SpaceX Pays for Rocket Parts That Fell to Farm of Canadian, Who Vows to Use Money to Pay for Hockey Rink

No Dinky Rink

Earlier this year, massive pieces of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that had delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station came crashing down on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, Canada.

Farmer Barry Sawchuk, who stumbled upon the chunks of space junk, promised at the time to sell the unusual treasure to raise money for a hockey rink that's being built in the town of Ituna, Saskatchewan, where he was born and raised.

And as the CBC now reports, Sawchuk can now make good on his promise. Two SpaceX employees showed up at his farm in a U-Haul truck to cart the pieces away, without offering any comment.

While Sawchuk didn't reveal how much money he had gotten in return, he's still excited to share the proceeds with his community.

"We got something for the skating rink in Ituna and that's what it was always about," he told the CBC, a heartening conclusion to an almost excessively Canadian tale.

Another Man's Treasure

According to Sawchuk, five local farmers found at least eight pieces of space junk in the area, northeast of Saskatchewan's capital Regina.

While the pieces are designed to burn up in the atmosphere, they survived their fiery reentry largely intact, something that experts warn could set a dangerous precedent.

"I was hoping they would tell us a little bit more about just why they're here and what they're going to do with the pieces," University of Regina astronomy professor Samantha Lawler told the CBC. "SpaceX is doing nothing to educate the general public about how they're changing the sky for everyone in the world."

Lawler also warned that future space junk "will cause damage. It will cause deaths. It needs to be better regulated."

While there haven't been any reported deaths so far, there have been plenty of near misses. Earlier this year, a piece of the International Space Station crashed through Naples, Florida native Alejandro Otero's roof, narrowly missing his son who was sleeping two rooms away.

"It's really just luck," Lawler told the CBC back in May after Sawchuk made his discovery. "If that had hit in the middle of Regina or, yeah, New York City, it very easily could have killed someone."

More on the saga: Giant Piece of Space Junk Crashes Down on Farm of Canadian, Who Intends to Sell It and Spend Money on Hockey Rink