosted by Dina Templewest, the episode unpacks the mystery of space debris landing in the Australian outback and the broader implications of space junk on our planet.

Jordan Hobbs’ Unexpected Encounter

Discovery of the Space Debris

Jordan Hobbs, a seasoned cattle farmer from Tumbarumba, New South Wales, leads a life deeply rooted in the Australian outback. His routine days involve early mornings tending to his herd and maintaining the vast expanses of his farm. However, his tranquil existence took an extraordinary turn a couple of years prior when he stumbled upon an unusual object on his land.

[00:54] Jordan Hobbs: “I got out and saw that it had like a radiator, like an aluminium fluting through it and a special woven sort of material on the outside each side and distinctive, I guess you would say, almost like a switchboard wiring.”

At first glance, what Jordan found resembled a piece of high-tech junk, prompting him and his wife, Renee, to speculate about its origin. The resemblance to objects like hoverboards and other alien technologies quickly became a topic of local fascination.

[01:14] Jordan Hobbs: “Many people made the comment that it's like a hoverboard. You know, you've been gifted with a hoverboard from space.”

Identification and Confirmation

Realizing the object was no ordinary debris, Jordan sought expert opinion. This led him to Dr. Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist from Canberra, who confirmed the object's extraterrestrial origin.

[06:23] Dina Templewest: “So Jordan was stunned. This would have never even occurred to him.”

Dr. Tucker identified the debris as a part of the SpaceX Dragon 1 capsule, specifically the trunk that was jettisoned before the spacecraft's re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

[06:54] Jordan Hobbs: “Then it came off this SpaceX 1 Dragon capsule that was re entering Earth.”

The Dragon capsule, named Resilience, had successfully completed its mission, returning astronauts safely to Earth in May 2021. However, the trunk component remained in orbit and eventually descended to earth, landing on Jordan's property 15 months later.

[07:15] Unknown: “Everything nominal aboard crew Dragon Resilience returning to Earth.”

Impact on Jordan’s Life

The unexpected arrival of space junk turned Jordan into a local celebrity. His quiet life was upended as media attention swarmed his small town.

[07:57] Jordan Hobbs: “Farmer and contractor Jordan Hobbs thought he'd stumbled across a bit of plastic earlier. My idea of going on the news, I'm a bit more of a quieter, humble person.”

Local authorities and the Australian Space Agency showed interest in the debris, requesting access for further investigation. However, Jordan’s experience with unfulfilled promises from investigators left him frustrated.

[08:55] Jordan Hobbs: “They harassed me and harassed me on the phone but never showed up. They didn't come out, but they also harassed me to get the piece back because you haven't played ball with us. Well, I'm going to keep the piece and I'll play ball with you.”

Ultimately, Jordan chose to hide the trunk piece, storing it in an old suitcase in his paddock, hoping the attention would wane.

Changed Perspectives and Broader Implications

The encounter with space junk had a profound effect on Jordan’s outlook. It sparked a newfound curiosity about the cosmos and the increasing presence of satellites orbiting Earth.

[09:36] Jordan Hobbs: “One morning, early, I was going out in the paddock and I looked up at the sky because it was so clear, so many stars. It was just a beautiful morning. And then I noticed, like a bullet train of. It looked like stars, you know, in a perfect line. I'd never seen anything like it.”

This sighting led him to realize it was part of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation, highlighting the growing issue of space debris and its tangible impact on everyday lives.

[10:03] Jordan Hobbs: “He's like, that's your Starlink, my friend.”

Jordan took to social media and interviews to express his desire for Elon Musk to retrieve the abandoned space junk from his land.

[10:22] Jordan Hobbs: “I put a message out in an interview with the abc, I think for Elon to come and pick up his junk. But we're yet to see him.”

Conclusion

Jordan Hobbs' story serves as a poignant reminder of the unintended consequences of our expanding ventures into space. As space exploration and satellite deployment continue to grow, incidents like these underscore the need for responsible space debris management. Click Here not only narrates Jordan’s remarkable experience but also raises critical questions about our stewardship of space resources and the preservation of our terrestrial environments.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jordan Hobbs [00:54]: "I got out and saw that it had like a radiator, like an aluminium fluting through it and a special woven sort of material on the outside each side and distinctive, I guess you would say, almost like a switchboard wiring."

• Jordan Hobbs [01:14]: "Many people made the comment that it's like a hoverboard. You know, you've been gifted with a hoverboard from space."

• Jordan Hobbs [06:54]: "Then it came off this SpaceX 1 Dragon capsule that was re entering Earth."

• Jordan Hobbs [07:57]: "Farmer and contractor Jordan Hobbs thought he'd stumbled across a bit of plastic earlier. My idea of going on the news, I'm a bit more of a quieter, humble person."

• Jordan Hobbs [08:55]: "They harassed me and harassed me on the phone but never showed up. They didn't come out, but they also harassed me to get the piece back because you haven't played ball with us. Well, I'm going to keep the piece and I'll play ball with you."

• Jordan Hobbs [09:36]: "One morning, early, I was going out in the paddock and I looked up at the sky because it was so clear, so many stars. It was just a beautiful morning. And then I noticed, like a bullet train of. It looked like stars, you know, in a perfect line. I'd never seen anything like it."

• Jordan Hobbs [10:03]: "He's like, that's your Starlink, my friend."

• Jordan Hobbs [10:22]: "I put a message out in an interview with the abc, I think for Elon to come and pick up his junk. But we're yet to see him."

Final Thoughts

Jordan Hobbs' encounter with space debris bridges the gap between the remote Australian outback and the complexities of modern space endeavors. It highlights a growing concern about the proliferation of space junk and its direct impact on individuals and communities. As humanity continues to explore and utilize space, stories like Jordan's emphasize the importance of sustainable practices to protect both our environment and our investments in the final frontier.

Transcript

[Dina Templewest]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here.

[Unknown]

I thought you were going to have a little koala bear. Don't you have wombats there in Australia?

[Jordan Hobbs]

We got wombats, we got kangaroos, we got a bit of everything over here. Yeah.

[Dina Templewest]

From Recorded Future News. Hi, I'm Dina Templewesta and this is Click Here's Mic Drop, an extended cut of an interview we think you might want to hear a little more of. And today we're talking to Jordan Hobbs, an Australian cattle farmer who got a bit more of everything than he ever expected when a couple of years ago, he spotted something weird on his land and climbed down from his tractor to get a better look.

[Jordan Hobbs]

So I got out and saw that it had like a radiator, like an aluminium fluting through it and a special woven sort of material on the outside each side and distinctive, I guess you would say, almost like a switchboard wiring.

[Dina Templewest]

He'd never seen anything like it.

[Jordan Hobbs]

Many people made the comment that it's like a hoverboard. You know, you've been gifted with a hoverboard from space.

[Dina Templewest]

Stay with us.

[Unknown]

You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Cheney or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Geoffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well informed colleagues at the New Yorker. So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Dina Templewest]

I'm Dina Temple west and this is Click Here's Mic Draw. Jordan Hobbs lives in the middle of nowhere, like actual nowhere in the Australian outback.

[Jordan Hobbs]

New South Wales, Australia. Little town Tumberumba in the snowy mountains and have a cattle farm here. I guess it's Australia's version of Salt Lake City or something. We're only about half an hour's drive from the highest elevated town in Australia, Cabramara.

[Dina Templewest]

He has that sun weathered face you get from decades under the Australian sun. And he looks like the type of guy you'd call if you'd run out of gas and were stuck on the side of the road.

[Unknown]

Do you come from a long line of farmers?

[Jordan Hobbs]

Originally come from rodeo. Dad was a cowboy over here, so we grew up in rodeo. Absolutely no control over the bucking horse whatsoever. I guess, you know, riding horses at a young age, that's what's got me interested in farming. Dad used to work on the big cattle stations in northern Australia, which you know, are a million, upwards of a half a million to a million to 2 million acres.

[Unknown]

So you were always going to be a cattle rancher?

[Jordan Hobbs]

I was. I was in my blood for sure.

[Dina Templewest]

So his days are pretty routine, up before dawn, checking on the herd, fixing fences. But one morning, just before he and his wife were going to take a short trip to go to a horse competition.

[Jordan Hobbs]

I decided, you know, it was a two night event that we had to be away for. So I was rolling out some hay to the cattle and rolled out two or three bales on the last bale. I was rolling it towards, I guess you'd say, a road over here. And at the end of it, I saw this. What I called was a bit of rubbish.

[Dina Templewest]

He doesn't think much about what it is, but he does instead what most people do when they find something in the yard that they aren't expecting. He scoops it up with his tractor and brings it up closer to the house.

[Jordan Hobbs]

I thought it might have been something that's blown in from the road. I got out of the tractor and had a look at it and thought it was unusual. I'd got the patterns on it and the material.

[Dina Templewest]

So he calls his wife over and they both bend down to take a closer look and they agree that this thing seems, well, kind of otherworldly. It's charred metallic with bits of wiring and panels. Definitely not just something that had blown in from the road.

[Jordan Hobbs]

My wife Renee made the comment that it could be space junk as a bit of a giggle because recently a couple of pieces had been found about 100 miles away at Dalgetty.

[Unknown]

You'll be able to. Well, I can see it because I.

[Jordan Hobbs]

Know where it is. What sheep farmer Mick Miners found in his back paddock was out of this world, speared into the ground a 3 meter long piece of space junk. And my wife googled the pictures of that space junk found, and to our amazement, it had the exact same sort of patterns. So it was then that we went and had a good look at our piece and sort of confirmed that it looked the same.

[Dina Templewest]

Space junk is this invisible problem that would never even occur to most of us. In Tuesday's episode, we talked to ed Liu of LeoLabs. And he's trying to actually map and track everything in low Earth orbit. And while he's most focused on preventing collisions between space junk and satellites, 1,200 miles above us, Jordan Hob was dealing with a problem right here on Earth.

[Jordan Hobbs]

So we made contact with Dr. Brad Tucker, the astrophysicist from Canberra. And he came out and checked it out and confirmed that it was the same sort of stuff.

[Dina Templewest]

So Jordan was stunned. This would have never even occurred to him.

[Jordan Hobbs]

You know, I'm probably more of an on ground person and it was the last thing on my mind. So it was completely surprising.

[Dina Templewest]

While most of the time space junk burns up harmlessly when it enters the Earth's atmosphere, every now and then it makes its way through and down to Earth. And Tucker, the astrophysicist from Canberra, told Jordan he was pretty sure he knew where it came from.

[Jordan Hobbs]

Then it came off this SpaceX 1 Dragon capsule that was re entering Earth.

[Dina Templewest]

The SpaceX Dragon is one of Elon Musk's manned spacecrafts and this one in particular had launched and returned to Earth more than a year earlier.

[Jordan Hobbs]

Seconds away from splashdown.

[Unknown]

Everything nominal aboard crew Dragon Resilience returning to Earth.

[Dina Templewest]

The astronauts aboard the Dragon made a safe water Landing in May 2021.

[Jordan Hobbs]

From resilience, that is excellent news. We are splashed down. The pyros have fired.

[Dina Templewest]

But before that, before they re entered the atmosphere, the crew had jettisoned the so called trunk of the aircraft. Over the next 15 months, the trunk floated in orbit and lurched closer and closer to Earth before it eventually arrived on Jordan's doorstep. The whole thing turned him into a bit of a local celebrity.

[Jordan Hobbs]

To Tumberumba and beyond. Farmer and contractor Jordan Hobbs thought he'd stumbled across a bit of plastic earlier. My idea of going on the news, I'm a bit more of a quieter, humble person.

[Dina Templewest]

The news story rippled through their small town. The mayor of Tumbarumba visited Jordan's house to personally thank him for putting their little town on the map. Grocery shopping got a little awkward.

[Jordan Hobbs]

It was like a celebrity every time I went to town. So I tried to stay away from town for six months.

[Dina Templewest]

The Australian Space Agency even called and asked him to preserve the area where he'd found it.

[Jordan Hobbs]

They wanted to come out and do a lot of investigation about the piece, like measuring the side. So I just fenced it off with some gates I had laying around, like made a yard around it.

[Dina Templewest]

But for some reason the investigators never made it out to Tumbarumba to look at it. Which kind of made Jordan a little grumpy given that he'd built that fence and all.

[Jordan Hobbs]

They harassed me and harassed me on the phone but never showed up. They didn't come out, but they also harassed me to get the piece back because you haven't played ball with us. Well, I'm going to keep the piece and I'll play ball with you.

[Dina Templewest]

So he just put the SpaceX junk away, hoping people would move on and maybe forget about it.

[Jordan Hobbs]

I don't know whether I should be saying this or not, but I actually still have the piece. Actually put the piece in an old suitcase and hid it out in the paddock.

[Dina Templewest]

But the whole experience stuck with Jordan. It changed his perspective. He found himself looking up at the sky in a completely different way than he did before.

[Jordan Hobbs]

One morning, early, I was going out in the paddock and I looked up at the sky because it was so clear, so many stars. It was just a beautiful morning. And then I noticed, like a bullet train of. It looked like stars, you know, in a perfect line. I'd never seen anything like it. And I was like, what the hell is this?

[Dina Templewest]

So he rang up his new friend, the astrophysicist, to ask him what it was.

[Jordan Hobbs]

He's like, that's your Starlink, my friend.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Jordan Hobbs]

Yes. You know about Starlink? That's a heap of satellites. That's how I'm speaking to you today. We run through Starlink Internet.

[Unknown]

Got it. So you should have gotten Starlink for free since he dumped trash on your land.

[Dina Templewest]

Huh?

[Jordan Hobbs]

We should have. I. I put a message out in an interview with the abc, I think for Elon to come and pick up his junk. But we're yet to see him.

[Unknown]

I guess we'll have to wait until he goes there and then you can fish out the suitcase.

[Jordan Hobbs]

That's right.

[Unknown]

Elon.

[Dina Templewest]

If you're listening, Jordan Hobbs has part of your spaceship. From Recorded Future News, this has been Click Here's Mic Drop. It was written and produced by Lucas Riley, Erica Gaeda, Megan Dietrich, Sean Powers, and me, Dena Templerestin. It was edited by Karen Duffin. We'll be back on Tuesday with an all new episode of Click Here. Have a great weekend.

[Unknown]

Looking for more of the cybersecurity and intelligence coverage you get on Click Here? Then check out our sister publication, the Record from Recorded Future News. You'll get breaking cyber news from reporters in New York, Washington, London and Kyiv, among others. And you'll see for yourself why it attracts hundreds of thousands of page views every month. Just go to therecord Media.