ripetomatoes Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-satellite-expected-to-hit-earth-this-week/2011/09/18/gIQARnpVdK_story.html saw this, thought it was interesting. Quote Link to comment
lil89ram50 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 i hope no datsuns are harmed Quote Link to comment
MicroMachinery Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 i hope no datsuns are harmed The Datsuns that were melted down to create that $750 million dollar firework certainly were. 1 Quote Link to comment
ripetomatoes Posted September 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 The Datsuns that were melted down to create that multi Billion dollar firework certainly were. poor datsuns. :( they deserve better! Quote Link to comment
gumbyz13 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 SKYLAB is falling... Quote Link to comment
Sealik Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 Hmmmmm.....guess I should hold off mowing the lawn.... :D Quote Link to comment
DailyDato Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 As if NASA and the government arent smart enough to hit it with a nuke or something and blow it up before it could possibly kill people???? they said it is outside our atmosphere, so the fear of radiation is not high...... Quote Link to comment
Jayden71 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 Its Skynet taking over Quote Link to comment
Hardwyre Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 "Some years ago, a man in Texas tried to use the crashed cone of a rocket for a hot tub in his back yard. NASA dissuaded him, Johnson said, with the assistance of the Justice Department." Fucking TEXAS! You rednecks will use ANYTHING for a fucking hot tub or pool won't you? "I dun care if dat bath tub had dead peple rottin' in it, imma use dat bitch!" Quote Link to comment
Hardwyre Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 As if NASA and the government arent smart enough to hit it with a nuke or something and blow it up before it could possibly kill people???? they said it is outside our atmosphere, so the fear of radiation is not high...... It's a weather satellite. A nuke would be a little, oh, over zealous. Damn thing is only about the size of a school bus. Anyways, it might land on some Vegans somewhere and do some good. 1 Quote Link to comment
71DIMER Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 As if NASA and the government arent smart enough to hit it with a nuke or something and blow it up before it could possibly kill people???? they said it is outside our atmosphere, so the fear of radiation is not high...... That is the LAST thing any government wants, think about it, if you blow it up it'll create a debris field comprised of tiny 18,000-20,000 MPH projectiles just spinning around earth. Now think about any one of those tiny pieces hitting a sensitive satellite on it's way up to its orbit...that's no bueno! Spake junk is a huge issue to anything that's in low earth orbit. Quote Link to comment
MicroMachinery Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 If it's not going to be salvaged, why the hell wouldn't you just push it the other way into the great beyond? Rocket scientists are so stupid... "Oh yeah, disintegrating aborted space projects into our atmosphere never hurt anyone or anything(worth mentioning) before, so it couldn't POSSIBLY do it in the future." 1 Quote Link to comment
MikeRL411 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 If it's not going to be salvaged, why the hell wouldn't you just push it the other way into the great beyond? Rocket scientists are so stupid... It's not that simple! In order to deorbit, you would need another rocket motor that weighs nearly half the mass of the satellite. In order to boost to a higher safe orbit you would need to boost to half synchronous altitude, where it would interfere with the GPS orbits, or supersynch it beyond 22,000 plus miles. A much too big disposal motor would be required, exceeding the lift capacity of affordable booster rockets. There are several proposals to scavenge dead satellites, "Grim Reaper" was a popular name for one such unit, but questions of National Sovereignty, proprietary or military encryption devices etc. make these unlikely. The default solution is to let the Pacific or Atlantic oceans eat those that do not drop in on Australia. Quote Link to comment
71DIMER Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 If it's not going to be salvaged, why the hell wouldn't you just push it the other way into the great beyond? Rocket scientists are so stupid... "Oh yeah, disintegrating aborted space projects into our atmosphere never hurt anyone or anything(worth mentioning) before, so it couldn't POSSIBLY do it in the future." I highly doubt this was a planned de-orbit, if it was they could give a better range of it's impact just like a few years ago when they de-orbited the Russian spacelab MUIR, that was controlled so whatever made it through the atmosphere made its splash into the ocean. You can't just 'push' something out of the way, it would require a lot of propellant which is heavy and therefore would cost a lot of money to get into orbit, right now the rule of thumb is $10K per pound (to get to orbit) so they have to calculate how much the satellites planned mission life will need. Trust me, NASA guys are smart, this sounds like it was a totally unexpected problem, once a satellite is dead there's nothing you can do to it. Quote Link to comment
MikeRL411 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 If it is still accessable to the public, the Aero.org/CORDS site gives the orbits and predicted impact points of satellites and booster rockets expected to re-enter, and data on past re-entries. Quote Link to comment
king bee66 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 Earth is a water planet. And humans, for all their sprawl, occupy a very limited portion of its surface. another quality artical by the washington post. this guy gets paid for writing this? Quote Link to comment
Hardwyre Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 another quality artical by the washington post. this guy gets paid for writing this? oooooh! The dreaded "sprawl". Washing Post writers must be paid in soy beans and Sierra Club bucks for all the bitching they do about human expansion. Yes, humans would like to spread out and live in open planes versus living in vertical mega-cities in some sort of dystopian "Judge Dread" style architecture. Quote Link to comment
king bee66 Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 oooooh! The dreaded "sprawl". Washing Post writers must be paid in soy beans and Sierra Club bucks for all the bitching they do about human expansion. Yes, humans would like to spread out and live in open planes versus living in vertical mega-cities in some sort of dystopian "Judge Dread" style architecture. lol, i was think it was more of lazy writing then a political undertone, like when i used to write a paragraph of filler in college to get to the magic word count number. such as Polar bears and Antarctic scientists are safe. and that thing about the texas man. the washington post has fallen pretty far since woodward and bernstein Quote Link to comment
bilzbobaggins Posted September 19, 2011 Report Share Posted September 19, 2011 Doesnt say how far you might be able to see it from. Ill be in the middle of no where this thru, fri and sat. Would be badass if im sober enough to not shoot at it. Quote Link to comment
DAT510 Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 speaking of shit falling out of teh sky, i saw a meteor Saturday, pretty cool, it lit up the sky pretty bright as it burned in the atmosphere Quote Link to comment
bilzbobaggins Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 speaking of shit falling out of teh sky, i saw a meteor Saturday, pretty cool, it lit up the sky pretty bright as it burned in the atmosphere You aint kidding. I love watching them at the cabin. I see so much of that stuff out there. Jeff Quote Link to comment
DAT510 Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 You aint kidding. I love watching them at the cabin. I see so much of that stuff out there. Jeff yeah man that stuff fascinates me makes me wonder if we are the only ones Quote Link to comment
DAT510 Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhQnFVb9nLE&feature=related Quote Link to comment
datsunaholic Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 Whether it'll be visible depends on where it comes down. Anywhere within a 500 mile radius should get a pretty good show, and maybe even in the daylight. But that still depends on it coming down over land. There's only around (probably less than) a 30% chance it'll come be over land at all. Some folks are caught up in the "1 in 3500 chance someone will be hit by a piece of debris" and that that's better odds than Powerball, but what they fail to realize is that it's a 1 in 3500 chance of any person on earth being hit, or around a 1 in 21 TRILLION chance of any particular individual being hit. Powerball has better odds. You can track it online here: UARS track That site has links to other Satellite tracks. It even tells you when they'll be visible. I may have seen UARS a couple weeks ago; definitely saw a satellite pass overhead as it was too fast for a jet and it was reflecting sunlight after sunset. It's only visible at best for a couple minutes when passing overhead, and then only when it's in sunlight and you are not (basically twilight or just before/after). As far as "why" it's coming down, it was a case of poor planning coupled with economy . No one designed a controlled deorbit system into it, mainly because it was already so heavy that it needed to be launched from the Shuttle as it is. It's POSSIBLE that NASA intended to retrieve it. NASA originally planned to bring the Hubble back to Earth on the shuttle, but decided instead to upgrade it in Space and leave it there until it becomes a hazard. UARS was meant to last 3 years, it lasted around 15 years. It had just enough fuel left to push it into a lower decay orbit, but it still took almost 6 years for that orbit to decay to the point it will hit the atmosphere. NASA didn't want to leave it where it was because it was in the prime orbiting spot, and once it became uncontrollable it had the chance to take out other satellites. Well, even with it in its decaying orbit it still did, they had to move the ISS when it "crossed paths". And you don't want to blow them up in space. China did that a few years ago and now there's a bunch of fragments hitting other satellites. There wasn't enough fuel onboard to push it up into a parking orbit with the rest of the junk- it was too big. Quote Link to comment
DAT510 Posted September 21, 2011 Report Share Posted September 21, 2011 didn't know we had rocket scientists here at Ratsun.. ollz. but i should be able to see the satellite in 51 mikes im excited :hyper: Quote Link to comment
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