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."
So that's how cattle mutilations happen!
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
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
That's ridiculous. A much more stereotypical response in the US would be for NASA to pay the family 200% of the value of what they lost, and the scrupulous family would still insist on suing for additional millions for the "emotional damage" resultant from the loss of their goldfish. The subsequent increase in insurance costs would push commercialization of space back a decade or two.
here, have a nice big helping of article text.
KAZAKHSTAN'S SPACESHIP JUNKYARD
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Jonas Bendiksen
Text by Laara Matsen
On April 16, Russia announced that it would henceforth launch military satellites at the Pletsnesk cosmodrome in northern Russia, ending the practice of launching satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This shift will deprive Kazakh children of the chance to watch some satellites take off, though Baikonur will remain the launchpad for commercial "birds" and manned missions. As these photos show, it will also spare Kazakhs the fallout, literal and otherwise, that occurs in a launch's wake.
All space-bound rockets consist largely of fuel tanks and booster stages that fall back to earth when spent, never reaching orbit. In landlocked Baikonur, Russia's primary launching complex in Kazakhstan, these spaceships crash to earth. This photo essay visits the areas where the supporting rockets land, and shows the people living under the flight paths who contend with flaming spaceship wrecks several times each month.
Apart from the fear of having a spaceship crash through their roofs, residents in the area complain of the ill effects of leftover toxic rocket fuel. With the relocation of Russian military launches, more than half of which currently take off from Baikonur, these people may get some relief. However, one group of people is probably sorry to see Baikonur lose business; the region's scrap metal dealers are getting rich trading metal from the rockets' titanium alloy hulls.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
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.
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"