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China Confirms Its Space Station Is Falling Back to Earth (popularmechanics.com)
The Tiangong-1, China's prototype space station which was launched in September 2011, is no longer under the control of China. PopularMechanics reports: China's Tiangong-1 space station has been orbiting the planet for about 5 years now, but recently it was decommissioned and the Chinese astronauts returned to the surface. In a press conference, China announced that the space station would be falling back to earth at some point in late 2017. Normally, a decommissioned satellite or space station would be retired by forcing it to burn up in the atmosphere. This type of burn is controlled, and most satellite re-entries are scheduled to burn up over the ocean to avoid endangering people. However, it seems that China's space agency is not sure exactly when Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere, which implies that the station has been damaged somehow and China is no longer able to control it. This is important because it means Tiangong-1 won't be able to burn up in a controlled manner. All we know is it will burn up at some point in late 2017, but it is impossible to predict exactly when or where. This means that there is a chance debris from the falling spacecraft could strike a populated area.
No my guess is its deliberate. The low risk was deemed acceptable and they can save money. They don't want to spend money to prevent whatever remote odds it may kill or injure anyone on Earth. That's their attitude.
Would be nice if it crashed in downtown Beijing.
No, I think Pseudonymous Powers' post nailed it on the head:
"Oops, I guess we're going to have to do another orbital weapons test."
I've seen no evidence that China is incapable of producing high-quality stuff. Thing is, US companies going to China for manufacturing aren't deciding to go to China because the US can't build stuff that's high quality enough -- they're going there to save money. So they go to China and ask for the cheapest something can be manufactured and they get ... the cheapest manufactured stuff. If those companies -- really, the people who own the quality of the products they're selling -- didn't like the quality of the product, they'd either negotiate better quality (and higher price) with their Chinese manufacturers or they'd move their manufacturing to someone who can do a better job. They don't. Why? Because that's exactly how they like it.
And after drawing a worst-case-scenario circle through as many cities as you could, all of those cities combined covered probably less than what, about 0.0001% of the length of the line? Pretty low odds for a collision.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yea its not like companies don't open subsidiaries which they simply declare bankrupt to avoid the financial consequences of their incompetence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This is exactly it. I find when I negotiate with Chinese companies that they tend to be very accommodating and they try to give me whatever I ask for. If you want a feature, they will add it. In fact, I once had a DSLAM company add protection circuit (protect against DC polarity reversal to avoid fireworks) to their equipment just for me along with some software changes. The trouble happens when you tell them you want it cheap. They will cut every corner and give you the cheapest piece of trash you've ever seen..
Its the same with outsourcing: When you go cheap, you get all of the people who couldn't get jobs elsewhere.