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Space Debris Narrowly Misses Airliner
An anonymous reader writes "An airliner jet traveling from Chile to New Zealand early today was in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris — the remains of a Russian satellite — came hurtling back to Earth not far from a commercial jet on its way to Auckland, New Zealand. Here's further justification for the growing concern of the increasing amounts of space garbage orbiting our planet. From the article: 'The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 ... notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...'"
YOU hit spacejunk!
Chili?
Russion?
I hate it when my spicy peppers serve as runways.... editors, come on. Are you kidding me?
Damne those Russions!!!
Sorry... couldn't help myself...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I work at a major supplier for onboard electronic systems for airliners. I'll remind my boss at the next meeting to bump up the priority on the space junk laser defense system.
Dude, just stick your head out and look! It's not that hard.
Monstar L
It's harder when you have to roll down the window with that little crank.
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after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...
Apparently the Russions developed wormhole technology! An object can be both in front of and behind a jet at the same time! I hope they don't share this technology with the Chili-ans!
Apparently, the Chili-ans have already developed the highly vaunted A-340 rear-view mirror technology. (Seriously, how do you see something 5 miles BEHIND a A-340 from the pilot seat?)
Or maybe this is just the worst summary ever. Although I'm a fan of anybody who can completely offend 160 million people in a single paragraph by misspelling the name of their nations.
Comment of the year
But that would be too dangerous!, you need to keep your eyes on the air in front of you in order to maintain safe distance from the space junk in front!
"Flaming Space Debris", now that's a great name for a rock band.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Fortunately work has already been begun on Dr. Evils's Giant Magnet
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
The debris came within .0000000538 AU of the aircraft.
Here's one proposal. :)
to clean up the mess in our space. :-)
Mod this post up +1 Thinks Inside the Box
IN 2010, they intend to ship planes with Klinger as well.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Not to worry; the Earth gains about one ton per year from infalling cosmic particles.
As well, the Frito-Lay Corporation, in partnership with Dolly-Madison, are committed to the task of increasing the Earth's gravitational pull... one person at a time. I take my hat off to these patriotic, civic-minded businesses for doing their part to solve the desperate space-junk problem!
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
"In the event of a collision with a huge, fiery meteor, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above you..."
Its even easier than that. Simply change the gravitational constant of the universe. problem solved.
1 NM == 1 minute of Latitude
So it also missed him by 5 minutes;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If the debris was both in front of and behind the aircraft at the same time, and pilot Heisenberg was uncertain just where it was in the space/time continuum relative to his point of observation, then perhaps all planes should be fitted out with string theory calculators.
Or their weather report should be updated to include expected orbital re-entries.