Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Satellite Crashes Into House
toggleflipflop writes "In China, a returning satellite crashed into a house. No one was hurt.
More details in this article. Apparently inhabited by an eternal optimist: 'The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year,' the tenant of the wrecked apartment was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
According to the People's Daily's article on the subject nothing seems to have gone wrong."
Only in China would someone take a large hunk of metal destroying their home as a sign of good luck. The rest of us would probably be thinking that some higher power hates us.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
As opposed to the corporate-run media in the US? You should never trust any media outlet completely.
China's spy satellites still use film. They deorbit them in order to retrieve the images.
'The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year.
Eternal optimist? I doubt it. I'm sure the villager bit his tongue, and wisely refrained from voicing his true opinion.
It's all relative. A broken roof is a minor inconvenience compared to ten years in prison for criticizing the government.
And how that is different from the american media reporting what the WhiteHouse tells them?
they probably just reported what the government said, before finding out that something else had happened
According to sources mentioned above, the capsule is a re-entry vehicle and it stayed completely intact. Actually it came down via parachute.
That satellite from which this capsule was dropped off has been up there for only last 18 days. My guess is that it hasn't got anything to do with science and very much with military intelligence.
For good part of the cold war both US and USSR used capsules to relay back intel images as radio and camera technology was not yet enough mature to do the job right. The chinese might still be (atleast partially) using robust methods which are proven to work - same with their manned missions.
People managing their space program are definately calculating re-entry trajectories carefully so they know atleast approximately where the retrieval point is. No way they would drop a capsule by accident to populated areas.
I'd say it was a hastened retrieval of latest intelligence, someone needed those images very badly and was ready to take the risk.
Just my two cents.
According chinese traditional astrology, such event is considered very lucky, because of involvment of heaven element. So the guy's reasoning is very rational in paradigm of his culture. All those of you americans who are slashing and bashing chinese government propaganda in this thread, think at first about your own culture paradigms and government propaganda rooted in them, they are far more dangerous to anybody as well as to you yourself.
There you are, staring at me again.