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Lockheed Martin Drops NOAA Satellite

Posted by michael on from the all-the-king's-horses-being-mobilized dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Last Saturday, engineers at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale were rotating the NOAA-N spacecraft from vertical to horizontal when it slipped and fell - hard. SpaceRef has the story and a graphic photo of the damaged satellite."

11 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Shit.. by leifm · · Score: 5, Funny

    And I thought I was pissed when I dropped my iBook...

    --

    "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
  2. 24 bolts? by BigBir3d · · Score: 4, Funny

    How the heck are 24 bolts missing? Someone is sooooo fired over this one!

  3. IM dialog.... by Blob+Pet · · Score: 2, Funny

    A conversation with my buddy Chris on this article...

    Me: the satellite's name is NOAA-N Prime haha...it should have an autobot symbol

    Chris: But the question is, what does it transform into?

    Me: i think it's already in vehicle mode

    Chris: Yeah, it damages its enemies by falling over on them and causing severe damage, according to the article

    Chris: I'm not sure it deserves the title "autobot"

    Chris: "NOAA-N Prime finally defeats the mighty Megatron by falling on its side on him. Megatron, not strong enough to lift NOAA-N Prime off of him, eventually gave up"

    --
    "...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
  4. Bad Engineering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's just, what, a 20G decelleration? Heck, my laptop can survive more than that. Here, watch m

  5. Personally, I find this re-assuring... by FFFish · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...'cause it means that on the whole, no matter how bad a day I'm having, I can always remember: someone else had a far, far worse one.

    --

    --
    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
  6. photoshop? by oni · · Score: 4, Funny

    I feel sorry for the engineers who's work has been damaged, but I can't help but want to photoshop this. There is a desk complete with in-out boxes just to the left of the satellite. I think there needs to be a small pool of blood there to make this funny.

    Bad news: we dropped a multi-million dollar satellite
    Worse news: it landed on Phil, the only guy who knows how to fix it.

  7. America's Funniest Home Videos by chia_monkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's aweful. And probably gonna be damn expensive to fix. But looking at the picture, all I can imagine is watching a kitten or something bump up against it, watch it knock over, and have Bob Saget saying something so horrifically annoying that all I want to do is wish I was underneath that thing.

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
  8. Consecutive slashdot stories by Smack · · Score: 4, Funny

    Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
    Lockheed Martin Drops NOAA Satellite

    Hee.

  9. New rule by annisette · · Score: 1, Funny

    posted from command Central: All future satellite construction will be built in the vertical, checked in the vertical, and launched in the vertical, This decree will eliminate this problem.

    --
    I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
  10. One word... by tellurian · · Score: 2, Funny

    eBay

  11. Project Status Messages by Mr.Sharpy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Vibration Test...Completed
    Structural Load Test...Completed

    Good to see they got those out of the way!