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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?
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.
I don't expect for people to RTFA here, but at least RTFS. It's not rocket science, you know.
Your sig takes on a whole new meaning in light of that quotation in the summary.
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.
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...)
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.
A 40 pound child is a little more...yielding than a 40 pound chunk of metal. Also, the 40 pound chunk of metal would presumably be falling on the car from above, not hitting the car head-on. So yah, it may not actually reduce the entire car to a smoking crater, but it would likely total it.
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.
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
I'm going to go out on a limb and say... yes, someone probably does.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
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.
Conservation of momentum - the effect of a car traveling at 100mph hitting a child is not the same as a child traveling at 100mph hitting a car. If you can follow the unformatted math:
M_car * V_car = (~1000 kg)(44.7 m/s) ~= 44700 kg*m/s
M_child * V_child = (~20 kg)(44.7 m/s) ~= 894 kg*m/s
The fact that the child is a lot more *squishy* than the car has little to do with it. If you want a comparable situation, think of throwing a turkey at 100mph at a parked car. I guarantee you that car's not going to come out looking to good.
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.
Totally destroy yes, but it might also increase it's value.
Did you see the part where it says the answer to your question is currently unknown?
> If you want a comparable situation, think of throwing a turkey at 100mph at a parked car. I guarantee you that car's not going to come out looking to good.
Is that a frozen or thawed turkey??
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
toxic ammonia is only redundant if you know ammonia is toxic, how many people know Obama is muslim? or any manner of other well knowed things.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
And since when did the refridgerator become a unit of measure? Is it a bar fridge? The sort of mini fridge you have in the back of your SUV? A double door fridge-freezer combination?
> If you want a comparable situation, think of throwing a turkey at 100mph at a parked car. I guarantee you that car's not going to come out looking to good.
Is that a frozen or thawed turkey??
That reminds me of the story about when they were testing high speed electric trains for what happens when a bird-strike occurs. To do this, they got hold of a linear accelerator, put a turkey in it, and fired it at the front of the train, head on. The bird went straight through the windscreen, the driver's seat, and embedded itself deep within the transformer block behind! To say that the train engineers were dismayed misses the point by a country mile, but they cheered up rather a lot when the realized that they'd forgotten to defrost the turkey first, and that repeating with a fresh bird resulted in a safe splat with no danger to human life.
I'll let someone else karma-whore with the link.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
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.
Ok,... American child,... got it. What next?
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
This is like a lottery ticket for people who are both suicidal and seriously lazy.
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.
PleaseLetOneHitMyCar... PleaseLetOneHitMyCar... PleaseLetOneHitMyCar...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
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....