NASA Says Don't Worry About Falling Satellite

[algalon]

Nothing bad ever came out of decommissioned space junk falling out of the sky. Just ask George.

 

[algalon]

double post

 

[Agarth]

Just because you mentioned NASA...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv6RbEOlqRo

The one and only NASA made game. (That I know of) and they made the stupid mistake of putting in a voice program for everything you type.

 

[tofulove]

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?

well hell, if its so ez to do it, why hasn't nasa hired you yet? i think you should apply for a job at nasa, or at the least offer your self as a temp to figure out there math problems. and if your job already pays more, or the job at nasa is to ez for you, think of all the lives you could possible save it there was a danger to it, so do your civic duty and protect the world! pluss, you know being so ez wont take so long, maybe you can find some time during your lunch break to crunch the numbers real fast for them.

 

[Snotnarok]

I remember my parents telling me about something like this being announced when they were younger...the public response was to walk around with pots and such on their heads....ung.

Pots? But umbrellas are so much more practical. I mean, it works in cartoons after all right?
I think it's funny that they're over-emphasizing that nothing will go wrong and this is all completely safe, it's like they want to jinx themselves to the point where something bad will happen.

Ahem...they um...Nasa that is ...felt it was needed to um...ya know...Say that the new Apollo 18 horror movie? ...Yeah they came out to say it's not a documentary...*cough* So ...why do we let them launch stuff into space again?

 

[Yopaz]

If bits land in my yard I'm selling them on eBay or something.

I think you can be reported and sent away for selling something incredibly dangerous on the internet. Such as beryllium with a L/D of 0.2mg/kg So when NASA says that you should not touch it, that's partially because it's worth more than its weight in gold and partially because even small pieces can make sure you and your whole family dies within the next 2 weeks to 15 years.

 

[tthor]

"There's never been a problem with objects falling from space before."

I can think of one. It killed the dinosaurs.

Granted it was not a satellite..

However the Barringer Crater was made by a meteor the size of a small car.

EDIT: wait.. wrong crater... don't remember which one it was, but not the Barringer Crater, that one was caused by a meteorite 50 meters across...

but now, was the meteor the size of a small car before or after entering the atmosphere? I'm guess the satellite will burn up a great deal on reentry

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm old enough to remember Skylab coming back down, now that was something to worry about. The thing weighed 77 tons. So pah 6.5 tons I sneeze in your general direction.

I'm old enough to remember the first landing on Mars, though not quite Telstar age.

Is that still up there?

 

[Abengoshis]

This is gonna be like one of those cartoons where wherever I run the ever growing shadow of the satellite will follow me and eventually land on me.

 

[mrdude2010]

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?

i'm a physics major, i'm never too worried because i usually understand on some level what they're talking about

i don't remember that but maybe, it's been a while since i've seen that movie

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

TL;DR: Greg Tito, you should be fired. And then your name, aliases, and picture should be spread far and wide to all news outlets such that you never contribute another article this blatantly misleading and/or stupid.

Dude, seriously. The tone of this post was a joke. Sorry you missed the obvious.

Greg

I guess I assumed that it wasn't a joke because it makes such a terrible joke.

"A satellite isn't going to cause any damage."
"They're lying, a satellite is going to cause damage."

Hilarious.

I was stuck in a position where my options were to assume that: (1) it's a joke completely devoid of any humour (2) the author really is clueless or (3) the author is intelligent and has a sense of humour and is baiting for pageviews.

The third seemed the most charitable.

And really? You're going to go with the passive-aggressive insult embedded in an apology? Not to mention, have you actually looked at the thread? The overwhelming majority of replies are clearly people who "missed the obvious". A lot of them aren't taking the issue too seriously, but it's abundantly clear that most of them took the article at face value.

But I guess I do apologise for misreading your intentions and, if true, it's certainly less blatantly irresponsible than I had suggested.

But out over that I would love to see you write for the escapist Jaime, was an interesting tell off

About every other day I see an article that makes me want to. Unfortunately, while I do have time to fire off the occasional wall of text or get into a nice e-argument with a stranger, my work keeps me from keeping up with the sort of news stories that show up here (which is why I come to the Escapist in the first place and why the poor quality of the writing tends to bother me) or dealing with the submission process (I don't like discussing professions on internet fora since it typically comes across as a silly, completely unverifiable claim of authority, but suffice it to say that I deal with writing submission processes plenty already).

I'll go away now, before I do indeed get banned (though I always wish these things could be discussed more openly with less fear of administrative reprisal).

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

That's ridiculous, I'd SO touch something that fell from space. I'm sure everyone else would as well, I mean come on.

Enjoy burning your hand off. That shit's going to be fucking hot.

 

[Dutch 924]

You realise touching a peice of satellite will result in a severe case of burns and/or death. It's just been falling through the atmosphere, so it's going to be a couple thousand degrees, and it's also been in space, so it's shell is going to be covered in radiation.

And don't worry about it destroying all life when it impacts. The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was about the size of Wales, which is considerably more than 35 feet long.

PS: No amount of radiation will give you superpowers.

 

[Wintermoot]

you know if that thing crashes in my backyard I,m going to keep it!
who else can say they own a satellite?

PS also they are likely to let it crash into the sea.

 

[AnAnemicTurtle]

NASA: We don't want anyone to panic because it's nothing to panic about, but we'll tell everyone anyway.

 

[Chrinik]

The russkies could bring down the MIR SPACE STATION and everyone was fine, I don´t really get why this Escapist article suggests that it´s such a horrendous act...
Also, when the Sattelite reaches Earth, it´ll probably not weight six tons anymore...this things aren´t made with ceramic heat shielding or titanium alloy or adamantium...they are made from the lightest of all materials, all of which melt fairly easily...so the only thing we can hope to see is a big fireball in the sky.

If the writer was making some kinda joke with his writing, I didn´t get it...we don´t need paranoia spreading douches here...
Or the people that take it serriously because they trust the writer.

 

[JoJo]

snip

While I wouldn't use as harsh terms as you I agree, as a science student I know that satellites are deliberately burned up in the atmosphere all the time and much larger have come down such as MIR mentioned by the poster above me. The ISS is destined to eventually be abandoned to a similar fate and that weighs even more.