China's Out-of-Control Rocket Plunges Out of Orbit, Crashes Into Ocean (cnn.com) 135
An out-of-control Chinese rocket plunged out of orbit and reentered Earth's atmosphere in the Indian Ocean (just west of the Maldives), reports CNN, citing China's space agency:
Most of the rocket was "destroyed" on reentry to the atmosphere, the space agency said. The rocket, which is about 108 feet tall and weighs nearly 40,000 pounds, had launched a piece of a new Chinese space station into orbit on April 29.
After its fuel was spent, the rocket had been left to hurtle through space uncontrolled until Earth's gravity dragged it back to the ground.
Generally, the international space community tries to avoid such scenarios. Most rockets used to lift satellites and other objects into space conduct more controlled reentries that aim for the ocean, or they're left in so-called "graveyard" orbits that keep them in space for decades or centuries. But the Long March rocket is designed in a way that "leaves these big stages in low orbit," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Center at Harvard University.
In this case, it was impossible to be certain exactly when or where the booster would land. The European Space Agency had predicted a "risk zone" that encompassed "any portion of Earth's surface between about 41.5N and 41.5S latitude" — which included virtually all of the Americas south of New York, all of Africa and Australia, parts of Asia south of Japan and Europe's Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The threat to populated areas of land was not negligible, but fortunately the vast majority of Earth's surface area is consumed by oceans...
The rocket is one of the largest objects in recent memory to strike the Earth after falling out of orbit, following a 2018 incident in which a piece of a Chinese space lab broke up over the Pacific Ocean and the 2020 reentry of an 18-metric-ton Long March 5B rocket [also launched by China].
After its fuel was spent, the rocket had been left to hurtle through space uncontrolled until Earth's gravity dragged it back to the ground.
Generally, the international space community tries to avoid such scenarios. Most rockets used to lift satellites and other objects into space conduct more controlled reentries that aim for the ocean, or they're left in so-called "graveyard" orbits that keep them in space for decades or centuries. But the Long March rocket is designed in a way that "leaves these big stages in low orbit," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Center at Harvard University.
In this case, it was impossible to be certain exactly when or where the booster would land. The European Space Agency had predicted a "risk zone" that encompassed "any portion of Earth's surface between about 41.5N and 41.5S latitude" — which included virtually all of the Americas south of New York, all of Africa and Australia, parts of Asia south of Japan and Europe's Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The threat to populated areas of land was not negligible, but fortunately the vast majority of Earth's surface area is consumed by oceans...
The rocket is one of the largest objects in recent memory to strike the Earth after falling out of orbit, following a 2018 incident in which a piece of a Chinese space lab broke up over the Pacific Ocean and the 2020 reentry of an 18-metric-ton Long March 5B rocket [also launched by China].
Here's the record of what happened (Score:5, Funny)
2021.04.28 Wengchang Item dispatched
2021.04.28 Wengchang Shipment at country of origin warehouse
2021.04.28 Wengchang Shipment left country of origin warehouse
2021.04.29 Wengchang accepted by carrier
2021.04.29 Wengchang departed country of origin
2021.05.03 Started customs clearance process
2021.05.03 Cleared customs
2021.05.08 Maldives Accepted by last mile carrier
2021.05.08 Maldives Delivery successful
Re:Here's the record of what happened (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, a "first post best post" on *slashdot*?
We truly live in a time of miracles.
Re:Here's the record of what happened (Score:5, Funny)
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Considering the condition of the item upon delivery, I have to ask...was it UPS, or FedEx?
More like USPS.
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Clearly ChinaPost
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Funny.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funny.. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because China failed to figure out where their object will land. When most objects de-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere, we know with relative certainty where it will end up.
We know how big the pieces will be, where the debris will approximately land, etc. We can tell where it may fall over a populated area or in a rural area. There's also reasonable high-altitude radar tracking of objects.
China simply had no clue where it would land. It could land on Washington DC, it could land on Beijing. If China knew, they weren't telling anyone. That's what the frustration was.
Re: Funny.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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1/10 of a murder was committed here
When vocabularies drops below a certain threshold, critical words like "attempt" are at risk of extinction .
Re:Funny.. (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody knew where it would land until the last moment because it was tumbling, which meant that the amount of drag it experienced was impossible to predict.
Everyone knew it wouldn't land on Washington or Beijing though because it wasn't in an orbit that took it over those areas.
When it became possible to know where it would land the Chinese did put out information. You just didn't notice because you can't read Chinese and it wasn't widely reported, with journalists preferring to get their information from the US.
Re:Funny.. (Score:5, Informative)
It's orbit was 41.5 degrees off of the equator. As it's not geostationary or synchronized at all with the 24 hour rotation period, it's orbit over each day consisted of 16 helical paths covering everything north and south of 41.5 degrees. Washington DC and Beijing are both at about 39 degrees North. It literally was tumbling out of control over both of those cities.
This is a map of what it's projected orbit looked like for the 12 hours before and after it's crash with the blue line representing were it was detected and yellow where we expected to see it assuming it didn't crash. It passed over both Washington DC and Beijing within 12 hours of it crashing and each of those tick marks represents 5 minutes differences position. It was 55 minutes away from being over Washington DC again.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img... [twimg.com]
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Re:Funny.. (Score:4, Informative)
While Russia and Nasa go to some considerable lengths to prevent deorbiting debris from falling in dangerous locations and tracking where their debris is likely to fall, accidents can occasionally happen. Russia in particular went to quite considerable expense to ensure the Mir space station landed in the ocean.
China on the other hand just seems not to care.
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Naomi Wu made an insightful comment about this on Twitter.
Yes it's bad, but it's also a development stage every independent space program has gone through. You don't want to collaborate? You don't get to complain when people figure it out the way you did
Both the US and Russia had stuff de-orbiting uncontrollably, e.g. Skylab and some Russian nuclear powered satellites. Now the US has banned itself from working with China, and China is going through the same process it went through.
Re:Funny.. (Score:4, Insightful)
AmiMoJo: "It's always US' fault. The only question is how do I blame it".
In this case, it's fairly obvious that Russians would help if asked and paid for their services, and they have expertise equal if not superior to US considering that they actually are the only ones with experience of deorbiting even actual space stations in a safe manner. Not to even mention Beijing Communists' bigger problems, like eternal "only bring the good news to the leadership, because messengers are shot in Stalinist systems".
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What makes you think that the Russians would have helped? Until just recently (within the last few months) the Russians have seen the Chinese space program as a potential rival. The US banned China from being able to partner with ISS, causing China to attempt doing things, putting up their own space station that could have been unnecessary. They have had to learn things pretty much on their own.
China's foreign ministry's spokeman stated, "I would like to reiterate that China is always committed to the pe
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Re: Funny.. (Score:2)
OK, I did. I don't know what you're talking about.
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>What makes you think that the Russians would have helped?
Their long history of selling technology and know-how to China, including most sensitive technology and know-how they knew would be stolen, far more sensitive than "how to de-orbit things safely". Things like their latest and greatest in military aviation for example. Coupled with ongoing drought of launchables for their space program due to recent increase in competition from SpaceX sucking up US contracts, they really need the money.
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What makes you think that the Russians would have helped?
Uuuh. Looks like they did help. According to Scott Manley [youtu.be], the module China just put into orbit is a licensed copy of the Russian DOS module, which were, in various versions, the Salyut stations, the Mir station, and the Zvezda module of the ISS.
And if it wasn't licensed, well, China helped themselves to the plans and made one anyway.
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I didn't blame the US, you Muppet. I said the US shouldn't criticise the Chinese for doing the same thing the US did, unless the US is willing to help China with technical assistance.
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Pretty much the *only* time I can recall the US doing the same thing was in 1973 with Skylab's LV's second stage - almost half a century ago. I don't recall any other US LV even having a core stage that reaches orbit, much less one that deorbits it in an uncontrolled fashion.
Also I'm not sure why China would need "technical assistance" with things they're already supposed to have, since they already have the ability to dock manned spacecraft with space stations, so they necessarily already have both accurat
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>The US banned China from being able to partner with ISS, causing China to attempt doing things, putting up their own space station that could have been unnecessary. They have had to learn things pretty much on their own.
Followed by...
>I didn't blame the US, you Muppet.
Friendly reminder that your previous message is still up.
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"Russia's Space X is far superior to Elon's cheap copy." Huh? To what Russian space vehicle are you referring? Or maybe that was sarcasm? The Russians seem rather to be jealous of Space X's success, since it cuts into their market for launching astronauts to the ISS.
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Re:Funny.. (Score:5, Informative)
a) Skylab wasn't a deliberately uncontrolled deorbit, it was a controlled deorbit that failed.
b) This Chinese object was the largest *deliberately uncontrolled* deorbit in 30 years.
c) China has plenty of capability and past examples of controlled deorbit.
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Not that you're an idiot, but...
The actual fact of the matter is that China already knows HOW, they just chose NOT to do so. Doing a controlled deorbit simply means you have to add some controllers and thrusters and fuel, which adds weight, which reduces payload.
Instead, they decided on max payload and to simply roll the dice on the deorbit. It probably won't do any damage. Probably.
What I get kick out of is that they they're doing their own space station as an international prestige project. Fine. But beca
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They are doing a space station because the US won't let them be part of the ISS. Now is an opportunity for them, with the ISS reaching EOL and replacements still undecided.
It's not so much payload that is the issue, as having the technology ready to go on this particular booster. Development seems to have fallen behind a bit on it, and not wanting to delay the launch of the space station they are just going with what they have.
Kinda like Skylab. No real plan to de-orbit it safely, some talk about sending up
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"It's not so much payload that is the issue, as having the technology ready to go on this particular booster."
So... they have the technology to build, launch, rendezvous, dock, and assemble multiple launches into a space station... but they don't have the technology to successfully control and deorbit a booster? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?
Like I said earlier. They made a choice, and now instead of everyone talking about China's new space station they're talking about China's inability t
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They don't have the equipment needed for that specific booster. It's like how NASA has the technology to land a man on the Moon, just not available right now and it's taking years to develop new systems to repeat that feat.
You can't just take a random flight system and weld it onto the side of a rocket, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
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Well to be honest, the reason they do their own space station is because the US blocked them from participating in the international one. So if you want someone to blame for China to create their own prestige space station, blame the US.
But I think it's a good thing China is creating their own space station, as it might actually give the US a kick in the ass to start creating a new or better one. But all in all, it would be best if all nations would work together on furthering the space program as it's impo
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Yeap, Skylab (which fell over 40 years ago, in 1979) was one of the motivations for developing controlled methods for de-orbiting large satellites, since some of it reached earth. The plan had been to use the Space Shuttle to de-orbit it in a controlled manner, but delays in the Shuttle program, plus heightened solar activity (which indirectly causes additional drag) prevented this plan from working. The Soviet Kosmos 954, which contained a nuclear reactor, at least some pieces of which hit earth about th
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Well, here is a "reasonable" source. Also mentioned somewhere on the net that something burns up in the atmosphere on average every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yeap. Big difference between something burning up, hence never reaching the ground, vs. hitting the earth.
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Funny how the article only mentions chinese objects, but forgot to mention a big piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 ...
AFAIR, it was covered here at the time.
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Re: Funny.. (Score:1)
I was wondering how long it would take for the inevitable CCP apologist to appear. EVERY Chinese related post seems to have an immediate apologist for the Party come on /. and explain how the US is just as bad, or worse in a completely different or arcane way.
To quote an article on SpaceX, âoe Usually, when the rocket second stage â" the smaller, upper part of the Falcon9 rocket â" completes its task, the stage is manually destroyed. Alternatively, SpaceX may let it linger in the atmosphere
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This is a place for logic and reason and facts.
You must be new here...
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From what I have read is that this is a 20+ ton "core" stage that lacks a controlled de-orbit system and maneuvers. The Falcon 9 2nd stage is maybe 4+ tons and it normally controls it's own descent into the atmosphere. That incident did make the new because something went wrong with that system and they did not have control, however it's quite a bit smaller than the 5b stage.
I think the issue is also that if China is going to be launching another bunch of these to get their station up it might be a good i
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Meanwhile, asteroids that explode with the power of atomic bombs regularly escapes the evening news, like this one [ibtimes.com] that thankfully exploded high in the atmosphere.
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Probably because the SpaceX incident was an accidental uncontrolled reentry. The engine on the second stage was supposed to reignite for a controlled deorbit burn, but it didn't. China's incident was an intentional uncontrolled reentry. That is, there wasn't any plan or capability for a controlled deorbit burn.
Also, the SpaceX stage was much smaller.
Re: Funny.. (Score:2)
It's not really a surprise, though, is it? Slashdot is just as sinophobic as any US dominated Web site/news site.
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I'm not sinophobic. However, I am against playing roulette with innocent people's lives when it could easily have been avoided.
If China pulls this again, I would be in favor of the strongest possible diplomatic response.
China may be the most powerful nation in the world right now (if not, it is certainly #2) but it is not more powerful than the rest of the world combined, and it also is not that eager to be seen as a rogue nation, so, if the rest of the world posed a semi-united front insofar as such thing
Propaganda? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't trust the news media much, and it would be nice to see a definitive source saying how big this piece of junk was relative to other junk, and the differences in this re-entry. CNN has a good reputation but all the examples of other space junk landings given in the linked article are also of Chinese origin, and there is no mention of items of non-Chinese origin like Skylab raining over Australia, and the recent SpaceX uncontrolled second stage re-entry which actually happened over land just last month - https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com] which did not cause major alerts like this has.
I just don't think this was a well researched article by CNN and maybe this re-entry was over sensationalised just because it is of Chinese origin. I could be *completely* wrong, but this CNN article does not reassure me of that. It is written like Chinese space technology is bad and I suspect that is not the case.
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"Sunday’s re-entry has renewed attention on congestion in space, where there are believed to be more than 2,000 rocket bodies, all technically uncontrolled, orbiting Earth.
Of those, 1,035 are Russian, including some from the Soviet era, and 546 belong to the US, according to CelesTrak, a group that monitors orbital objects. China’s space programme trails behind at 170 bodies."
https://www.scmp.com/news/chin... [scmp.com]
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"Uncontrolled" =/= likely to hit the earth. It takes a very large orbiting object to survive re-entry; the ones you refer to are mostly not big enough. The Chinese Long March 5B booster is very large, and large chunks do make it through re-entry.
Re: Propaganda? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: Propaganda? (Score:1)
Re: Propaganda? (Score:2)
If the booster /had/ been controlled then that would be the story, for sure.
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Falcon9 second stage: 3900kg, empty.
Long March 5B: ~18000kg, empty.
Note that extra zero - it's important. Survivability of a reentering object is pretty much proportional to mass of object.
Likewise, damage done by such an object is pretty much proportional to mass.
Note also that random reentry of a Falcon9 second stage is NOT by design. It IS by design for the Long March5B....
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No citation needed, search for yourself.
As for what it's made of, boosters (and second stages) tend to be made of more or less the same materials.
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CNN has a good reputation
I had to glance at your username to see if you were a regular trying to be funny or a no-name shill with zero credibility to lose.
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The Skylab and SpaceX cases were controlled deorbits that failed. The Chinese case was deliberately uncontrolled, the largest such object in 30 years.
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It is written like Chinese space technology is bad and I suspect that is not the case.
Yes, either Chinese space technology is bad, or the Chinese space agency is irresponsible. They seem to have designed this rocket so it sends a very large (~23 tons) core into space without making any provision to deorbit it in a controlled fashion. Either that or it is designed to deorbit in a controlled way but has failed 100% of the time (two out of two flights).
The odds that it will end up hurting someone are low, because the populated area of the planet is relatively small, but every other space agen
Re:Propaganda? (Score:4, Insightful)
CNN, yes the Clown News Network [youtube.com]
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What did any clown ever do wrong to deserve such a comparison??
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Not you though, we don't want you out IRL.
But we really need to know is... (Score:1)
...does Taco Bell owe all of us a taco.
Crash in the USA (Score:1)
Re: Crash in the USA (Score:5, Funny)
Just because it's bigger than youe dick and IQ?
The Earth area is ~510 M km2, USA area is ~10 M km2, or ~2%. My dick is better at math than you.
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The stage didn't pass over the entire planet. It didn't pass over the entire US area either.
"such a thing" means any rocket, satellite, anything falling down from orbit. Another one might fall on the US with a 2% probability, even if it doesn't fall on a city, that would set a precedent.
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You think it makes no difference if it lands on the Whitehouse lawn or lands in the middle of some desert?
Skylab fell in Australia and the two countries are still good friends. What precedent did that set?
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You think
You think wrong.
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You think
You think wrong.
You don't think at all.
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You think
You think wrong.
You don't think at all.
No think is better than wrong.
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You think
You think wrong.
You don't think at all.
No think is better than wrong.
You only think you think.
Wrong can be corrected. No think can't.
You still dodged the entire point. Explain why you think it makes no difference where it lands. I can be corrected if I'm wrong.
Can you with your no think?
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Units (Score:2)
40,000 pounds is almost 18 tons -- much easier to grasp.
Ridiculous propaganda. (Score:1, Informative)
We get it, you hate the Chinese. I think their governmenr is evil too. But this is no different than any of our re-entrys.
PROTIP: They only tell us it "burns up in the athmosphere" to calm people. Just like the Chinese tell their people. In reality, we got readable documents surviving re-rentry in the past. Not everything burns up. Controlling it, is at best an illusion.
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Indeed. Doing stupid propaganda is not an effective way to deal with a nation you do not like. Also, this looks like a lot of pussies are afraid of "deadly fire from the sky" for no good reason. The Chinese will be laughing their asses off at all these people so easily scared of basically nothing.
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Doing stupid propaganda
Propaganda: Misleading information about a political opponent.
Can you point out:
a) where what is being said (China having a rocket fall out of the sky without a clue of where it would land) is incorrect or misleading?
b) where the USA (or Russia or the ESA) in the past 20 years has lets something fall out of the sky without providing a very detailed prediction of its point of impact?
If you can't do both then it's not propaganda. I'm not usually one to defend the USA, but baseless China apologizing is just st
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It is a LOT different from how we do our own launches - I've been a part of some. Mistakes, errors, glitches, engineering problems are one thing. When we launch rockets we have a plan for the downstage, whether its reusable, like the Falcons, or not, like the Minutemans. We launch in certain directions depending on where we launch from to maximize the amount of ocean in the flight path if something goes wrong. China doesn't make well thought out plans with contingencies. China just does.
And the weird thing
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But this is no different than any of our re-entrys.
This hasn't been the case for almost fifty years. The STS left the ET on a controlled suborbital trajectory with a decay after single orbit. Deltas and Atlases had suborbital cores that never reached orbit. The SLS also plans to leave the core stage in a controlled suborbital trajectory with a decay after single orbit. Falcons don't even drop their core stages in oceans most of the time; they land back. Their *upper* stages are deorbited the vast majority of the time, unless something goes wrong, which occa
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It's WAY different than most of our re-entries, which are controlled so as to land them in the ocean, where nobody lives (and ships are few and far between). Occasionally there is an uncontrolled re-entry of a US (or Russian) satellite or booster big enough to survive re-entry, but those are by accident: some component designed to control re-entry fails. Not so the Chinese Long March 5B, which has NO provision for controlled re-entry.
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We get it, you hate the Chinese. I think their governmenr is evil too. But this is no different than any of our re-entrys.
Hey Captain Ignorant, it's very different given the USA, Europe and Russia predict with certainty where things will land rather than just see what happens.
Graveyard Orbit (Score:2)
Most rockets ... or they're left in so-called "graveyard" orbits that keep them in space for decades or centuries
That's OK then, not our problem.
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Now I wonder - assuming infrastructure in space for manufacturing, is it worth recovering such rockets?
Alternate headline (Score:2)
56 minutes from disaster (Score:3)
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img... [twimg.com]
This is a terrifying plot. That is a projected orbit at the time of the crash going 12 hours before and after. Blue line is were it was, yellow line where it would have been if it didn't crash. Each tick represents position every 5 minutes.
4 ticks, or 20 minutes, it crashes in Tasmania. No big deal.
5 ticks, or 25 minutes, it can rain debrees down on Northern New Zealand. Bigger deal, but minor.
10 ticks or 50 minutes, it's entering Texas. Bigger deal but largely fine.
11 ticks and it's starting to pass over Washington DC.
It it crashed about 56 minutes later, we would literally have debree rain down on either on or within a few miles of Washington DC.
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5 ticks, or 25 minutes, it can rain debrees down on Northern New Zealand. Bigger deal, but minor. 10 ticks or 50 minutes, it's entering Texas. Bigger deal but largely fine. 11 ticks and it's starting to pass over Washington DC.
It it crashed about 56 minutes later, we would literally have debree rain down on either on or within a few miles of Washington DC.
This seems entirely backwards to me. The least damage would be from wiping out Washington DC, and the most from messing up a nice place like Northern New Zealand.
More importantly, it's "debris" and you don't need to add an "s" to make it plural.
Wait ... now we're believing Chinese news ? (Score:2)
CNN is citing Chinese news ... it's almost laughable. Almost.
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Who predicted it "would" fall into the Pacific? I saw predictions that it "might" fall into the Pacific, or that it might fall anywhere else between roughly 42 north and 42 south.
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On the contrary, I read (not red) quite a few. The Pacific Ocean is the largest body of water on the Earth, including the part of the Earth between 42N and 42S, but saying it *might* land there because it's a big area, and *predicting* it would land there, are two different things. Which is why I asked--nicely--who "predicted" that.
Re: Not like they care (Score:2)
Oh, I'm 100% certain they do. They just don't give a fuck what the west thinks or says, because it's always negative no matter what happens.
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In addition to Megane's reply, there are some other mistakes in your post: The second stage of the Saturn V underwent *controlled* re-entry in 1975, long before the rest of Skylab de-orbited. Although NASA could not control the re-entry of the rest of Skylab with retro-rockets (it was intended to be moved by the Space Shuttle, as Megane comments), it was able to control the attitude, which meant that it could be brought down in a portion of its orbit that had more water than land--unlike the Long March 5B