Ariane Launch, 18:30, 26/11/2010

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3. 876487098 1 year ago

Hardly rocket science though is it? Oh wait... it is.

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7. Trooper 1 year ago

#1 This is not the space shuttle, this is a FRENCH rocket called "Ariane" and unlike the space shuttle, the side boosters are part of the main body of the rocket and do not separate like they do with the American Space Shuttle.

#6 The space trash is a somewhat of a problem, possible collisions with the space stations, satellites... Even if space trash is the only trash I know that can travel at over 45,000 miles per hour, you must also remember that at the altitudes at which this stuff floats (between 300 and 23,300 miles, yes 23 thousand miles) there is a lot more "space" than on the surface of the earth.

In fact the total surface area available on earth is 196,940,400 square miles while the "surface" of a sphere at 23,000 miles of altitude would be closer to 1,700,000,000 square miles. And then you have to count all the space at different altitudes which should amount at 50 miles increments (very conservatively) to about 1200 time the total surface area of the earth.

Bottom line, getting hit by space trash is less likely than getting hit by a flying whale while sitting on your couch in your basement. So you can see why I am not too worried about space trash.

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13. Strike4rc 1 year ago

#7 Space trash is not only a problem for the space station and existing satellites currently in orbit, but not everything stays there. Items currently in space do come down, the most famous being Skylab. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab I know a few people in Australia where worried at the time and the odds where much better than being hit by a flying whale.

"Reentry - The largest fragment of Skylab recovered after its re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. It is on display at the United States Space & Rocket Center.

Skylab's demise was an international media event, with merchandising, wagering on time and place of re-entry, and nightly news reports.[12] The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab delivered to its offices; the competing Chronicle offered $200,000 if a subscriber suffered personal or property damage.[12] NASA calculated that the odds of station re-entry debris hitting a human were 152 to 1[1]:369—although the odds of debris hitting a city of 100,000 or more were 7 to 1—and teams were ready to head to any country hit by debris and requesting help.[12]

Ground controllers adjusted Skylab's orientation for ideal re-entry dynamics in the hours before reentry[12] at approximately 16:37 UTC 11 July 1979. They aimed the station at a spot 810 miles (1,300 km) south southeast of Cape Town, South Africa. The station did not burn up as fast as NASA expected, however. Due to a 4% calculation error, debris landed southeast of Perth, Western Australia,[1]:371 and was found between Esperance and Rawlinna, from 31° to 34°S and 122° to 126°E. The Shire of Esperance fined the United States $400 for littering, a fine which remained unpaid for 30 years.[13] The fine was paid in April 2009, when radio show host Scott Barley of Highway Radio raised the funds from his morning show listeners and paid the fine on behalf of NASA."