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Tiangong-1 space station to crash within weeks


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It would be good if some boat out there caught it on video...not likely, but you never know. 

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They seem to think it disintegrated on re-entry. They only gave it a 10% chance of survival. Hope there's a video also!

From link below: There was only about a 10 per cent chance the spacecraft would survive being burned up on re-entry.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-02/chinese-space-station-crashes-into-earth/9605260?smid=Page: ABC News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf185996359=1

Edited by susieice
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49 minutes ago, susieice said:

They seem to think it disintegrated on re-entry. They only gave it a 10% chance of survival. Hope there's a video also!

From link below: There was only about a 10 per cent chance the spacecraft would survive being burned up on re-entry.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-02/chinese-space-station-crashes-into-earth/9605260?smid=Page: ABC News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf185996359=1

Damn, I wanted to watch.  Thanks all, especially Bison, for keeping us informed and it was fun to watch the physics work wasn't it? 

Edited by Merc14
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I read a CBS report that says objects re-entering occur every few months. The worse for the US was the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which rained debris over a wide swath of the southern US. No one on the ground was hurt. I remember when that happened. I also didn't know that Perth, Australia fined the US $400 for littering when Skylab came down. That's funny. Wouldn't have been if someone had been hurt though.

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49 minutes ago, susieice said:

I read a CBS report that says objects re-entering occur every few months. The worse for the US was the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which rained debris over a wide swath of the southern US. No one on the ground was hurt. I remember when that happened. I also didn't know that Perth, Australia fined the US $400 for littering when Skylab came down. That's funny. Wouldn't have been if someone had been hurt though.

Yes, not sure if the $400 fine was only said in tongue-in-cheek at the time. But another article that I read said that it was paid by a radio station in the US who did a fund raiser...got the money.. and paid it back 30 years later lol...

Anyway, here is another article that shows the museum in the little town of Esperance that displays some of the bigger bits from the space station. All in all, it makes some good and interesting history. 

 https://www.australiantraveller.com/wa/outback-wa/esperance/025-see-where-skylab-crashed-to-earth/

Edited by Astra.
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On 4/1/2018 at 11:22 PM, susieice said:

I read a CBS report that says objects re-entering occur every few months. The worse for the US was the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which rained debris over a wide swath of the southern US. No one on the ground was hurt. I remember when that happened. I also didn't know that Perth, Australia fined the US $400 for littering when Skylab came down. That's funny. Wouldn't have been if someone had been hurt though.

Brings up an interesting point.     Is the country who launched the craft liable for property damage and loss of life?   I assume so.   So I wonder in what way.   Who decides punishment or punitive damages?

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3 hours ago, Myles said:

Brings up an interesting point.     Is the country who launched the craft liable for property damage and loss of life?   I assume so.   So I wonder in what way.   Who decides punishment or punitive damages?

"Space Law" is founded on the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. There is actually quite a debate going on over whether the treaty needs seriously updating. Currently, a nation issues an agency or a company with a "launch licence". The nation in question is then responsible for any liabilities. They then seek to recover the costs from the company or agency. Back in 1967 it was only agencies that launched satellites (and only three of them: America, the Soviet Union, and France). Now the situation is much more complicated. The nations that issue the licences insist the agencies or companies take out insurance to cover any liabilities. However, many countries are now wanting to be able to seek damages directly from the agencies/companies rather than having to go via the nations who issued the launch licences. This is because a situation rather like the "flags of convenience" used by ships might arise. There might be small countries - or even "off-shore" countries - handing out launch licences, but without having the resources to cover any liabilities. There are unscrupulous operators in all industries, so let's hope they are kept out of the space industry! 

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4 hours ago, Myles said:

Brings up an interesting point.     Is the country who launched the craft liable for property damage and loss of life?   I assume so.   So I wonder in what way.   Who decides punishment or punitive damages?

In 1978, the Soviet naval reconnaissance satellite, Kosmos 954, became unstable in its orbit and crashed to Earth, scattering debris across northern Canada. Both the Soviet Union and Canada were signatories to the Space Law Convention.

 A complication was that the satellite was powered by a uranium nuclear reactor. Some of the debris was dangerously radioactive. A large clean-up project ensued.  Canada billed the Soviet Union 6 million Canadian dollars. The two nations negotiated between themselves and finally agreed to compensation amounting to half that figure. 

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On 02/04/2018 at 8:28 PM, seanjo said:

Glad no one was hurt.

Yep, apart from the large meteorite that impacted on the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia that caused damage and injury. It's been recorded that there have only been two individuals in history (that they know of) who were actually struck by space debris. One woman was lightly struck by a piece of the Delta 11 rocket in 1997, and the other woman was struck in 1954 by a piece of meteorite which left a very nasty bruise. I guess it's fortunate that these type of incidences are generally rare. 

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russia-meteorite-ann-hodges-science-space-hit/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2011/09/21/woman-gets-hit-by-space-junk-lives-to-tell-tale.html

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