Slashdot Mirror
Kazakhstan's Spaceship Junkyard
Richard W.M. Jones writes "What happens to the booster stages of rockets?
They fall back to earth, and in most cases
into the oceans. But not in Baikonur, Kazakhstan,
where the first stages fall over populated
farmland. The locals have become rich
dealing in the titanium-rich scrap metal
as this
article and this
remarkable photo essay show.
So far the only casualties seem to have
been a few
dead cows."
...rocket falls on YOU!
So that's how cattle mutilations happen!
I predict that the server will go down like the boosters. First, heating up, then, burning up, and finally, nothing but scrap metal.
Sucks to be a cow ...
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I hope this isnt the same server that is used to guide the rockets or theres gonna be a hell of a lot more dead cows
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
These farmers, rather than demand restitution from the government got off their asses and turned lemons into lemonade.
Of course, a certain government might turn their lemonade into military action when they decide they want a piece of the pie.
If spent stages from a US rocket hit some home in the US, it would be removed overnight, the family would be given a check for 20% of the value of what they lost, forced to sign an NDA, and no one would ever hear about it again.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
damn, those russians are hardcore cow tippers. who'd have thought?
In Soviet Russia, people don't seek rocket; Rocket seek people.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
The junkers from Asimov's stories =)
Since these parts start on earth, you're not going to catch anything that the flight control team doesn't already have. Frankly, Skylab fell on the aussies, and nobody there caught any extraterrestrial bug that anybody outside Oz noticed.
Since the article is slashdotted, I hope they at least take care to plot where the villages are, before letting parts fall everywhere.
I wonder what Borat has to say about this?
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
4 comments as I view, and it's down.
How's this for the ultimate conundrum: the combination of "Nobody RTFA here" and "the Slashdot Effect" taking down sites?
Maybe some people actually DO RTFA besides myself?
(sigh
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Needs about 1,668 degrees Celsius to melt. That's all they can do with it...sell it. I can vouch for one thing, more jewelry is being made of titanium. Strange choice, but consider that 1,000 years ago aluminum was a hundred times more valuable than gold. I melt aluminum into ingots to save when I complete a mold for a tool I need to build. That's the only way to be certain somthing is made in America today, it seems. More power to Our Kazakhstan neighbors.
without prejudice
7 replies and photo essay is already slow as hell...
Ex-Soviet Russia is famous for *not* managing its nuclear waste (hundreds of nuclear submarines slowly rotting away in Barents Sea, pissing off Finns and Swedes) ; nuclear weapons out of hand or simply "missing" ; some famous fuckups (Tchernobyl; that bio-warfare incident about 20 years ago, when a lab leaked a killer virus over a village) ; etc...
So nobody should be surprised that they let booster rockets fall on populated areas...
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
So far the only casualties seem to have been a few dead cows
Thank you SO MUCH. I have found my new background.
Rocket hitting your barn full of cows, sheep, and Soviet Bloc farm equipment - 677912345234621 Rubles (roughly $20 US). Reselling the rocket to random scrap metal dealers - priceless, or at least 76790823485724429234 rubles (roughly $45 US).
Coral cache due to /.ing:t s/culture/articles/photo_pages/essay_proj2.cfm?ser ies=sj&ID=1&max=12&ss=off
http://www.eurasianet.org.nyud.net:8090/departmen
I realize there are obvious answers (toxic fuel, fire, etc...) but I'm often surprised when asking these questions.
"Derp de derp."
First I cringed about locals harvesting space junk. Then I cringed at the words, " this remarkable photo essay show," knowing that meant I wouldn't get to see the photos, and there will be some server junk for the locals to harvest next.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
That's not a story, it's seven sentences.
/. has posted stories based off nothing but a "my sister's boyfriend's best friend's uncle's janitor's hairdress told him that some unknown Microsoft VP told the guy in the stall next to him..."
Of course,
That was in Bowling for Columbine, and it was bullets from K-Mart. Wrong on 2 counts, bucko.
"Kids growing up in areas damaged by radiation from the plant have a higher IQ and faster reaction times, say Russian doctors." Note: say Russian doctors, says The Sun! Do the two layers on untrustworthyness somehow cancel each other out, so as to make the statement trustworthy?
Even funnier, I read the article about the mutant Chernobyl children and the in-page-advert was from Microsoft and included dinosaured headed people in shirts-and-tie talking around the office. I thought it was a spoof article at first with pictures of Godzilla like kids ;)
"That is not dead which can eternal lie...."
Nimheil
I went to Almaty (aka "Alma Ata", the old capital of Kazakhstan) back in about 1994. I really enjoyed it and found the people to be very friendly and enthusiastic.
I did find the food to be somewhat unique. Breakfast was usually a kind of roll filled with either finely chopped vegetables and/or finely ground meat. I don't know what sort of meat it was and it wasn't even always clear which buns had meat as everything was so finely ground up. It was all tasty though.
Lunch was fairly straight forward but the dessert was a peculiar electric green sweet foam. I couldn't identify the flavor but it was also pretty good.
Supper was quite interesting as, although the menu had a variety of items, it turned out what was actually available was either steak or spaghetti. No worry though, both were quite good as was the company!
The architecture, furnishings, and decor of Almaty were very interesting. For me, it was like an instant trip to the 1950s but in a parallel universe where everything was slightly unfamiliar.
The name of the hotel I stayed at escapes me right now but it was something like "The Cosmo". I think it has been renamed "Kazakhstan Hotel" based on the pictures I can find. There was a very impressive and very large tapestry commemorating the Soviet space program in the lobby.
The main thing about my trip was my time in Kazakhstan was far too short. It took ~48 hours to get there, I had ~48 hours there, and then it was ~48 hours to come home. I wish I had time to visit Baikonur Cosmodrome (we were invited to visit by our hosts) but we didn't have time. I'll always regret that.
Anyway, if you get a chance to go to Kazakhstan, you really should take it.
A couple friends recently got engaged, and they had an artisan who specialized in jewelry design and make her engagement ring.
Of all the exotic materials they can make rings out of, one thing she would not do was make rings out of titanium. The reason? In case of certain medical emergencies (snagged in a machine, or crashed car, or whatever), they'd need to cut the ring off to free the finger (and ultimately the entire person). But no paramedic or even hospital ward is routinely equipped with tools to cut through titanium. If they encountered a titanium ring in a time-critical emergency, they could well be forced to cut the finger off instead.
The object the woman's hiolding in photo essay pic #8 looks suspiciously like the things Arthur, Ford, & Zaphod were getting slapped in the face with enroute to rescue Trillian...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/imag es/sj2.jpg [eurasianet.org]
That's the second image, a smoking hunk of what must be a fallen rocket casing I guess.
There's 12 images in all, I've only seen the first two, but they seem to follow simple numeric order, so the others would end
and so on.
If anyone wants to send me a zip of the pictures if they can access them by email, I'll rehost and post the link. But as I say, right now I've only got two images.
http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~64ndhi/SlashdotKazakh stan/
Counter we contacted our local hospital emergency room and asked if they were equipped to cut off a titanium ring in an emergency. Most hospital emergency rooms are prepared to handle almost anything, and ours assured us that it would be no problem for them. During our 30+ years of jewelry repair experience, we've only seen a dozen or so rings that have been cut off in hospital emergency rooms, and in most of those cases the rings had been bent out-of-round and were putting painful pressure on the finger. Titanium rings are less likely to crush or bend out-of-round, so if you shut your hand in a car door or drop a heavy object on it, it might be safer to be wearing a titanium ring than a precious metal band!
Counter 2 In case of an emergency, such as an injured finger, Emergency Medical Technicians, Fire Departments, and Hospital Emergency Rooms can quickly remove titanium rings. Several non-destructive methods for ring removal are available before resorting to cutting a ring. In the rare event it becomes necessary to cut off a titanium ring, emergency medical professionals carry ring cutters or rotary cut-off tools that cut through metals, including our CP and Aerospace Grade Titanium. In our testing, we found that tools that will cut through steel will also cut through titanium rings.
Counter 3 Titanium rings are created with safety in mind, as there is always the possibility that a ring will need to be removed in an emergency. Tests by various manufacturers have shown that titanium rings can be manually cut with a ring cutter within a matter of minutes, and much faster using an electric ring cutting device, such as those that many paramedics use.
Counter 4 I had heard that there is a "medical emergency" issue (i.e. they can't cut the ring off of your finger with regular ring snippers) but my friend's hubby, who is an EMT, assured me that this isn't something to be concerned about, since they have different types of cutters they can use should the need arise.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I recall one time I saw AC/DC, a fellow next to me in front of the stage (read mosh pit) lost his glasses. Normally, one would be concerned - but not this guy. "My glasses have titanium frames, they will be fine!" We found them at the end of the show.
I still remember the look on his face when we found them - he just stared slack-jawed at the twisted ball of metal in his palm.
Counter 5 Heat the ring up to 1338 degrees so that it can then be easily worked off the finger without needing to worry about injuring the finger with ungainly 'ring cutters'.
I was just curious, I was only able to see a few of the photos before the server got too bogged down..., but from the looks of the one where the guy is standing on the "space junk", I was shocked by the shear size of that thing!
:)
Does anyone have a rough guess about how much metal is in one of those things? Also, what do you think THEY get in Kazakhstan for the Ti? compared to what we could get here in the US??? Last I checked, Ti was going for around $1 or $1.25 / lb and that is IF you can find a buyer. Acording to RecyclyingToday.com there seems to be a surplus...
Just wondering if anyone has a rough idea for us scrap geeks
I'd hate to have one of those puppies fall in my back yard and have to say, "Yeah, I know I didn't get the best price on my scrap booster rocket, but AT LEAST I GOT A GREAT PRICE ON CAR INSURANCE!"
And that's perfectly fine for doing aluminum casting; now let's see you get aluminum from clay with it. Nobody was saying that you can't work aluminum with normal heats; it's quite a bit easier to heat than steel is, and that's perfectly doable with a little bit of air and some chunk charcoal.
BTW, the whole setup would function better if you had something like a brake drum from a car (or just about any other sort of fire-resistant pot with a hole in the bottom) and some piping to get the air coming up through the hole in the bottom. It's actually fairly easy to soften, melt, and burn steel in such an arrangement, using either chunk charcoal or coal. (real charcoal burns quite noticeably hotter, albeit faster, than briquettes.)
But anyways, enough of me ranting about the forge in my backyard.
Yek She Mesh!
I am Borat and I come from Kazshakstan. I have beeg hhhram, it is beeg like ze booster rockets. Do you want to touch my hhhram? It izsh naice.
No? Can I touch youaz?
--
Registered .sig quotient : 1337
A couple of things came to mind reading the parent.
I'd have to say welding titanium is no more difficult than welding aluminum or stainless steel. They're all tricky and it takes practice.
Titanium can be difficult to work with (especially if you're not set up to do so) but you'll notice that most titanium jewelry is either formed (from wire, rod or sheet) or machined. Titanium rings/bands are machined- not cast.
Because Ti rings are machined, your local jeweler is likely unable to resize your ring. You can't size it down the way you would common alloy rings (which are cut and soldered to make smaller, stretched to make bigger) so you've got to either go back to the retailer or in some cases the manufacturer.
Aluminum was more expensive than gold, but its value is subjective, gold has been desired more than any other metal since its discovery. Side note- aluminum used to cost more because until relatively recently it was extremely expensive to extract from bauxite. (If you're interested, it's called the Bayer Process)
Unlike gold and other precious metals and alloys, I don't think titanium and other industrial metals are sold on market exchanges. There's no spot or fix for the industrial metals (that I know of.)
And lastly, my local scrap metal dealer buys Ti at $.18/pound and sells at $.24/pound. I think this is much lower than it's market value, but even o it's no wonder these farmer guys are making $$$- they have tonnage. Well, and, it's probably hard to find in that market.
R(k)
As for the dead cows, I bet they ate grass contaminated with rocket fuel - it can be very poisonous. I am not sure what they use, but hydrazine, for instance, is very poisonous.
but consider that 1,000 years ago aluminum was a hundred times more valuable than gold
Aluminum was not known as a metal 1,000 years ago, having been discovered in 1825 and purified enough to really test its properties in 1827. But yes, until the electolytic process was developed in 1886, it was quite vaulable because it was so hard to purify.
(There were, in fact, only seven pure metals known a thousand years ago -- iron, copper, tin, gold, silver, lead, and mercury. The isolation of zinc and its recognition as a metal dates to c.1200 AD in India, and arsenic was isolated around that time in Europe.)
Am I the only one who is really very dissapointed by that? I was really looking forward to some pics of some very flat cows.
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