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Guess When Mir Will Splash

Posted by michael on from the pin-the-tail-on-the-space-station dept.

ardiri writes: "CNN is reporting that the Russian space station MIR's dumping is to be delayed until mid March, adding approximately 2 weeks to the original dumping date of March 6. Maybe the /. saga of MIR postings will stop once the leftover "chunks" (weighing up to 700kg/1500lb) hit the bottom of the ocean halfway between New Zealand and Chile. Make a mental note, stay away from that area in mid march." Okay, I'm tired of this. It's time to settle Mir's fate once and for all - with a contest.

Guess When Mir Will Come Down

I've been irritated with Mir for a while. It's up. It's down. It's up. It's down. It's saved. It's dead. It's broken. It's fixed. It's broken again. It's fixed again. Weeks ago, I started putting notes on Mir story submissions that came in, which said, "No more Mir stories until pieces start falling!". I even promised that we wouldn't post any more about Mir's troubles. But here I am, breaking that promise. Mir needs to be put down.

Guess when Mir hits the water and win a t-shirt from yours truly. Here are the rules:

1) Use ISO format in a comment submitted to this story - don't e-mail me. ISO format is 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'. Thus, a prediction for the afternoon of March 13 would be '2001-03-13 14:23:07'. All times are Eastern Standard Time in the United States, unless Mir makes it until we go on Daylight Savings Time. Your time prediction can be anywhere in a comment submitted to this story. Note that Slashdot stops allowing new comments on a story a few days after it is posted, so if you don't make your guess now, you won't get a chance later. Use ISO format so I can find it with my browser's find function later on. Closest guess wins.

2) Mir's splash time will be judged by reading the first reports submitted by the major fast-response news networks - CNN, AP and Reuters, in that order. I'm looking for a sentence like, "The first pieces of Mir hit the water at [time]." If none of them mentions a time when the first chunks of Mir hit the water (or land, as the case may be) I'll look for a time mentioned when Mir enters the atmosphere. If we still don't have a time (unlikely, I think) I'll resort to other major news sources, NASA, etc.

3) Cunning readers will note that Mir's ephemeris is publicly available and limits the likely splashdown times to various windows. You could probably substantially improve your chances of winning by doing a lot of research and calculations, not that that would be very time-efficient for a $15 t-shirt.

4) One entry per person, please. I'll contact you through the e-mail address you used when you signed up for an account.

5) Winners will be judged as soon as possible after Mir splashes. I'm the sole judge. There is no appeal. Void where prohibited. If you know me you can't win. However, if you have influence over Mir's trajectory and can influence the thing to come down at the time you picked, you win two t-shirts. No cash value. Contest prize consists of a t-shirt from Thinkgeek or Copyleft, winner's choice, provided by me and not Slashdot, VA Linux or anyone else.

7 of 652 comments (clear)

  1. 2000-03-15 14:08:17 by mach-5 · · Score: 4

    2000-03-15 14:08:17 Beware the ides of march

  2. My prediction... by glebite · · Score: 4

    Mir will be brought down on: 2001-03-16 14:00:00 to commemorate the historical significance of:

    The first man to give dreams of reaching the stars a glimpse of reality was Dr. Robert H. Goddard, who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket to an altitude of 41 feet on this day in 1926. The test occurred shortly before Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic and never received the headlines that Lindbergh did, but the historic significance was staggering.

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    I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
  3. Latest MIR News from Russia by Masem · · Score: 5
    In an attempt to keep in step with their American counterparts, the Russia Space Agency is now going to attempt to land Mir on Eros. "If American snotty-heads can put dinky satelite on asteroid, we can certainlik put Mir on it too!" head officals were reported to say.

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    "Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
    "I can see my house from here!" - ST:
  4. MIR Location by NTSwerver · · Score: 4

    You can keep up-to-date with MIR's location here.

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    Moderator's essentials
  5. 2001-03-17 06:23:21 by gtx · · Score: 3

    2001-03-17 06:23:21 i've got this one dicked. i called my psychic.


    "I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears

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    "I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
  6. Can we have a different contest? by sharkticon · · Score: 5

    I've got a couple of ideas for fun contests that we can all play, and they're relevent for the /. community as well!

    Firstly, we have How long will /. stay up?. Each of us can guess exactly how long (in hours) /. will be up for before it inexplicably dies with no response from the site admins. For bonus points, guess how long it'll take them to get it running again.

    Secondly, Why did it go down?. We can all have fun here guessing why /. went down again. Was it a DDoS? Corrupted database? Someone tripped and pulled the power cord out? My guess for the latest one is the fact that there's now over a billion user accounts here...

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    1. Re:Can we have a different contest? by jellicle · · Score: 3

      The mysql database barfed last night and was down for maybe three-four hours or so. During that time only static pages were served. There is still some sort of corruption issue with the users table, and I'm not sure what the planned solution to that is. There are nightly backups, so at most we'd lose the new users created yesterday/today.