Saturday - September 24, 2011

Chicken Little Exhales

NASA’s dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Details were still sketchy, but the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Center and NASA say that the bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth’s atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That doesn’t necessarily mean it all fell into the sea—although most of it is believed to have burned up.

NASA’s calculations had predicted that the former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile swath.

The two government agencies say the 35-foot satellite fell sometime between 11:23 p.m. EDT and 1:09 a.m. EDT. NASA said it didn’t know the precise time or location yet

Some 26 pieces of the satellite—representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal—were expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds.

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will be the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.
...
Some 26 pieces of the UARS satellite—representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal—are expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms).

Earthlings can take comfort in the fact that no one has ever been hurt by falling space junk—to anyone’s knowledge—and there has been no serious property damage. NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth would get hurt at 1-in-3,200. But any one person’s odds of being struck were estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
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In any case, finders definitely aren’t keepers. Any surviving wreckage belongs to NASA, and it is against the law to keep or sell even the smallest piece. There are no toxic chemicals on board, but sharp edges could be dangerous, so the space agency is warning the public to keep hands off and call police.

Really? Against the law to keep space debris? WTF? I can’t imagine a stronger definition of throwing something away than shooting it into orbit. Another bloody unconstitutional law IMO. Ok, while it’s in orbit and they can control it, it’s theirs. Fine. But when it’s dead it’s trash. A billion dollars worth of recycling, and the biggest ticket for littering that ever was.

Anyway, the Big Scare is over now, so the MSM will have to move on and find something else to try and frighten everyone with that turns out to be utterly mundane.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/24/2011 at 08:45 AM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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