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Nuclear 'Asteroids' Due In A Few Hundred Years

Posted by timothy on from the happy-birthday-to-you-happy-birthday-to-you dept.

easyCoder writes "In this space.com article, it mentions a RORSAT satellite that has been leaking radioactive coolant, leaving little droplets of it in orbit around our planet. However, further down, it also mentions this, quoted here for maximum impact: 'After a RORSATs tour-of-duty was over, the reactor's fuel core was shot high above Earth into a "disposal orbit." Once at that altitude the power supply unit would take several hundred years before it reentered the Earth's atmosphere.' Wow. So ... our great-grandchildren can expect a lovely day, partly cloudy with the occasional nuclear reactor plummeting down from outer space."

5 of 589 comments (clear)

  1. ouch. by the+gnat · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Way to go, Soviet Union! Another triumph for communism! Long after their last sub crewman has died of lymphoma, we'll continue to reap the rewards of their technological prowess. As if spreading Cs137 all over the Ukraine wasn't enough. . .

  2. that's why we need Greenspace... by mah! · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    ...as in 1999 something similar already happened.

    (I meant this Greenspace)

    PS: OK, that was only a movie

  3. Re:Just how much material are we talking about her by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    shut the fuck up, jarhead.

  4. You sir, are a dumbass by StarsAreAlsoFire · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You fucking dumb ass. Even if it WASN'T radioactive to start with, by the time it crashes into the earth, hundreds of years hence, it WOULD be. Seeing as it is politly orbiting directly through the Van Allen belts a few times a day and getting smacked by high energy electrons. Amoungst other things. Hell, small drops of dense liquid would probably be an awesome He3 collection system.

    Thr RISK, dickweed, is from being hit by a fucking drop of NaK at seven kilometers per second. Or more. As the ARTICLE iterated a number of times. But of course, you decide to focus on the nuclear aspect. Get a clue. Stop spreading FUD.

  5. Yet more Slashdot fat nerd paranoai conspiracy BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Wow. So ... our great-grandchildren can expect a lovely day, partly cloudy with the occasional nuclear reactor plummeting down from outer space."


    Of course. Because the technology simply won't exist to DO anything about in a few hundred years. So we should be alarmists now.