NASA Says Don't Worry About Falling Satellite

[cryogeist]

-Snip of kinetic bombardment post

Interesting that someone else knows of that plan - but I hearda rumour in the wind that they were possibly scrapping that one.

Anyway, the mass of one of the rods from God is approximately 3.1 US tons - 2.8 metric tonnes. However, they're tipped in a tungsten alloy that's ridiculously heat-resistant so as to stop it from burning up - so most of those three tons hits whatever was targeted.

Satellites aren't exactly fireproofed, since there's no real need to fireproof something designed for a world where fire is physically impossible barring magic, which means they mostly burn up and vaporise on the way in.

They tend to break up into lots of little pieces, too. While this is still not exactly the ideal situation, it's a hell of a lot better than a bigass dart hitting someone square in the face.

the Rods from God are amazing really.
the fact that it brakes NO treaties what so ever and the fact that they have the power of a nuke...without the radiation...
EDIT stoopid me fucking up >.<

 

[ascorbius]

35 meters isn't that big in the global scheme of things. the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 50 times that big

also remember the earth is like 73% water, so i mean chances are it won't even hit anything important

Yeah, but some fish are gonna have a really bad day..

Nasa says don't worry about something I didn't know about.. guess what, I'm freakin' worried now.. thanks for ruining my Zen guys.



Also, isn't this how Sean of the Dead started?

 

[Worgen]

I hope it lands on rick perry, that guy is such a massive dick

 

[duchaked]

no SIGNIFICANT damage to property...ohh I see then

lol and the chances of it hitting a single person is so so rare :] yeahh... naw it's all good, I'll just carry my umbrella around for a while!

 

[Doclector]

This is treading a delicious line between funny and terrifying.

Also, touch nothing? I call zombies, dammit!

Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't most of it burn up? Or is it not high enough for that to happen?

Personally, I don't really think there is much to worry about as NASA probably built it to fall apart upon descent.

this is what i thought too. An object has to be pretty gorram big to be of significant size by the time it gets through the atmosphere.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

...And why can't we pick up the debris?

Is there a reason, or do they just want their stuff back?

 

[rickynumber24]

This is treading a delicious line between funny and terrifying.

Also, touch nothing? I call zombies, dammit!

Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't most of it burn up? Or is it not high enough for that to happen?

Personally, I don't really think there is much to worry about as NASA probably built it to fall apart upon descent.

this is what i thought too. An object has to be pretty gorram big to be of significant size by the time it gets through the atmosphere.

It will burn up. I'm not concerned about that at all.

Honestly, if you want something space-related to freak out about, worry about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
It's not the ones that come down are the problem... it's the ones that stay up... and get hit by something else, which shatters it into tiny pieces that might hit other things... that, well you get the picture.

... and to think we tested weapons that did precisely that at one point! Fortunately, we said, "Yup; it works," after the first one and didn't fire more. (But the Chinese had to try it too...)
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/space_weapons/technical_issues/debris-in-brief-space-debris.html

For those of us who are fans of Mass Effect, I direct you to the travel advisory for Earth that mass deflector shields are recommended when traveling in Earth orbital space. I can't imagine why that might be...

 

[Irridium]

Can't predict exactly where it will land? I call bullshit. This thing is on a set orbit, and the laws of physics are being applied constantly. *I* could figure out where it would land if given all the variables NASA knows, why the hell can't the top scientists in the country figure it out?

Because they can't predict what kind of effect, if any, wind will have on it. I'm sure they know where it'll fall if there is no interference from the wind, but factor in the weather conditions of where the satellite passes and nobody will know what'll happen until it actually happens.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Okay. Huge chunks of rock break up int eh atmosphere all the time, I don't think this will be any different. Even if ti was, its not like you can run from it since no one knows where it will be. You people are all silly.

 

[Irridium]

...And why can't we pick up the debris?

Is there a reason, or do they just want their stuff back?

Because traveling into space is really really really really really expensive. And spending so much money just to go up and pick up obsolete satellites... well I think you get the idea.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Nothing to worry about guys. It's just 6.5 ton piece of metal falling from the sky. That never hurt anyone.


Never you mind things like Project Thor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment].

Yes, kinectic bombardment is essentially dropping things from space, like what's going to happen to this satellite.

Yes, they achieved the equivalent of tactical nuclear strikes with rods roughly the size of telephone poles which, if I remember correctly, weighted nowhere near 6 tons.

Yes, this kind of strike is nigh impossible to defend against since there's no guidance system to jam, it's just something falling, and you can't really intercept it since it's falling at roughly 9 km per second (for comparison a Barrett M82 .50 cal sniper rifle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barret_50_cal] has a muzzle velocity of roughly 853 m per second).


...so I guess what they're saying is something like "don't worry about it, if it lands on you, you're just fucked".


Heads up.

If you remember correctly... Project Thor is a conceptual idea, or a theory. Not actually tested.

 

[-Dragmire-]

But again, don't worry. There's never been a problem with objects falling from space before.

I know what they mean, but I couldn't help laughing at this.

I wonder, if it hits/kills someone, could the family sue NASA or does that fall under "we warned you not to touch it..." regardless of logic?

 

[EvanJO]

Nothing to worry about. It'll be incinerated in the atmosphere.

However, the kinetic bombardment system is fucking awesome and I can't wait until it inevitably gets brought to actualization. Such a cool weapons system.

 

[brom0220]

Basically, just run.

I nominate this poster for winner of the thread. +25 Awesome.

OT: I'm not too worried, the planets more than large enough for it to completely miss populated areas. Assuming most of it doesn't burn up in the atmosphere, it's most likely to land in an ocean.

 

[AMMO Kid]

I hope it falls on Brad Pitt.

 

[Zero_ctrl]

Snip

Thanks for calling him out on this.
The Escapist can be heavily editorialized. I can't even count how many times they've spun stuff in order to drive up page views.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Now, as for why NASA's insisting so much about the safety of the story? If they weren't, don't you think media outlets would be chewing them out about "potential risks"? (And I full well assume a certain Faux Noise will get on that regardless) They mean it when they say it poses no risk to human life, and that insistence is because NASA kind of needs public support to do what it does. Plus as stated earlier, managing space debris beyond the scope of "Will it break something we have functioning up there?" is a pure waste of money, and NASA sure as hell doesn't want to be pressured into using it's razor-thin budget on crap like that.

And yet the US Military sees it as an absolute necessity to rewire an anti-ballistic missile to shoot down a satellite that is degrading just cos it has about 10 lbs of hydrazine fuel. They reasoned that it could cause harm to people, because it actually is stupidly-toxic. However, as said before, the chances of hitting a person or anything like that is so impossibly-low that it's a waste of time and money unless you need an excuse to test an anti-satellite missile.

 

[Baneat]

If it falls near me, I'm going to start to doubt things..

 

[Mudze]

The reason they don't want you to touch it is because it will give you radiation poisoning. Seriously, if you see it, back right the hell away and inform the police.

 

[the spud]

It really probably won't be much of a problem. It is extremely unlikely that it will hit somewhere populated. We can at least hope it hits somewhere that nobody really likes or cares about (like Idaho, Texas, Quebec, or New Jersey).