Slashdot Mirror
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?
Read my Very Short "Stories"
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.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
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.
Natural space junk of similar mass hits the Earth all the time. When was the last time you heard of anyone getting killed by a meteorite?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"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.
I don't expect for people to RTFA here, but at least RTFS. It's not rocket science, you know.
TFA says the largest piece could be about 40 pounds and hit at 100 mph. That wouldn't dent your car, it would totally destroy it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
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.
It's rare but being hit by metorites *does* happen. I can't find a recorded instance since 2002 (although there's a nice picture of a destroyed car from 1992 which probably doesn't count as it didn't hit a person.
Of course by the time it hits someone it's normally little more than a very hot pebble, and causes little more than some burning.
If something the size of a fridge hit you you'd feel a little bit more than a burning sensation!
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...)
TFA says the largest piece could be about 40 pounds and hit at 100 mph. That wouldn't dent your car, it would totally destroy it.
If you're driving along a highway at 100mph, I have a hard time imaging that hitting a 40 pound child would totally destroy a car. Serious damage, sure.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
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
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
> It's rare but being hit by metorites *does* happen.
That's my point. six billion people, it's rare that any are hit by all that natural junk, and you are worried about this?
> If something the size of a fridge hit you you'd feel a little bit more than a burning
> sensation!
NASA says no pieces larger than 40lb.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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
> 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'!"
I've wondered about this before. A good percentage of those six billion people are in places where it might not be reported if one of them were killed by something falling from above... how sure are we that it hasn't happened once or twice before and we just never heard about it?
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?
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
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
People have been hit by meteorites. They've also been hit by lumps of ice falling off airliners. Neither is classed as a major hazard, though.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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!
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
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....
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?
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.