Satellite Piece Crashes Through Man's Roof

PolygamousRanchKid writes "A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house. A Meridian satellite that was launched Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after lift-off. A titanium ball of about five kg fell on to the roof of a house in Ordyn district."

Comments

How does that work?

[Anonymous Coward]

With Fucking Magnets.

Re:How does that work?

[flimflammer]

I lose brain cells every time I hear this.

Does he get to keep it?

[Tyrannosaur]

So I read the article twice- are they going to fix his house for him? Does his insurance cover "terminal velocity" damages? I vote he gets to keep the 5kg titanium ball at least - a souvenir from the great russian space program :)

Re:Does he get to keep it?

[Nyeerrmm]

My renters insurance and at least specifies that it covers damage from 'aircraft and spacecraft'.

So... possibly yes?

Re:Does he get to keep it?

[cstacy]

1. It's in Siberia - you think he has insurance?

I imagine he bought it from "Peggy".

There is an important piece of information missing

[lsh123]

The house is located on Cosmonauts Street (no, this is not a joke)

Something fell off?

[Alwin Henseler]

First paragraph from the article:

The Meridian communications satellite failed to reach orbit yesterday due to a failure with its Soyuz rocket, in the latest setback for a Russian space program which has now lost over half a dozen satellites in the past year.

That's unusual... from what I know most Russian-built stuff is designed to have bits fall off, and then carry on as if nothing happened.

Hmm a "sphere" - maybe another fuel tank like in that Namibia incident?

This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[AuraSeer]

"Miraculous" should be reserved for things that are difficult to believe, or at least wildly improbable. If the satellite fell out of the sky and hit the guy in the face, but he walked off unscathed, then you could say he "miraculously escaped injury."

But being missed by the debris is not a miracle. It just demonstrates how small a target a person is.

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[AuraSeer]

I didn't say it was a miracle. "Miraculous" as an adjective can mean something looks similar to a miracle. It does not necessarily imply that an event is literally due to the intervention of a supernatural divine force.

But hey, thanks for your input anyhow, Easily Offended Overly Dramatic Atheist Guy Who Takes The Slightest Excuse To Announce His Atheist Atheism. I keep hearing stories about you but it's nice to finally meet you in person.

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, I’m supposed to accept skepticism from someone with an account name of “AuraSeer”?

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[catchblue22]

Given how unlikely it is for a piece of space debris to hit any particular target, I would count this person as being extraordinarily unlucky to come even close to getting hit. It's the same fallacy at work when someone gets into an accident and survives. They are counted as being lucky to survive, when the person was in fact extremely unlucky to be in an accident in the first place.

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[AuraSeer]

Perhaps I picked the name because I used to get migraines. Those can come with focal neurological symptoms called "aura," ranging from nausea and vertigo all the way up to hallucinations.

Or maybe I'm a big hippy.

Or else I created the username fifteen years ago, it seeemed to sound good at the time, and I no longer remember the exact reason.

What's the difference?

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[flimflammer]

You are trying way too hard. A genuine miracle may have never happened before but that doesn't preclude us from defining the idea of a miracle.

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[Your.Master]

Why are you making this argument? It's ridiculous.

We can say something looks like an interstellar spaceship, even though such a thing does not exist. We can say it looks like a cave troll, which doesn't exist -- except, of course, in stories. But then again, miracles definitely exist in stories.

How can you be sure that a "miracle" won't make the universe disappear?

This question makes no sense at all and it's also irrelevant. How can you be sure a cave troll won't make the universe disappear?

Re:This isn't miraculous. It's merely fortunate.

[TapeCutter]

It's the same fallacy at work when someone gets into an accident and survives. They are counted as being lucky to survive, when the person was in fact extremely unlucky to be in an accident in the first place.

What fallacy? You're talking about two different events, the unlucky event is the accident AND the lucky one is surviving to tell the tale. Both can be true statements for the same person in the same accident (assuming luck exists).

Because someone will say it

[Anonymous Coward]

It Soviet Russia, satellite crashes YOU!

Donnie Darkov

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he get a warning from Frankovsky the giant rabbit? :)

Re:Clarification - fact checking

[Anonymous Coward]

If a 5kg sphere of titanium falling from a failed satellite launch hit this guy's roof yet failed to crash through it then apparently this guy lives in a heavily reinforced bunker.

In Soviet Russia...

[Megane]

YOU find satellite!

(Damn kids trying to do ISR memes these days, get off my lawn.)

Re:What's wrong with their space program?

[fred911]

Yes, our economy.

Re:Clarification - fact checking

[zill]

I think you meant titanium.

When reached for comment....

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mythbusters crew said "It wasn't us this time!"

Soyuz vs Mythbusters

[mbone]

The Russians, not having Mythbusters, have to resort to expensive rockets to mess up local neighborhoods.

The sky is falling!

[Zoson]

First space balls, now this?!

Commercial lift services have to be reliable

[msobkow]

With the age of their lift system, you'd think the Russians would have the kinks ironed out by now. I can understand something new like their Mars mission failing, but five commercial launches in a year?

Those payloads are far too expensive and time consuming to trust to a lift provider with such a poor track record.

Re:Commercial lift services have to be reliable

[msobkow]

Better to delay a month re-checking everything than to blow up the whole shipment. NASA may have often been late, but they didn't lose very many launches as a result.

It'll be interesting to see how some of the newer private lift companies fare -- is their rethinking and updated engineering going to result in more reliable delivery, or more failures?

I'm also curious to see how the Chinese fare as they step forth into space -- so far they're doing pretty good.

Re:There is an important piece of information miss

[Reservoir Penguin]

Some corrections since it fell near where I live and a lot of people got to observe the fiery trail we thought it was a plane actually)

1) It crashed in Ordyn district of Novosibirsk region, not Tobolsk which is to the west.
2) There is a Cosmanauts street in nearly every Russian town and from what I hear fragments were discovered all over Ordynsk, so the irony is a bit misplaced here.
I'm too concerned about apparently poor quality control with recent launches. I agree that it's most likely due to loss of experience due to aging workforce.

VIDEO from ground level

[roman_mir]

Also a video shot from the ground.

local news report