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Space Litter To Hit Earth Tomorrow
A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening. The 1,400-pound object was deliberately jettisoned — by hand — from the ISS's robot arm in July 2007. Since the time of re-entry is uncertain, so is the location. "NASA expects up to 15 pieces of the tank to survive the searing hot temperatures of re-entry, ranging in size from about 1.4 ounces (40 grams) to nearly 40 pounds (17.5 kilograms). ... [T]he largest pieces could slam into the Earth's surface at about 100 mph (161 kph). ...'If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."
With a chance of toxic ammonia-coated metal chunks?
As opposed to that non-toxic, safe-to-eat, oh-so-good-for-you ammonia they sell down at the cleaning supplies store?
http://www.reentrynews.com/1998067ba.html
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Assuming a capable laser system, would a gentle laser push towards earth be a good way to clean up space junk? Would away from earth be better?
A laser which would simply annihilate the junk would be admittedly cooler, but could de-orbit be accomplished with much less power?
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does anyone have a clue where this stuff will land, or how much damage one of the larger pieces will cause ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Wonder how much money I could get from NASA for this intentional, reckless abandonment of government waste comes shooting into the side of my house? HUGE payout!
Kid: "Mom, roll down the window so I can toss my dirty Kleenex out."
Mom: "No, son, that is not polite."
Kid: "But NASA is dumping a big barrel of ammonia stuff back to Earth, and it may kill somebody."
Table-ized A.I.
Didn't our military blast a re-entering spy satellite to pieces a few months ago to avoid accidents and protect secrets? Why couldn't they use the same technique?
Table-ized A.I.
about how cool this is?
First, here is NASA being about as open about it as they can get. We dumped a toxic container out, and it might hit your house or spouse or both. Possible reason for joy?
Second, 50 years ago there was probably only two people on the entire planet that could have thought such a safety announcement would be put out with all the fame and glory of a news item about a fender bender in the WalMart parking lot!
I kind of look forward to news reports like this:
Space weather warning: Launch News- Today in the Southern Americas regions, the likelihood of debris showers is at Threat Level Orange. Expected drop zone is 15 miles off the coast of Peru as the StarLiner "Moses" launches for Alpha Centauri.
Between the hours of 13:00 GMT and 23:50 GMT, some pieces of the launch platform are expected to survive the searing heat of re-entry. It is possible for pieces up to 57 kilograms to reach the Earth's surface. Please contact the local constabulary for concerns about livestock. Normal insurance claim processes apply.
You all wanted flying cars. I want star cruisers and Earth 2.0.
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Hope it doesn't fall on me! I mean this seems like a dangerous experiment, I hope NASA will pay if any property is damaged by this experiment since it is deliberate. I would think they are legally responsible if anyone dies or any property is damaged. Any lawyers in the thread? :)
Why the hell not? If I find it first... it's mine.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I wonder if they can track where this stuff will end up falling to earth. Given the earth is 70% ocean, there is a good chance that it wont hit land. Still. the idea of a refridgerator sized piece of toxic metal slamming down, perhaps anywhere, does make one a little nervous. Still ones chance of getting hit by lightning is greater than having this fall on top of you.
NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object [...] to make sure it does not endanger people on Earth.
I wonder how tracking it is going to help if it crashes thru someones ceiling at 100mph.
I know the chances are low, but still.
If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it
Yes, I hope they don't, but in reality if someone encounters a piece of space trash, and see it for space trash, they will pick it up thinking it might be worth something.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
You could probably get a fair amount for something like that and then I could that money for something useful like coke and whores.
..that if I find a piece of anything tomorrow, keeping away is the LAST thing I'll be doing.
thangyewverymuchyoureamarvellousaudiencelaydisgenlmn
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Why would it slam into the side of your house? It would probably come from above, right?
Libertas in infinitum
Why would they, the pieces mentioned in TFA are very small already.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
A laser which would simply annihilate the junk would be admittedly cooler
It would be cooler, but then you're violating the law of conservation of mass*, which is pretty hard to do with just a laser.
(*yes, I know it's conservation of mass and energy, and that you can convert mass into energy in a nuclear reaction)
Didn't our military blast a re-entering spy satellite to pieces a few months ago to avoid accidents and protect secrets? Why couldn't they use the same technique?
That's a good question. It seems to me that blasting creates more, albeit, smaller space junk. I think a benefit is that a blast is roughly going to tend towards spherical, meaning that pieces will be scattered into space, back towards the atmosphere. Of course, some pieces would simply find higher or lower orbits.
Blasting probably takes less energy overall, but pushing might be the most complete way of disposing the junk.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
So I'm thinking that staying inside tomorrow might be a good idea....
"A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening."
Written for maximum impact at the expense of accuracy. Frinstance: Toxic ammonia vs. what? Inert, organism-friendly ammonia? The modifier is as useful as adding "wet" to water.
The distinction would matter if the tank were going to land intact. As TFA states it'll break up during reentry. Any ammonia inside will be explosively released due to reentry heat increasing the pressure, the fact that the first break will destroy any aerodynamic stability and rip the tank and components to shreds nearly instantly, and/or the ammonia being sucked out through the first breach by the low pressure at high altitude and the vacuum created by the air speed.
But that makes the spokescritter's point re: finding pieces moot and the comment mostly FUD. Any pieces will be chunks of metal, possibly with sharp edges but most likely rounded by reentry heat.
To their credit, unlike many previous articles, TFA makes the attempt to indicate the probability of sea vs. land impact rather than run with the FUD hype of the latter alone.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
A star is falling
With nasty goo
It's kinda sticky
It smells like poo
It may hit a house
It may hit a mouse
And if you don't look out
It will hit your spouse
But you can't duck
And you can't run
'Cause it's falling faster
Than a Bullet from a Gun
It might hit with a thud
Or a squishy "smoosh"
It may make a hole
Or knock out a tooth
Quickly Quickly!
Find somebody to sue
For the fast and smelly
Outer space goo!
Table-ized A.I.
A push away from earth would probably be easier, as you could do it with a ground-based laser. I imagine such a push could make the object's orbit elliptical enough that it would re-enter sooner than it otherwise would.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Commander! Our supersecret toxic chemical from the labs on the international space station will hit the earth at an unknown location soon! Should we blast it out of the sky so those damned commies can't get hold of it?"
"What is the codename of this chemical, lieutenant?"
"Ammonium"
"..."
The problem is not the desintegration in earth's atmosphere but the uncertainty about where it's going to happen.
Pushing it by a laser would certainly be a more expensive solution but not do anything about the real problem.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Try saying that after a 17kg chunk hits you on the head at 100mph!
...'If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."
Hmm...and why might that be? Some stray ammonia molecules might still be clinging to said pieces? I read somewhere (probably here) that meteorites are actually cool to the touch if they arrive on the ground intact. I don't recall pieces of Columbia starting fires upon impact.
So if temperature isn't the issue, why would a NASA spokesman make such an inane statement?
There's something important that the summary ignored. (surprise, surprise) If you RTFA, you'll learn that the tank is filled with "toxic ammonia coolant." That means that the contents are very good at absorbing heat; else they'd be no good as a coolant. And, we all know that reentry generates lots and lots of heat. I wonder if anybody at NASA knows how much pressure that tank can hold and how likely it is to burst long before it reaches the ground.
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Don't believe NASA. They're in the pocket of the vogons, who are targeting key computer installations at an undisclosed location. ... just as we were about to enter the year of Linux on the desktop! That would have allowed us to form a global beowulf cluster which would finally be able to calculate the number 42, along with a proof that it indeed is the right answer.
Damn vogons and their toxic ammonia. You know what this means, right? Keep a towel handy, and don't keep your laptop in your lap. There's a giant task ahead of you and Trillian.
They don't have a big enough shark to mount the laser on at the moment.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
What is this "gentle laser push" of which you speak? Anyone able to show me a laser with a recoil that you can feel? No?
When this refrigerator sized chunk hits the ground and finally stops rolling, will it open and Indiana Jones falls out?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
There mught be some alien microoganism clinging to the debris, that could clot all your blood in seconds (unless you're a wino with an ulcer taking asprin...)
Where is Lake Erie cruiser when we need her?
Some weird looking bunny told me this news yesterday. Wonder how he knew?
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
What is this "gentle laser push" of which you speak? Anyone able to show me a laser with a recoil that you can feel? No?
I believe that an object can be nudged by lasers. It's a very weak nudge, but it's real.
The idea would be to first locate the space junk - no small task - and then illuminate it with a low-powered laser beam.
Given a few weeks, the target should accumulate some velocity from the nudge.
I think the nudge exerted is affected greatly by the material and it's reflectivity so this is quite possibly not a practical solution. Still, I just thought of it as a potential way to help the remedy the space junk problem.
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Let's face it, you just want to build an effing big laser and fire it at stuff. It's ok, you can admit it, nobody will think any the worse of you.
10 PRINT "SCUNTHORPE"(2 TO 5): GO TO 10
Blasting it during reentry creates smaller pieces, increasing the probability that all of the pieces will burn up during reentry before they make it to the ground. That alone is a good reason to blast large pieces like this if they are approaching atmospheric reentry.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Why the concern? By the time it's on the ground, it's stopped, all the ammonia has boiled off, and if it's still hot, it'll cool off pretty quickly? What's the danger? Is there some green goop on it that will turn you into the blob?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I don't understand. Why just don't detonate the "refrigerator" with a bomb while in path to the earth so the remaining parts disintegrate as normal meteorites? BTW, for bigger things (like nuclear trash) how difficult/costly (in energy) would be to send that things to the sun?
Blasting these things is as good an idea as beached whale disposal using dynamite.
A really small piece of space debris + reasonable speed + very sensitive satellite equipment in a sensitive orbit = someone seriously ticked. The general goal is to minimize the quantity of space debris, as even a golf ball sized hunk can put most satellites out of commission. Quality is not the issue.
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
I'm pretty sure I know how to find out where it will land.
*reconfigures the cell towers to do continuous triangulation on Ellen Muth*
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The Americans have set a precedent for using missiles to destroy dangerous objects falling from space. In their great benevalence, they will no doubt do the same again and Save The World (Good Guys Only Of Course) In The Nick Of Time (TM)
...astronomical(literally), but anyone check to see if there's a line in Vegas already taking wagers on where said chunkage is going to land? They'll lay money on damn near anything you know...
Wonder what the chances are of being hit by one?
Probably have to refer to the infinite improbability generator for that...
No, not my car again!
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Didn't the american military blast a re-entering spy satellite to pieces a few months ago to see if and tell all others that it could shoot down whatever satellite they wanted to? Ignoring space war treaties? Why couldn't they use the same technique?
Fixed that for you.
The answer? Probably that you end up with even more junk and smaller pieces harder to track.
Not the clearest map but it looks like I need to check how things are going tomorrow evening before I walk the dog. I could be wrong but it looks like the most likely place for it to come down is over the central U.S. and I live near Denver, CO.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Easier, but less useful. I got the impression that the post was about the general case of space junk. If a laser could be stuck into a high orbit and used to push on all the little pieces of crap, eventually, there might be less crap (but it seems like it might be pretty hard to have a laser that was powerful enough to do much, at least in space).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Let's just say I don't NOT want to build an effing big laser and fire it at stuff ;)
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Why didn't they vent the coolant right after jettisoning it? That way the tank likely wouldn't survive reentry and the gas would dissipate harmlessly into the void.
I think the proposal was more to remove stuff from orbit (where it can hurt the useful things we try to keep up there) than to prevent impacts.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The general goal is to minimize the quantity of space debris, as even a golf ball sized hunk can put most satellites out of commission.
You'd think that would be the ideal job for a small robotic satellite. Wall-E jokes aside, a small satellite that collects space debris and deobrits. Or attaches to larger pieces and provides enough thrust to bring them down. They would have to be large or particularly sophisticated, just enough fuel to maneuver and change orbits to collect junk.
Haul one up every time the Russians send a supply ship up and you'd make a dent in the orbiting trash after a few years.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Unfortunately you can't push anything bigger than microscopic with a laser. All that'll happen is they'll heat up. Given that this is a tankful of ammonia, that's probably not wise, because it'll either explode (producing lots of fragments in differing orbits) or burst (producing a directed thrust that'll radically change its orbit).
In general, it's much easier to get rid of stuff by sending it Earthwards than otherwise. If you're in low orbit, there's always some drag anyway --- that's why the ISS needs periodic boosting. It doesn't take much delta-vee to lower the orbit enough that drag increases sufficiently to make it burn up in short order. This only applies to low orbit, though: geostationary satellites can't be disposed of --- they simply don't carry enough fuel to send them anywhere near Earth. As the useful bits of the orbit are now getting rather cluttered with bits of junk, modern satellites tend to come with a specific end-of-life booster that shifts their orbits sufficiently that they won't be a traffic hazard. It doesn't take them very far, though.
Conversely, it takes huge amounts of delta-vee to send anything into an Earth escape trajectory: it's hard enough doing it with vehicles designed for the purpose, let alone remotely with bits of junk. It certainly doesn't happen by accident; you know all those bad movies where the villain ends up drifting away from the spaceship into the sun? If only it were that easy...
Why not vent the ammonia into space before dropping the container?
Please describe such a bomb..
I bet those meth making fiends will be on the lookout for it.. heh
-AC
Robert L Forward and his laser-pushed lightsail would like to have a word with you. I believe you can get a kilogram or so to orbit with a megawatt laser. I think you would feel that.
Actually, I do remember a piece of news from a while ago. Apparently the chinese deorbit their craft to hit their own territory, not the ocean. And one managed to hit a house and cave in the roof, even though it wasn't aimed at a densely populated area or anything.
The peasant was quoted as saying something like, well, maybe it brings good luck or something.
Well, I guess, on the bright side, IIRC feng-shui means something like "wind and water", and without a roof he'll surely get more of both ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
but he had just taken refuge in space. And now he's about to hit the Earth once again. SPACE HITLER!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
since when is something too small for the military to blow up?
Also, aren't their anti-missile systems supposed to shoot at something going 1800 miles per hour? Should be a piece of cake.
lol, someone haven't learned their significant numbers correctly.
Around 100 mphs = 161 km/h? Ooook :D
Nearly 40 pounds = 17.5 kg is quite bad to, no chance at all of 18 kg I guess!? 17 pretty likely? =P
Probably cause they don't want someone fucking around with what they believe is their shit.
Like little kids on the playground: "MINE!" :)
Assuming a capable laser system, would a gentle laser push towards earth be a good way to clean up space junk? Would away from earth be better?
A laser which would simply annihilate the junk would be admittedly cooler, but could de-orbit be accomplished with much less power?
Last time I tried to get my car to roll backwards by turning on the headlights, it took a really long time....
So, while I have no doubt you have plentiful experience striking 40 pound children with vehicles, I'm not sure that experience is directly applicable to the situation at hand.
We start by assuming a perfectly spherical 40lb child of uniform density...
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.
Why did they jettison it toward Earth and not into outer space!?
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Earth ~ 196940400 square miles
You ~ 2 square feet
Chance debris hits you ~ 1 in half a billion.
Everyone make sure to call your local radio station at time of re-entry and request Devo's 'space junk'.
But that makes the spokescritter's point re: finding pieces moot and the comment mostly FUD. Any pieces will be chunks of metal, possibly with sharp edges but most likely rounded by reentry heat.
What happens if it lands somewhere in the United States, and some "little johnie" picks it up and burns his fingers on a chunk of still hot metal. Think of the emotional trauma. Think of the billion dollar lawsuit :-).
China's got the same lasers too[1], anyone in for Invaders?
[1] http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/18/0235229
Damn, I had modpoints yesterday! Love tongue-in-cheek. Well played.
I'm not sure how you imagine orbit works, but it's not like things hang there motionless waiting for you to give them the slightest little nudge in the right direction.
You know how much energy it takes to get something into orbit? Well, it takes roughly that much again to fling them into an escape trajectory.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Ok,... American child,... got it. What next?
Have a look at Professer John Adams' analysis of people's understanding, assessment amd reaction to various sources of risk... He's spent a lifetime studying the whole field of "risk", and his idea of risk amplification seems to be gaining traction within the field:
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000512.php
Political language
"Burma Shave"
Considering the uncertainty of where it will hit, what does the /. community think would be a good line to place on any of these occuring:
1. Debris Hits John McCain in the head? /. anyway?
2. Debris Hits John McCain AND Sarah Palin in the head?
3. Debris hits Barak Obama in the head?
4. Debris Hits Barak Obama AND Joe Biden in the head?
5. Debris Hits George Bush in the head?
6. Debris Hits Osama bin Laden in the head?
7. Debris hits nobody in the head?
8. Debris hits nobody's house?
9. Debris causes zero real damage to everything?
10. Who cares what we talk about on
OH! OH! Soviet Russia joke...
In Soviet America(Oh, wait. Obama hasn't been elected yet), space litter gets too close to you!...
C'mon! Let's hear some laughs out there! You think I'm doing this for my health? Well I think that if the thing misses the recycle bin, somebody oughta get fined for it.
High enough power, and the laser could vaporize a spot on the junk, and that would cause an outgassing and consequent momentum shift... it's not a completely silly idea.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Then it decidedly falls into the category of a typical government program. Anybody want to help me write the grant proposal?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is like a lottery ticket for people who are both suicidal and seriously lazy.
The United States can't possibly allow this tank of deadly chemicals to hit the ground without testing out its anti-satellite missile system, can it?
I mean, someone could get exposed to ammonia and we can't let THAT happen, even if it would probably just burn up and dissipate anyway.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Last time I tried to get my car to roll backwards by turning on the headlights, it took a really long time....
Well next time, try taping some cardboard over the taillights or something.
Dave Matthews did it, I swear.
I for one will be wearing my tinfoil hat tomorrow to protect from any space debris!
Pushing it by a laser would certainly be a more expensive solution but not do anything about the real problem.
Actually the whole idea of moving even a 1.4KG piece of scrap, much less a larger 17.5KG chunk, of the ammonia tank by a significant (useful) amount using any laser developed to date or likely to be developed within the next couple of decades, even if the laser beam was projected from a vehicle in space and didn't have to go through the dense part of the Earth's lower atmosphere, is ludicrous.
Sure, were have targeting systems that could keep the beam aimed at the debris, but we just don't have lasers powerful enough to move it enough to avoid Earth when it is orbiting just a few hundred kilometers above ground. Also, don't forget Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action". That laser is likely to be huge enough to require a massive spacecraft to carry it, so the steering thrusters on such a craft ought to be able to compensate for the laser shoving it in the direction opposite it is pushing the debris (assuming the debris masses less 17.5KG or so), but if we have spacecraft and lasers that advanced, then surely it would be far cheaper to use the same level of technology to design a guided missile that will home in on the debris with near 100% accuracy and then blow it to smithereens, or maybe "net it" (scoop it up) and proceed to thrust it into deep space.
Ralistically, the laser idea only works if the object is spotted and the laser beam can be applied to it for a long, long time while it is far, far away so as to divert just slightly and still change its trajectory enough to cause it to miss Earth. Such a laser ought to be powerful enough to burn up a 17.5KG object or at least fracture it into small pieces due to heat stress.
I'd even consider a smart guided missile tipped with a very small neutron bomb warhead that would vaporize the target if it were a few hundred kilometers up, but I have no idea how much fallout a small neutron bomb produces, although the idea is that there not be much. The very notion of using tiny, clean nukes to obliterate space junk is appealing in that it ought to make for a spectacular light show and it would certainly piss off the Greens (always a good thing). I just don't want to end up living in a world full of happy little mutants due to increased background radiation levels that might not cause much harm to current generations but could easily affect future ones. The ignorant twits who support Barack Hussein Obama are bad enough. (<== Obligatory political season comment.)
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
If that actually worked, would you be willing to sell me your (very used) car for whatever the most expensive production car ever made costs now? I somehow think I can find some investors to help me pay for it. :-)
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
Last time I tried to get my car to roll backwards by turning on the headlights, it took a really long time....
I had the same problem once. It turns out you need to let off the emergency brake.
It will turn into probably a "toxic" mixture of nitrous oxide- a substance that makes one more of a man with its cumulative damage as an inhalant. If you truly love your country you'll be willing to expose yourself to it. Along with other fun combinations of nitrogen and oxygen, plus a little hydrazine (especially if it actually reaches water), when this thing finally lands. If this refrigerator fell on your head you'd be qualified for the presidency, my friends- just like if Vladimir Putin himself were riding it over your Governor's Mansion. Actually you wouldn't actually have to live there if he were to also fly over your other house.
That means for this you can claim your own house on your taxes, hang out there, and wait for the refrigerator to show up.
This is truly a momentous moment in world history. Nobody has ever hurled a f---in REFRIGERATOR for TWO HUNDRED MILES in their inertial frame with their bare hands. It should surely go in the record books- it will take the economies of the other spacefaring nations at least a few more years before their economies collapse to the point where they're hurling refrigerators directly downward as well.
Let's hope they don't beat our distance record- at least we were the FIRST refrigerator hurlers- in fact, yeah, we invented the sport of refrigerator hurling.
PleaseLetOneHitMyCar... PleaseLetOneHitMyCar... PleaseLetOneHitMyCar...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The established procedure for dealing with a piece of space junk containing a dangerous chemical that could land anywhere and might hurt someone is to shoot it down with a Standard Missile-3. Gentlemen, start your AEGIS.
Now why don't they just put a heater into it and use it as fuel? Make more sens than throwing it away.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Let me see, it could break up in individual pieces that don't burn up completely. At the kind of velocity this comes down with you don't need a big piece.
Add Murphy's Law and chances are close to 90% that it'll hit YOU.
It's just a test to replace terrorists as scare tactics, we've done that. But we've got tonnes of debris up there that we may need to use a defence system against, quick, Congress, money!
Sorry, got cynical halfway through typing. Normally it happens earlier. Not enough caffeine..
Insert
Then stop riding in the goddamn street, motherfucker. It's common courtesy. Ride on the damn sidewalk. go ahead, scaredy-cat. Just try it, I promise that passing policemen will not stop and ticket you.
In Germany, Finland and numerous other countries, cyclists are expected to stay on the sidewalk, and not on the road. They might be ticketed if caught cycling on the road if the road has a sidewalk.
In Great Britain, Ireland, and numerous other countries, cyclists are expected to stay on the road, and not on the sidewalk. They might be ticketed if caught cycling on the sidewalk.
These laws are unevenly enforced.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
But that was national security, this is only people's lives. Get your priorities straight.
At least it'll be outdoors. Can't be any more toxic than the ammonia along the baseboards of my living room. Yes, my cat is a little devil bastard, like all cats. My recommendation: spray those metal chunks with Simple Solution and you're good to go.
A single sheet of newspaper blows off my boat into the water and I get a $100 fine for littering.
NASA intentionally hurls a "refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia" weighing 1400 pounds into the ocean and nothing happens to them.
Something doesn't add up.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Last time there was a discussion about anti-aircraft lasers, I checked the 'nets a bit and it appears that what is currently possible with lasers is not to actually burn or cut an aircraft or rockets, but just to heat its outer shell enough for it to weaken above the threshold where it can collapse due to high pressures. Obviously, the chunk of space junk is already disintegrated so the laser can't do much change there.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Obviously the chances of it hitting anything are low, but say it actually hits something of value: a house, a car, a person... Is anyone liable for it?
also 100mph? erm... Even if it were a big parachute shaped piece of thin metal, it would get very fast when still on the fringes of the atmosphere (damn sight faster than 100mph) which would seriously upset its flimsiness when it did hit the atmosphere. Turning it into something with a much higher terminal velocity - I would have thought. Meaning it will hit the earth at a *much* higher speed. No?
Because you can - or because you should?
Though I'm sure NASA would have thought of this, I wonder just how energy-intensive it would have been to have jettisoned this away from us.
For example, would a gas tank (think scuba gear) strapped to the side of this make any appreciable difference? (Granted, with a little more guidance / sophistication.) And with a beacon attached, we could return in x years and collect it for recycling.
To make the irresponsibility even worse this is from what is supposed to be the most high tech group in the world. Could they not have come up with a more accurate way of getting rid of this junk, and at least predict the drop zone? Even if it was only a 100km radius you'd most likely be able to call the country or ocean. Would be nice to know and I'm sure their has to be a masters student looking for a thesis topic :)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but lasers destroy stuff by heating them up. It doesn't push very well. Light doesn't push.
Also, if laser is to heat the thing up until it melts, that would take a lot of energy. The probability of this thing hitting any of us is really slim. It's almost the same as getting hit by lightning.
We put one piece of this stuff up on average per day.
Guess what, one piece of this stuff comes back per day.
In the entire history of the U.S., Russian, Euro, and other space programs,
there have been only a few minor incidents and one or two sort of big deal
incidents but no REAL harm.
Crashing space junk makes good sensationalistic news, but resultswise,
the earth is really really big, its mostly water, and most of the rest
is not used by people, and even the parts used by people are mostly not
damagible targets.
don't worry about it.
oh, btw, amnonia(?), once that tank breaks open in the stratosphere, it
is no longer a threat to anyone.
Light doesn't push.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion
This tank is filled with anahydrous ammonia not ice. This volitile chemical will disperse when the tank breaks open. But this is a chemial and thats NASA so OOH SCARY! BOOGA BOOGA! CHEMICALS! There will be ninja turtles everywheer.
If you could buy an actual chemistry set mayby we wouldn't see this ignorent B.S. being propegated in the press and being swallowed by comicbook weeners on slashdot.
--
apt-get moo
*whump*
That was the sound of a joke falling over dead because of excessive subtlety. Ellen Muth... Dead Like Me... the girl character killed by a toilet seat when they deorbited the Mir space station....
*sigh* I guess now that I explained it, it is no longer funny.... Oh well.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The surface area of the earth is 510,065,600,000,000 square meters.
There are 6,000,000 people on the earth. Even if we assume each person has a square meter target area...
510,065,600,000,000 / 6,000,000 = about 85,000,000.
So there is a one in 85 MILLION chance that this particular debris hits *ANY* person. There's about a 1 in 510 trillion chance that the debris hits you.
To put this in perspective, you are about 100,000 times more likely to be Britney Spears than you are to be hit by this space junk.
paintball
One that normally makes "BOOOOMMMMMMMMM" in earth.
- or -
So it is not the most common, but it is fairly common.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Right, so NASA feels free to drop a tank full of toxic ammonia into Earth's gravity well, knowing full well it's going to survive reentry, with just a bland warning not to go near it because it's toxic.
That's fine - I don't have a problem with that. All space gear has all sorts of toxic chemicals and they've deorbited the stuff many many times before with no problems.
But given this counterexample of how safety calls are *really* made in space, I think we can all agree that the US Navy's cover story back in February about that spy satellite (USA 193) with it's oh-so-scary tank of hydrazine was *completely and utterly bogus*.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_193
We can, can't we, guys? Right? Common sense and a little scientific knowledge can prevail?
Right?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
According to these guys, the ammonia from the International Space Station should have landed 8 hours ago. I know the window is plus or minus 15 hours, but I can't find an update on it. I woke up this morning and my dog was not glowing green. Anyone know what is happening?
Well, when you get car headlights powerful and focused enough to vaporize small amounts of material off a solid surface, try again. I think you'll get different results than by relying on photon pressure alone.
This has been seriously studied before, not just for cleaning space junk, but even for sending interplanetary probes along their way.
BTW, for bigger things (like nuclear trash) how difficult/costly (in energy) would be to send that things to the sun?
I've often wondered the same thing myself: When we eventually run out of places to put our trash, instead of burning it and polluting our air, how costly would it be to just jettison it into the sun? Or even submerge it in volcanoes or other sources of magma, liquefying the trash instead of burning it?
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
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Wouldn't the bigger pieces fall slower then the smaller pieces due to wind resistance?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Solar sails work too... the car analogy was the first hint that this was a joke. Of course, if the laser is ground based, most of the "thrust" will be pushing up, which isn't a very efficient vector to de-orbit with. Low angles would intersect more atmosphere, not good for retaining laser focus or power. You could eventually de-circularize the orbit enough to get increased atmospheric drag and re-entry, but I'd bet that we're talking about hundreds, or even thousands of passes, unless the laser really is strong enough to mostly vaporize the target - such a strong blast would likely fragment the target, which is a bigger mess than leaving it intact.
If we had efficient lasers strong enough to accomplish this in an impressive way, I'd bet we would be using them to demonstrate this capability.