Out-of-control Chinese Tiangong-1 space station

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Winston

Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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https://www.theguardian.com/science...1-space-station-out-of-control-crash-to-earth

“There will be lumps of about 100kg or so, still enough to give you a nasty wallop if it hit you,” he said. (more than that, I think. - W)

“Yes there’s a chance it will do damage, it might take out someone’s car, there will be a rain of a few pieces of metal, it might go through someone’s roof, like if a flap fell off a plane, but it is not widespread damage.”

Luckily, the world is mostly water.

For its bright passes over your location, search for "Tiangong" here:

https://www.n2yo.com/

A humorous take:

[video=youtube;LbyAc79Y95w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbyAc79Y95w[/video]
 
Lets hope it lands in the ocean and not in a populate area.
 
."There will be lumps of about 100kg or so, still enough to give you a nasty wallop if it hit you,” he said."

I think something the size of an engine block may leave a mark.

M
 
So, Skylab and Columbia should have crashed into Washington D.C.?

If you cannot control it it is your fault as the owner. They should go and fix it enough so they can do a controlled re-entry. They have known for a long time, as we did with Skylab, that it was coming down...do it in a responsible manner. We are not talking something that is just going to burn up- pieces could cause significant damage.

I do not think DC is relevant to reality.
 
Why would you wish that on random innocent people you don't know?

I really don't. I am not a fan of the Chinese government. Not a fan of communists, their ideology, or how they treat their people. Then again, I also want to phase out trade with them until they are forced into fair trade.
 
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If you cannot control it it is your fault as the owner. They should go and fix it enough so they can do a controlled re-entry. They have known for a long time, as we did with Skylab, that it was coming down...do it in a responsible manner. We are not talking something that is just going to burn up- pieces could cause significant damage. .

Um, Skylab was not deorbited in a controlled manner. It was a complete mystery where it was going to come down until the weeks and days leading up to the event, and NASA had absolutely no control over the location or manner of reentry. It was only luck that brought the big chunks down in the relatively unpopulated Australian outback.

Heck, in 1997 a fuel tank from a Delta II landed a few miles from my home. The US is not without sin in these instances, and wishing ill will upon other spacefaring nations is just bad mojo.

James
 
I really don't. I am not a fan of the Chinese government. Not a fan of communists, their ideology, or how they treat their people. Then again, I also want to phase out trade with them until they are forced into fair trade.

The one who gets squashed would just be the average working stiff (who dislikes the government too) not someone with policy making abilities, they would know the impact point and be able to move.
 
I never said we were without sin in this stuff. There is so much junk up there much of it ours. We really should have sent a mission up with a means to fire retro rockets on Skylab to better control when and where. I know the shuttle was not ready, but there had to be a way.

Boosters, tanks, and space stations randomly falling from the sky is shitty planning on the part of all responsible parties. Start launching robotic missions to deorbit junk that is such as size as to present risk.
 
Thankfully for us here in America, the behemoth weighs "Tonnes", not Tons, so if debris hit us we'll be ok.

I've alwatys wanted so space junk to land in my yard, and one morning about a month ago, I did here something crash down into the trees behind my house, followed by/almost in time with, the oscillating "Woo,woo,woo" sound, like when Mortar rounds are incoming.
I was lucky enough to see some of the branches move, but it is right in a thick bunch of brush where if you went in there then, you would be covered in thorns and ticks immediately. It's not more than 70 feet behind my house, and I was at my vehicle in the driveway when it occurred, about to go to an appointment for my Dog, so I just made a note of it, as if I might forget it, and decided to borrow my friends metal detector once we get the first snow and go look to see it whatever it was was metallic and perhaps a meteorite. If I can find it ofcourse.
I'm deathly afraid of Lyme disease and Ticks, so there was no way I was going in there then, or right now even.
With my luck it is a nut or rivet from an airplane, but something came in and impacted there, so I'll check it out when convenient.
 
Since it has a docking port for the Chinese Soyuz (Shenzhou), and they successfully performed an automated docking of the unmanned Shenzhou-10 with the station, IF the Tiangong hasn't lost automatic attitude control, they should be able to dock a Shenzhou and use its thrusters to control reentry. However, there are reports of brightness variations of the space station during passes that might indicate that it's tumbling. I'd suspect the Chinese would have already mentioned this controlled reentry method IF it were possible in this case in order to quell unwanted media attention to the hazard, but you never know with the Chinese.
 
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