I guess there is a similar map looking eastward from "the center of the world"
Posted on 05/15/2020 7:41:40 AM PDT by bitt
Chunks of the massive Chinese rocket that recently took an uncontrolled plunge back into the Earth’s atmosphere narrowly missed hitting New York City, according to a report.
Had the Long March 5B rocket re-entered the atmosphere about 15 to 20 minutes earlier on Monday, it would have rained debris on the nation’s largest metro area, according to Ars Technica, a technology-focused publication.
The about 100-foot-long rocket was launched on May 5, carrying an unnamed prototype of a newly designed Chinese crew capsule.
After about a week in orbit, the 20-ton core stage of the rocket fell back into the atmosphere around 11 a.m., moving at thousands of miles per hour and largely burning up on its way down.
A bit of the spacecraft about the size of a small bus splashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa, according to the US Space Command, which was tracking the re-entry.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Equatorial Guinea newspapers have to be going nuts over nearly having been plastered by this. Um, not.
Low orbit takes 88 minutes so 15 minutes will take you a long ways away.
World War III - CANCELLED. Please see the agent at the ticket counter to reschedule.
NYC could then over-bill China for this & solve other problems at the same time.
I guess there is a similar map looking eastward from "the center of the world"
I don't know if I should be happy or sad right now.
Another chicken little story to scare up readership. This has always been a problem that reentry of orbital waste could hit a population center. 20 minutes is a long time in orbital mechanics and 99.9999 percent of junk is targeted At the oceans. Just because it was a Chinese rocket body makes no difference other than to inflame the reader’s bias. The USA had an issue with a satellite reentry that hit in South America near a small community With hexane tanks Surviving the heat from atmospheric reentry. Responsible space nations try to limit this issue.
A treaty struck in the 1960s make this unlikely. Global powers agreed that any space debris that lands in another country is considered the property of the nation that launched it. That doesn’t preclude the impacted nation from asking for recompense in the event of damage as seen when SkyLab fell in Australia. The Aussies basically fined NASA something like $400 for littering.
What is that old story about the dog. If he hadn’t stopped to sniff the would have caught the rabbit.
In only very slightly different words, this bit of spacecraft was only...
15 minutes from hitting Boston.
15 minutes from hitting DC.
15 minutes from hitting Philly.
15 minutes from hitting the Berkshires.
16 minutes from hitting Destroit.
17 minutes from hitting Chicongo.
Huh! I thought Clinton sent Loral and they solved China’s rocket guidance problems.
Gov. Cuomo dismissed the report, saying it was a European rocket.
If it did manage to hit New York, as long as it hit Gracie Manor, and as long as DeBlathero was inside....
This is the first of three launches planned for this system in 2020. The core rocket launched a capsule into low orbit for testing - and that will also re-enter soon, and it has heat shields to survive. Hopefully the capsule will be guided for return.
The YF-77 engines made it to the ocean - and they are HEAVY. Not just a fuel tank.
The point of the article is that the Chinese are launching multiple pieces of very large rockets knowing that their return is completely unguided, and therefore dangerous to the world as a whole. We don’t launch large boosters into low orbit - ours and the Russians use first stages that disintegrate in a planned area.
China is playing Russian Roulette with three rounds in the cylinder.
“Low orbit takes 88 minutes so 15 minutes will take you a long ways away.”
I’m guessing that 15-20 minutes is equal to almost 5000 miles making a not very near miss.
Must be a really slow news day.
Practicing ICBM delivery.
Dangit! Maybe next time.
At orbital speeds a 15 minute miss is missing by a continent not by miles. Morons in Media strike again.
LOL, yep. 15 minutes is what, 4,000 miles?
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