Starship Explosion Cleaned Up By Islanders, Trump Traffic Screws Up Palm Beach Airport And China Makes Jet Fuel In Space In This Week's Beyond Cars Roundup

A Space X test flight went spectacularly wrong last month when the Starship craft exploded in the skies above the Caribbean. The explosion littered the sky with debris and looked fresh from a Michael Bay film, but the fallout has been less glamorous for the residents of one tropical island nation who have been left clearing up the space junk that now litters their beaches. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Joyriding is already a dangerous thrill-seeking pastime. No one wants an untrained pilot taking a small jet into the skies with no planned destination. A 15-year-old attempted to steal a plane in Texarkana, Arkansas on Tuesday by walking into a private terminal and placing a handgun on the front counter. The teenage boy, also armed with an AR-style rifle, demanded an aircraft from staff at a Signature Aviation FBO. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Palm Beach International Airport was the second-most popular airport for private jets in the United States in 2023, but all those jet-owning rich folks are facing new restrictions thanks to Donald Trump. Despite over 56 percent or 6.1 million Floridian voters casting their ballots for Trump, his re-election as a civil servant means that no one can fly private jets into or out of Palm Beach International airport (PBI) between the hours of 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. whenever Trump is at Mar-a-Lago. - Logan Carter Read More

Space is the only place where rocket fuel could be more precious than water. The China Manned Space Agency announced last month that taikonauts on the ongoing Shenzhou-19 mission successfully produced oxygen and ethylene, a key ingredient for rocket fuel. The process was the first-ever in-orbit demonstration of artificial photosynthesis technology. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Adventure bikes are a fantastic way to start your life on two wheels. They let you do a little bit of everything, from dirt trails to race tracks, so you can figure out where you want to go with the rest of your riding career. But ADVs are dweeby, and no new motorcyclist wants to look like some pocket-protector dork the first time they roll up somewhere on their shiny new bike. Enter the new hotness: The baby rally bike. - Amber DaSilva Read More

There are plenty of ways to dodge a toll, such as defacing your license plate or forcing someone else to pay the charges. However, very few people are bold enough to simply say they have a deal that doesn’t really exist. The U.S. State Department published a statement on Wednesday that the federal government’s ships no longer had to pay a fee for transiting the Panama Canal after reaching a deal with the Panamanian government. However, the Panama Canal Authority is now denying this ever happened. - Ryan Erik King Read More

The first weeks of the second Trump presidency have been marked by a flurry of often-illegal executive orders, frequently centered around the removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion language from anywhere the Presidency can touch. Now that mandate has made its way to NASA: The agency has been told to “drop everything” and focus on erasing wicked terms like “anything specifically targeting women” from its website. - Amber DaSilva Read More

In the wake of KTM’s recent restructuring proceedings, parent company Pierer Mobility announced that it would be selling its 50.1 percent controlling stake in MV Agusta back to the Sardarov family for “an enterprise value in the mid double-digit millions.” KTM had initially acquired a 25.1 percent stake in MV back in 2022 before increasing its ownership to a controlling interest in March of last year. It has been just 10 months since KTM and Pierer took on the Italian marque, but that was before the company’s struggles truly began. The transaction is expected to be concluded before the end of the second quarter of 2025. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Being the kind of kart racer that gets you uninvited from birthday go kart parties is fun and all, but what are you supposed to do in those cold winter months? Not go karting? Blasphemy! Surely there must be some way to keep your skills honed through the winter. Something like a 125-cc two-stroke shifter kart decked out for snow use with tracks from Temu. - Amber DaSilva Read More

Scientists predict that there are currently more than 30,000 pieces of space junk orbiting above the Earth, and some are large enough to make their way back down to dry land with little warning. On average this happens about once every day, but that rate could rise as private space travel ramps up. Aviation safety experts are worried as a new study has warned that the chance of a collision between a commercial jet and a piece of space junk is on the rise. - Owen Bellwood Read More