A Chinese Long March 5B booster rocket is tumbling out of control in space and is expected to hit the earth sometime on Saturday. The ten-story, 23-ton booster rocket delivered a module to the new Chinese space station last week and, as is China’s customary practice, will be allowed to hit the earth in an uncontrolled descent with no one knowing where it will impact.
Yes, but what if the debris hits a populated city? You pays your money and you takes your chances, say the Chinese. In truth, the world’s space powers have called China out several times for its irresponsible and negligent actions in space operations.
The U.S., Russia, Japan, and other spacefaring nations construct their space delivery vehicles with the safety of those on the ground in mind. Spent parts of booster rockets are carefully steered so that they impact in the middle of the ocean. But China has never cared about where their spent rockets land. They use ’em and lose ’em and where they go after that is of no concern to them.
“It’s in the shared interests of all nations to act responsibly in space to ensure the safety, stability, security and long-term sustainability of outer space activities,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday, adding that the United States hoped to promote “responsible space behaviors.”
For the Long March 5B booster, that could be anywhere between 41.5 degrees north latitude and 41.5 degrees south latitude. That means Chicago, located a fraction of a degree farther north, is safe, but major cities like New York could be hit by debris.
On Thursday, the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit largely financed by the federal government that performs research and analysis, predicts re-entry will occur on Saturday at 11:43 p.m. Eastern time. If that is accurate, debris could shower down over northeastern Africa, over Sudan.
“It’s not a trivial thing to design something for a deliberate re-entry, but it’s nevertheless something that the world as a whole has moved to because we needed to,” said Ted J. Muelhaupt, principal director of Aerospace’s Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies.
This won’t be the first time that Chinese space debris has become a threat. Until recently, pieces of rockets were falling on rural areas downrange from the Sichuan Province launch site. China’s communist regime apparently didn’t care if they hit their own people or not. And last year, the first launch of the Long March 5B rocket resulted in debris falling back to earth on a village in Ivory Coast.
The way that Chinese engineers figure it, the world is more than 70 percent water, meaning they’ve got a very good chance of not hitting anything living even if they allow uncontrolled descents of their boosters.
“The odds that you will win the lottery today are tiny — and I bet my paycheck that you won’t — but the odds that nobody wins the lottery is a whole different bet,” Muelhaupt said. “And that’s the thing. The risk to an individual is minuscule. But the risk to all individuals is not.”
Muelhaupt said that the total amount of debris that could strike the earth on Saturday is not insignificant. “Think about three pickup trucks’ worth of debris,” he said. About ten tons will impact the surface.
As mentioned, it’s a big planet and there are a lot of factors that could affect reentry, including the strength of the solar wind and atmospheric drag when it begins its descent. But as Sir Isaac was fond of saying, what goes up, must come down. And even though the Chinese have already sent us one gift in the last year, we could do without another present this year.
First the Covid 19 virus was released supposedly by accident in Wuhun and now this….I don’t believe in coincidence…
Sounds like China forgot to STEAL! the how to control reentry of delivery vehicles typical of high profile Criminals.
Don’t be surprised if it turns out there is some sort of ‘guidance system’ on that rocket to make it crash in the United States – kinda sorta like Covid 19!
Orbital tracking shows it’s not flying over the US but if they had control they could target India or Taiwan, both of which they’re having open conflicts with – and then excuse it as a fault – they had another one of these last year, it was either a test or they implemented the stolen technology very poorly
OH! BTW! Don’t worry, it won’t crash in Wash., DC. They have too many friends there.
There is always hope, maybe they bought guidance system parts on ebay
If it has to crash in the US could we pick the spot? Portland, SF etc.
.Raul: Why not D,C.?
This like most MSM stories is just propaganda. Things fall to Earth all the time, they mostly burn up. Unlike the United Airlines jet dropped an engine on a small town in CO earlier this year. This is just the US government making the Chinese government look evil. The only difference between the two is the 2nd amendment.
Mike, don’t forget the shuttle Columbia, which scattered debris all across the southern US when it burned on re-entry. The amount of debris depends on the size and stability of the object coming through the atmosphere, in this case, 23 tons, or about the size of a full cargo trailer that you would find on the highways. Chances are some parts of it are going to survive the re-entry!
Charlie, you are correct. The shuttle program was a disaster from the beginning. We are fortunate that more people weren’t killed. NASA put millions of people at risk by landing in FL instead of the west coast just to save money. My point was simply that China didn’t do this intentionally. There are many of there allies along the path. SpaceX is at the cutting edge of “rocket science” what they do is beyond what others dream of. However, they depend on their second stage engine to relight to control where it deorbits. If it fails it, too would randomly fall.
THE CHINA BIDEN VIRUS KILLS AND THIS WILL TO
if we’re lucky it’ll hit Delaware when BIDEN is home.
Thank bill clinton for this.
Until clinton HIRED CHINA to launch a satellite into orbit for us (bill would rather give the technology to an enemy).
At the time china DID NOT HAVE STAGE SEPARATION TECHNOLOGY, so the technology was installed into the ‘satellite’ by US Technicians and well hidden from the chinese.
The rocket exploded on the launchpad and everything was destroyed….
3 months later china began putting weaponized satellites into space.
We know it landed in the Indian Ocean somewhere is what we know lol.