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Doomed Russian Spacecraft Re-Enters Atmosphere Over Pacific Ocean
astroengine sends word that the Russian cargo ship that spun out of control after launching on a mission to the ISS on April 28 has re-entered the atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Orbital tracking indicated the re-entry took place at 2:20 UTC. Its orbital speed and location were not known with perfect precision, but any bits of the spacecraft that didn't burn up are believed to have landed in the ocean between 350 and 1,300 kilometers off the west coast of Chile.
According to Spaceflight 101, "The component with the highest probability of reaching the ground is the docking mechanism of the spacecraft as one of the most dense spacecraft systems. The docking system hosts an 80-centimeter hatch that is surrounded by the docking interface hosting the hooks and pressure seals facilitated on a massive metal ring. Overall, the system has a mass of 200 Kilograms much of which could reach the ground since the closed hatch would most likely not separate from the docking system and the unit will return mostly intact."
According to Spaceflight 101, "The component with the highest probability of reaching the ground is the docking mechanism of the spacecraft as one of the most dense spacecraft systems. The docking system hosts an 80-centimeter hatch that is surrounded by the docking interface hosting the hooks and pressure seals facilitated on a massive metal ring. Overall, the system has a mass of 200 Kilograms much of which could reach the ground since the closed hatch would most likely not separate from the docking system and the unit will return mostly intact."
While NASA has been known to launch astronauts directly from Walmart, they tend to favor people in slightly better shape. That's the standard hatch size, and was used even on the shuttle. The US side of the ISS does in fact use a larger, 50 inch (note the nice round-number imperial measurement) square hatch - but that was to accommodate the equipment racks that are used in the US-designed modules.
I know astronauts are among the "best of the best". They have to be very smart, disciplined, and athletic all at the same time. I truly respect them.
But I get sick of going to the grocery store and seeing so many 30 and 40 somethings who are well over 100 pounds overweight. Some of them probably weigh around 400 pounds or more in fact. They're the ones using the wheeled electric fat-carts because they've completely surrendered to their obesity - they're defeated and they won't even try getting even a little exercise no matter how badly they need it. I have no idea what they live for or what kind of quality of life they hope to have. Some of them are 300 pounds or less and will at least walk, with that hideous sideways waddle-shuffle that's nothing like the graceful human gait. Often they have morbidly obese children tagging along, well on their way to having no quality of life either.
It's disguting, for a while. Then it can't even be that, anymore. Then it's just plain disheartening. Plenty of people around this sad world are legitimate victims, suffering because someone else wanted money or power badly enough to inflict grevious injustice against them. My heart goes out to them, it really does. But these fatties suffer for no reason other than their own bad decision-making. Sympathy is wasted on them. They are ponderous monuments to everything wrong with the excesses of our society. And it's getting worse, not better. How bad does it have to get before other people see it and say the same thing I said: "this is just not going to happen to me"? Do they think the government or the health-care industry or anyone other than themselves is ever going to do that? Because this crop of fatbodies and their steady demand for medical intervention is far too profitable for anything like that to even try to happen, supposing it could even be done at all.