The prediction is currently holding steady for Saturday night for the US, and the error bars are shrinking.
57 Replies to “Why Couldn’t It Be Ottawa?”
My thought is that on the watch of our previous President, China’s space trash would have made an excellent object for target practice.
The current “occupant” will probably end up either apologizing or blaming #45.
I came across a news item in which the Department of Defense said that it won’t attempt to shoot it down. One reason would likely be the resulting debris field would pose a severe hazard to orbiting spacecraft.
You may remember when China shot at one of its defunct satellites nearly 15 years ago. That caused quite an uproar for the reason I just gave. (In response, the Americans used one of its own birds for target practice just to show that it could do the same thing.)
Similarly when, more than 10 years ago, two satellites (an Iridium and a dead Russian Kosmos) collided because their orbital paths crossed, the resulting debris made that part of space unusable for several years. There may still be pieces from that crash in orbit.
Understand.
My thinking is that they would engage it at a lower altitude in it’s decaying orbit so the (now) much smaller pieces would just burn up. Just my opinion with no basis in orbital mechanics.
I don’t think the spent stage has any way of changing its orbit aside from the natural decay leading to re-entry.
One of the concerns with the proliferation of cubesats is that they may remain in orbit long after their missions are completed or the systems have failed. Some designers are incorporating ways of increasing the drag, thereby encouraging an earlier re-entry, such as spoilers or, I think, micro-thrusters.
I’ve seen proposals for them to include balloons that would inflate to increase drag.
“Why Couldn’t It Be Ottawa?”
Because China would lose a few of it’s greatest strategic assets in the western world. Like no more quiet deals to acquire deadly viruses from Canadian labs to whisk back to play with.
“Why Couldn’t It Be Ottawa?”
They Chinese have bought and paid for Ottawa. Why would they destroy it?
Scar…
Agreed, however I believe they have bought considerably more not in only in physical assets but political ones as well. Like pretty much the entire body politic in this country…?
One wonders why the pissante Mayor of Calgary travelled twice to Bejing and met with the Mayor, that country’s #5 guy in their Communist Party..?? I’m sure it was more than some who flung dung recipes….
One wonders as well how many other Canadian political leaders have gone their to felate their masters..??
*
actually, ottawa seems intent on destroying itself…
Why will this particular piece of junk not burn up?
It’s too large to burn up completely during re-entry from its orbit. I don’t know too many details about it, but I would guess that it’s about the same size as Skylab, which was a re-designed Saturn S-IVB (Saturn V third stage).
Too large and many components are made from or coat with heat resistant materials. Remember rocket parts aren’t supposed to burn.
Not necessarily.
Heating resulting from atmospheric drag is what causes the burning. The amount of drag that the stage will experience depends on its orientation as well as density of the air, which varies locally.
How much of it will survive will be affected by the mass and composition of individual components, as well as the amount of time the entire assembly travels through the atmosphere.
On an interesting side note: I was working with NASA in the early 80’s and was talking with a NASA Engineer familiar with Skylab, which had re-entered a few years earlier. The biggest recognisable chunk of Skylab to land in Australia was an oxygen tank. Apparently empty oxygen tanks were used to store, ahem, biological waste. Now, if an empty tank, with doubtless some residual O2 inside, re-entered it would have readily burned up. On the other hand, if the tank contained a significant thermal mass, it would have been far more likely to survive.
Needless to say, that little tidbit did not make the news media.
I remember hearing that a tank survived, though I don’t recall if mention was made of it being filled with anything, let alone what that tank contained.
The location of the tank inside Skylab would also have affected how much total heat it received. It might not have been exposed to the heating until after the station’s structure had failed.
Was the tank possibly FRS material..?? Fibreglass.? or partially
Makes sense…very light & Strong..? Seem to recall seeing a pic of it…and thats what struck me.
Now sitting in a Small town museum: Esperance, Aus.
Don’t know any further details beyond my post above. It was just amusing speculation, based on the detailed knowledge of an Engineer at NASA Marshall who had worked on Skylab.
It looks like a composite tank.
They are used in aviation as well, filament wound/laid composite tanks with a thin metallic liner. Very light and strong!
Why can’t it fall on one of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ 17 homes?
…if it’s the one she’s in at the time, that gets my vote.
If I just turn my derriere skywards I may be able to catch it. Just the thought gives me tingles in my leg.
I was going to post this yesterday but thought better of it. But since we seem to be going down that road – how about Harrington Lake on the weekend.
Gets my vote! …that is if Sox is there.
Dougie says we all must stay put!
so they are saying they can’t predict where an asteroid will hit either
So far, no asteroids are predicted to hit the Earth.
Today.
No big ones, anyways. Dust collection will continue like it always does.
No big ones that have been detected.
The meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk a number of years ago wasn’t noticed until it entered the atmosphere as its relative position was close to the sun.
But the weather is totes predictable
Only future weather. Past weather will still change on at least an annual basis.
My plan is to walk over to a nearby golf course and hold a One Iron over my head.
Ottawa? Sure. Why not but lets be specific. Rideau Cottage when PM Shit-for-brains is there playing dress-up by himself – shudder – or the PMO when hes there with tout le gang.
Is he there or Harrington Lake??
Or maybe with his mommie for Mothers Day.
With any luck it will just land in the swamp.
Sure, it might take out a few senators, but that’s no loss.
But if its the US then Obama’s digs in Martha’s Vineyard or where ever it is.
But on the bright side, it appears that Washington D.C. is still in the zone!
Uggh … why do so many of those orbit tracks fall over the SF Bay Area. Sheesh. First: China destroys my President and my country with COVID … then they finish me off with falling space junk. What a year … what an improbable shit year
I’m hoping the ChiComs Rocket is built as shitty as all the crap they sell on Amazon … and most of it burns to a crisp.
About 4 years ago I saw what I thought was a meteorite streak across the sky, south to north over the Rockies…then it broke up into about dozen streaks before it flamed out. Hour later seeing on the net that it was seen from both BC and Alberta side of the mountains.
Couple days later learned that it was a Chinese satellite re-entering.
Doubt that very much of this thing will ever make it to ground level.
FWIW
Perhaps we open a game of chance.
Closest wins.
I’ll go with Luanda Angola.
Right about here: -8.895216978764555, 13.375579876733958
One thing’s for sure – if it lands on private property in the US a handful of people will be getting their 15 mins of fame, and maybe even a book deal.
Remember though, if it hits a school and kills a grade 3 class it’s racist to blame China.
I condemn your (provisional) AAPI hate speech. You THOUGHT about AAPI hate … and that’s a CRIME in our hypersensitive BIPOC woke culture. And I acknowledge an thank the Costanoan People whose lands I live on … where property values have skyrocketed so high that my adult children will NEVER be able to afford to live here.
a handful of people will be getting their 15 mins of fame
Those people may get their fame, but it could be costly. Some of the wreckage could be contaminated with toxic or corrosive substances, such as propellant.
Funny but I’d prefer Beijing. If it landed in Wuhan it might kill us all.
But if it DID land in Harrington Lake …
I understand that Ottawa was a potential target until they held an emergency session of Parliament that narrowly voted to forbid the debris from crashing there. O’Toole was especially adamant in supporting the motion claiming that the destruction of Ottawa would increase global warming.
Much to O’Toole’s delight, Canadian media patted him on the head and said… “Good boy!”.
Heh!
My prediction is that the target will be Huntsville Alabama.
All kidding aside here, what if this space junks falls in a heavily populated area or worse yet what if there is a contamination area created in America. Do we just shrug it of as happenchance much like we’re shrugged off the Wuhan virus. What do they say about coincidences? It would seem highly unlikely that a country can launch a rocket into space and not have a plan to eliminate it in the event that it could upon re-entry cause mass destruction. What happens if upon re-entry this rocket takes out twice the number that perished on 9/11?
Fire up Airforce 1 , pack the nuke codes , don’t forget clean underwear , make sure the Acorn stairlift is working and get Biden on board . Let him ride it out like GWB did on 9-11.
Ya know, lot’s of sensible right leaning people live in Ottawa. Just sayin’.
Perhaps, but is it safe for them to say?
Seriously.
And what about that pesky gun registry?
Generally we like to throw our hard right values in peoples faces by living quiet upright lives, being honest, raising our kids to have good morals, and never giving into anything except our God and our principles.
Nothing gets a leftist’s back up more than giving them nothing to complain about.
Words to live by.
Yup!
Come on..You know this is precision aimed at Key largo.
Chairman Joe and his owner Li are making sure no “Round Eye” upstart will ever challenge the Golden Empire again.
Sure this will be an “unfortunate Accident”..As the FBI will report anyway.
Is it still paranoia when you turn out to be correct?
I’ve been following this.
They’ve made updates @ the link.
The entry is +/- 8 hours.
The satellite logo is the predicted re-entry location.
Blue path is early entry up to – 8 hours
Yellow path is delayed entry up to + 8 hours
Each tick on the path is 5 minutes. (it takes about 90-95 min. for this thing to go around the world).
Right now it’s predicted to re-enter 4:19 GMT on the 9th. (12:19 AM EST)
If it runs 30-35 min late on an 8 hour window… NYC better duck and cover.
My thought is that on the watch of our previous President, China’s space trash would have made an excellent object for target practice.
The current “occupant” will probably end up either apologizing or blaming #45.
I came across a news item in which the Department of Defense said that it won’t attempt to shoot it down. One reason would likely be the resulting debris field would pose a severe hazard to orbiting spacecraft.
You may remember when China shot at one of its defunct satellites nearly 15 years ago. That caused quite an uproar for the reason I just gave. (In response, the Americans used one of its own birds for target practice just to show that it could do the same thing.)
Similarly when, more than 10 years ago, two satellites (an Iridium and a dead Russian Kosmos) collided because their orbital paths crossed, the resulting debris made that part of space unusable for several years. There may still be pieces from that crash in orbit.
Understand.
My thinking is that they would engage it at a lower altitude in it’s decaying orbit so the (now) much smaller pieces would just burn up. Just my opinion with no basis in orbital mechanics.
I don’t think the spent stage has any way of changing its orbit aside from the natural decay leading to re-entry.
One of the concerns with the proliferation of cubesats is that they may remain in orbit long after their missions are completed or the systems have failed. Some designers are incorporating ways of increasing the drag, thereby encouraging an earlier re-entry, such as spoilers or, I think, micro-thrusters.
I’ve seen proposals for them to include balloons that would inflate to increase drag.
“Why Couldn’t It Be Ottawa?”
Because China would lose a few of it’s greatest strategic assets in the western world. Like no more quiet deals to acquire deadly viruses from Canadian labs to whisk back to play with.
“Why Couldn’t It Be Ottawa?”
They Chinese have bought and paid for Ottawa. Why would they destroy it?
Scar…
Agreed, however I believe they have bought considerably more not in only in physical assets but political ones as well. Like pretty much the entire body politic in this country…?
One wonders why the pissante Mayor of Calgary travelled twice to Bejing and met with the Mayor, that country’s #5 guy in their Communist Party..?? I’m sure it was more than some who flung dung recipes….
One wonders as well how many other Canadian political leaders have gone their to felate their masters..??
*
actually, ottawa seems intent on destroying itself…
“The latest foray the Canadian government has made
into educating kids about their gender identity is
Gegi, a seemingly gender-nonbinary unicorn.”
*
I’m still holding out for Mao’s tomb on June 4.
Why will this particular piece of junk not burn up?
It’s too large to burn up completely during re-entry from its orbit. I don’t know too many details about it, but I would guess that it’s about the same size as Skylab, which was a re-designed Saturn S-IVB (Saturn V third stage).
Too large and many components are made from or coat with heat resistant materials. Remember rocket parts aren’t supposed to burn.
Not necessarily.
Heating resulting from atmospheric drag is what causes the burning. The amount of drag that the stage will experience depends on its orientation as well as density of the air, which varies locally.
How much of it will survive will be affected by the mass and composition of individual components, as well as the amount of time the entire assembly travels through the atmosphere.
On an interesting side note: I was working with NASA in the early 80’s and was talking with a NASA Engineer familiar with Skylab, which had re-entered a few years earlier. The biggest recognisable chunk of Skylab to land in Australia was an oxygen tank. Apparently empty oxygen tanks were used to store, ahem, biological waste. Now, if an empty tank, with doubtless some residual O2 inside, re-entered it would have readily burned up. On the other hand, if the tank contained a significant thermal mass, it would have been far more likely to survive.
Needless to say, that little tidbit did not make the news media.
I remember hearing that a tank survived, though I don’t recall if mention was made of it being filled with anything, let alone what that tank contained.
The location of the tank inside Skylab would also have affected how much total heat it received. It might not have been exposed to the heating until after the station’s structure had failed.
Was the tank possibly FRS material..?? Fibreglass.? or partially
Makes sense…very light & Strong..? Seem to recall seeing a pic of it…and thats what struck me.
Now sitting in a Small town museum: Esperance, Aus.
https://www.space.com/21122-skylab-space-station-remains-museum.html
Don’t know any further details beyond my post above. It was just amusing speculation, based on the detailed knowledge of an Engineer at NASA Marshall who had worked on Skylab.
It looks like a composite tank.
They are used in aviation as well, filament wound/laid composite tanks with a thin metallic liner. Very light and strong!
Why can’t it fall on one of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ 17 homes?
…if it’s the one she’s in at the time, that gets my vote.
If I just turn my derriere skywards I may be able to catch it. Just the thought gives me tingles in my leg.
I was going to post this yesterday but thought better of it. But since we seem to be going down that road – how about Harrington Lake on the weekend.
Gets my vote! …that is if Sox is there.
Dougie says we all must stay put!
so they are saying they can’t predict where an asteroid will hit either
So far, no asteroids are predicted to hit the Earth.
Today.
No big ones, anyways. Dust collection will continue like it always does.
No big ones that have been detected.
The meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk a number of years ago wasn’t noticed until it entered the atmosphere as its relative position was close to the sun.
But the weather is totes predictable
Only future weather. Past weather will still change on at least an annual basis.
My plan is to walk over to a nearby golf course and hold a One Iron over my head.
Ottawa? Sure. Why not but lets be specific. Rideau Cottage when PM Shit-for-brains is there playing dress-up by himself – shudder – or the PMO when hes there with tout le gang.
Is he there or Harrington Lake??
Or maybe with his mommie for Mothers Day.
With any luck it will just land in the swamp.
Sure, it might take out a few senators, but that’s no loss.
But if its the US then Obama’s digs in Martha’s Vineyard or where ever it is.
But on the bright side, it appears that Washington D.C. is still in the zone!
Uggh … why do so many of those orbit tracks fall over the SF Bay Area. Sheesh. First: China destroys my President and my country with COVID … then they finish me off with falling space junk. What a year … what an improbable shit year
I’m hoping the ChiComs Rocket is built as shitty as all the crap they sell on Amazon … and most of it burns to a crisp.
About 4 years ago I saw what I thought was a meteorite streak across the sky, south to north over the Rockies…then it broke up into about dozen streaks before it flamed out. Hour later seeing on the net that it was seen from both BC and Alberta side of the mountains.
Couple days later learned that it was a Chinese satellite re-entering.
Doubt that very much of this thing will ever make it to ground level.
FWIW
Perhaps we open a game of chance.
Closest wins.
I’ll go with Luanda Angola.
Right about here: -8.895216978764555, 13.375579876733958
One thing’s for sure – if it lands on private property in the US a handful of people will be getting their 15 mins of fame, and maybe even a book deal.
Remember though, if it hits a school and kills a grade 3 class it’s racist to blame China.
I condemn your (provisional) AAPI hate speech. You THOUGHT about AAPI hate … and that’s a CRIME in our hypersensitive BIPOC woke culture. And I acknowledge an thank the Costanoan People whose lands I live on … where property values have skyrocketed so high that my adult children will NEVER be able to afford to live here.
a handful of people will be getting their 15 mins of fame
Those people may get their fame, but it could be costly. Some of the wreckage could be contaminated with toxic or corrosive substances, such as propellant.
Funny but I’d prefer Beijing. If it landed in Wuhan it might kill us all.
But if it DID land in Harrington Lake …
I understand that Ottawa was a potential target until they held an emergency session of Parliament that narrowly voted to forbid the debris from crashing there. O’Toole was especially adamant in supporting the motion claiming that the destruction of Ottawa would increase global warming.
Much to O’Toole’s delight, Canadian media patted him on the head and said… “Good boy!”.
Heh!
My prediction is that the target will be Huntsville Alabama.
All kidding aside here, what if this space junks falls in a heavily populated area or worse yet what if there is a contamination area created in America. Do we just shrug it of as happenchance much like we’re shrugged off the Wuhan virus. What do they say about coincidences? It would seem highly unlikely that a country can launch a rocket into space and not have a plan to eliminate it in the event that it could upon re-entry cause mass destruction. What happens if upon re-entry this rocket takes out twice the number that perished on 9/11?
Fire up Airforce 1 , pack the nuke codes , don’t forget clean underwear , make sure the Acorn stairlift is working and get Biden on board . Let him ride it out like GWB did on 9-11.
Ya know, lot’s of sensible right leaning people live in Ottawa. Just sayin’.
Perhaps, but is it safe for them to say?
Seriously.
And what about that pesky gun registry?
Generally we like to throw our hard right values in peoples faces by living quiet upright lives, being honest, raising our kids to have good morals, and never giving into anything except our God and our principles.
Nothing gets a leftist’s back up more than giving them nothing to complain about.
Words to live by.
Yup!
Come on..You know this is precision aimed at Key largo.
Chairman Joe and his owner Li are making sure no “Round Eye” upstart will ever challenge the Golden Empire again.
Sure this will be an “unfortunate Accident”..As the FBI will report anyway.
Is it still paranoia when you turn out to be correct?
I’ve been following this.
They’ve made updates @ the link.
The entry is +/- 8 hours.
The satellite logo is the predicted re-entry location.
Blue path is early entry up to – 8 hours
Yellow path is delayed entry up to + 8 hours
Each tick on the path is 5 minutes. (it takes about 90-95 min. for this thing to go around the world).
Right now it’s predicted to re-enter 4:19 GMT on the 9th. (12:19 AM EST)
If it runs 30-35 min late on an 8 hour window… NYC better duck and cover.