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Australia Space

A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed In Australia (newsweek.com) 36

Posted by EditorDavid from the gravity-of-the-situation dept.
Newsweek reports that "A huge piece of space debris appears to have fallen from the sky and landed on a sheep farm in Australia." On July 9, locals across the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales heard a bang, ABC Australia reported. It was heard for miles, by those as far away as Albury, Wagga Wagga and Canberra.... Sheep farmer Mick Miners then came across a strange, charred object on his ranch, south of Jindabyne, on July 25. "I didn't know what to think, I had no idea what it was," Miners told ABC Australia.

He found the 10 foot chunk of metal wedged into the ground in a remote part of his sheep paddock.

He was not the only one. His neighbor, Jock Wallace also found some strange debris in the area. "I didn't hear the bang, but my daughters said it was very loud," Wallace told ABC. "I think it's a concern, it's just fallen out of the sky. If it landed on your house it would make a hell of a mess."

Serial numbers were noted on the charred, pieces of debris. Australian National University College of Science astrophysicist Brad Tucker told ABC News that the debris is likely from the trunk section of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft launched in 2020, and the debris may have fallen as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

Tucker told ABC that is may have been the largest piece of space debris to fall in Australia for decades — the last time was in 1979, when NASA's Skylab space station fell in Western Australia.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader 192_kbps for sharing the article!
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A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed In Australia More

A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed In Australia

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  • Statistically it is very improbable given how large the earth is and how small a portion of it we take up. Is there any risk of toxicity with this part?

  • So not China (Score:1, Troll)

    by fermion ( 181285 )
    When everyone was blaming China, there were stories of how simple it was to insure that space debris did not land intact on land.

    This is a serious matter. I believe Spaces has been sited for not taking proper safety precaution. If this is a piece of spacex hardware, they should really be shut down until they prove they have the technologically ability to not kill us. They are so fussed on record number of launches, I doubt they are concerned that they might take out a family.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 )
      Space debris landing somewhere recklessly random is okay as long as it's the good guys doing it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        And to think you thought up a slight against the "good guys" all by yourself. Please send us some more of your insightful comments.

      • Considering the owner of SpaceX, are there really any good guys here?

        • Who else is doing as much to get off this rock? I can't think of a more beneficial thing than to work towards long-term survival of our species.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by khchung ( 462899 )

        Space debris landing somewhere recklessly random is okay as long as it's the good guys doing it.

        The thing is, a lot of people in China used to look up to America as role model. Now, many start to catch on to the hypocrisy and no longer cared what Americans think. What American media said will have less and less influence in China.

    • The farmer should sell his debris to the China space program. They'll buy it for the data.

    • Re:So not China (Score:4, Informative)

      by splutty ( 43475 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @02:15PM (#62747524)

      Humans are incredibly bad at statistics or randomized events. This is one of those times.

      The event of "Space Debris Falling From Sky Intact" is extremely rare. The chance of it actually hitting something or someone is even rarer.

      The risk of you getting hit by a car when you're outside are several magnitudes larger, so let's ban cars?

      Sometimes things go wrong. This was almost certainly not an intentional "Let's just launch and see where it lands".

      Did you ever wonder why rocket launch sites are located where they are? To reduce the risk of crap falling from the sky after a launch. This is just a lot later :)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        People are bad at estimating risk, and often have a bias. That is why so many in the US have guns.

        But in this case we are talking about designing in risk. Like the Ford Pinto and similar cars. Your individual risk was near zero, but that was no consolation for those who were dead.

        So far we have seen no casualties from space debris. We have not lived in a world where there are soon to be multiple major launches per week. So if we are not designing in safety, we are heading to fatalities, expensive ones,

      • The event of "Space Debris Falling From Sky Intact" is extremely rare. The chance of it actually hitting something or someone is even rarer.

        I'm sure that that must be a great comfort to Toilet Seat Girl [wikipedia.org].

      • The chance of a bullet fired into the air harming someone as it comes down is allso small. Yet this practise is banned.

        https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]

        How come Elon and China and the space agencies of the world get a free pass on uncontrolled reentry, while regular people have to follow the law. Especially with the (orders of magnitude?) increase in launches planned.

    • If this is a piece of spacex hardware, they should really be shut down until they prove they have the technologically ability to not kill us.

      No one died. Calm yourself man.

  • Space debris dump? (Score:4, Informative)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @01:42PM (#62747478) Homepage

    Wow, IIRC a big chuck of skylab landed in Australia. Seems to be the Space debris dumping ground.

    I looked it up, here it is:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-31/nasa-skylab-fell-to-earth-esperance-retrofocus/12282468

  • "the debris may have fallen as it re-entered"

    Gee, ya think?

  • Woo hoo! Free Starlink for life!

  • If it was my land, I'd be more worried about it setting fire to huge swathes of dry grass than hitting a building. Isn't space debris pretty hot by the time it's battered its way through the atmosphere?
  • Newsweek is still in business?

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