Space Litter To Hit Earth Tomorrow

A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening. The 1,400-pound object was deliberately jettisoned — by hand — from the ISS's robot arm in July 2007. Since the time of re-entry is uncertain, so is the location. "NASA expects up to 15 pieces of the tank to survive the searing hot temperatures of re-entry, ranging in size from about 1.4 ounces (40 grams) to nearly 40 pounds (17.5 kilograms). ... [T]he largest pieces could slam into the Earth's surface at about 100 mph (161 kph). ...'If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."

Cloudy

With a chance of toxic ammonia-coated metal chunks?

Re:Cloudy

Space trash wins. Next question.

Re:Cloudy

"The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) is a very large, 1400 pound tank of ammonia that was used to cool electronics on the International Space Station (ISS). When a permanent cooling system was installed, the EAS was thrown overboard by spacewalking astronaut Clayton Anderson on July 23, 2007. NASA does not normally dispose of debris by throwing it overboard. The risk of collision with the International Space Station or another satellite does not justify the ease of disposing of debris this way. In the case of the Early Ammonia Servicer, it was too heavy and dangerous (because of the ammonia) to return to Earth in the Space Shuttle, and throwing it overboard was the only option. The EAS has been in a slowly decaying orbit since then." - blatantly copied from an email I received earlier today on this subject.

Re:Cloudy

So NASA is raining down piss waste on us all.

Yep, sounds like the government at work all right.

Re:Cloudy

17 kg at 160 kph could hit the earth anywhere?
What if it hits SOMETHING, like a car in the highway or an airplane?

A Boeing 747 with mass 340,000 kg takes off from JFK airport at 3:00 pm and heads towards Los Angeles at a cruising speed of 800 kph. A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia with mass 17 kg jettisoned from the ISS 560 days prior is about to achieve re-entry at 160 kph. Where and when will they meet?

I hate these stupid questions.

Re:Cloudy

This sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY at The Coliseum!

Re:Cloudy

Newton.

"toxic ammonia"?

As opposed to that non-toxic, safe-to-eat, oh-so-good-for-you ammonia they sell down at the cleaning supplies store?

Re:"toxic ammonia"?

Heh. A lot of Scandinavian candy contains ammonium chloride...

I've yet to meet any non-Scandinavian that likes it, though apparently they sell they stuff in the Netherlands and Germany too.

Re:"toxic ammonia"?

Ammonium chloride is not even slightly like ammonia, in the same way that table salt is not even slightly like chlorine gas.

Re:"toxic ammonia"?

Is idiocy a prerequisite for getting mod points?

No, but it helps! After all, I've been modded up quite a few times over the years...

Re:"toxic ammonia"?

Yeah, it's called salmiak and it's probably an acquired taste. I have heard of a person who said that it tasted like catpiss. But on the other hand, the Americans invented McDonalds so I guess that makes us even :)

Re:"toxic ammonia"?

Windex is a lot less bad for you than cat piss. Believe me.

Of course ingesting either one is a seriously FUBUAR proposition, but I digress.

Current data on object

http://www.reentrynews.com/1998067ba.html [reentrynews.com]

Re:Current data on object

Your sig takes on a whole new meaning in light of that quotation in the summary.

Did anyone else think....

about how cool this is?

First, here is NASA being about as open about it as they can get. We dumped a toxic container out, and it might hit your house or spouse or both. Possible reason for joy?

Second, 50 years ago there was probably only two people on the entire planet that could have thought such a safety announcement would be put out with all the fame and glory of a news item about a fender bender in the WalMart parking lot!

I kind of look forward to news reports like this:

Space weather warning: Launch News- Today in the Southern Americas regions, the likelihood of debris showers is at Threat Level Orange. Expected drop zone is 15 miles off the coast of Peru as the StarLiner "Moses" launches for Alpha Centauri.
Between the hours of 13:00 GMT and 23:50 GMT, some pieces of the launch platform are expected to survive the searing heat of re-entry. It is possible for pieces up to 57 kilograms to reach the Earth's surface. Please contact the local constabulary for concerns about livestock. Normal insurance claim processes apply.

You all wanted flying cars. I want star cruisers and Earth 2.0.

Nasa Suess

A star is falling
With nasty goo
It's kinda sticky
It smells like poo

It may hit a house
It may hit a mouse
And if you don't look out
It will hit your spouse

But you can't duck
And you can't run
'Cause it's falling faster
Than a Bullet from a Gun

It might hit with a thud
Or a squishy "smoosh"
It may make a hole
Or knock out a tooth

Quickly Quickly!
Find somebody to sue
For the fast and smelly
Outer space goo!

Hrmm...

When this refrigerator sized chunk hits the ground and finally stops rolling, will it open and Indiana Jones falls out?

The World Will End?

Some weird looking bunny told me this news yesterday.  Wonder how he knew?

Re:clue ?

A large one might dent your car in the extremely improbable case that one should hit it.

TFA says the largest piece could be about 40 pounds and hit at 100 mph. That wouldn't dent your car, it would totally destroy it.

Re:clue ?

A 40 pound child is a little more...yielding than a 40 pound chunk of metal. Also, the 40 pound chunk of metal would presumably be falling on the car from above, not hitting the car head-on. So yah, it may not actually reduce the entire car to a smoking crater, but it would likely total it.

So, while I have no doubt you have plentiful experience striking 40 pound children with vehicles, I'm not sure that experience is directly applicable to the situation at hand.

Re:clue ?

> If you want a comparable situation, think of throwing a turkey at 100mph at a parked car. I guarantee you that car's not going to come out looking to good.

Is that a frozen or thawed turkey??

Re:clue ?

> If you want a comparable situation, think of throwing a turkey at 100mph at a parked car. I guarantee you that car's not going to come out looking to good.

Is that a frozen or thawed turkey??

That reminds me of the story about when they were testing high speed electric trains for what happens when a bird-strike occurs. To do this, they got hold of a linear accelerator, put a turkey in it, and fired it at the front of the train, head on. The bird went straight through the windscreen, the driver's seat, and embedded itself deep within the transformer block behind! To say that the train engineers were dismayed misses the point by a country mile, but they cheered up rather a lot when the realized that they'd forgotten to defrost the turkey first, and that repeating with a fresh bird resulted in a safe splat with no danger to human life.

I'll let someone else karma-whore with the link.

Re:Could/Should we push all the junk back at earth

They don't have a big enough shark to mount the laser on at the moment.

Re:An important detail

I wonder if anybody at NASA knows how much pressure that tank can hold and how likely it is to burst long before it reaches the ground.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say... yes, someone probably does.