Large Chunks of a Chinese Rocket Missed NYC By About 15 Minutes (arstechnica.com) 185
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A week ago, China launched the newest version of its largest rocket, the Long March 5B, from its southernmost spaceport. The launch proceeded normally and represented another success for China as it seeks to build a robust human spaceflight program. Over the next few years, this rocket will launch components of a modular space station. Notably, because of this rocket's design, its large core stage reached orbit after the launch. Typically during a launch, a rocket's large first stage will provide the majority of thrust during the first minutes of launch and then drop away before reaching an orbital velocity, falling back into the ocean. Then, a smaller second stage takes over and pushes the rocket's payload into orbit. However, the Long March 5B rocket has no second stage. For last week's launch, then, four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters generated most of the thrust off the launch pad. After this, the core stage with two YF-77 main engines pushed an experimental spacecraft into orbit before the payload separated.
This left the large core stage, with a mass slightly in excess of 20 tons, in an orbit with an average altitude of about 260km above the Earth. Because the perigee of this orbit was only about 160km above the planet, the core stage was slowly drawn back toward the planet as it interacted with the planet's upper atmosphere. This is a rather large object to make an uncontrolled return to Earth. According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and keen observer of satellites, this is the largest vehicle to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth's atmosphere since 1991, when the Soviet Salyut 7 space station broke up over Argentina. [...] It is perhaps worth noting that before it entered Earth's atmosphere, the core stage track passed directly over New York City. Had it reentered the atmosphere only a little bit earlier, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes, the rocket's debris could have rained down on the largest metro area in the United States.
This left the large core stage, with a mass slightly in excess of 20 tons, in an orbit with an average altitude of about 260km above the Earth. Because the perigee of this orbit was only about 160km above the planet, the core stage was slowly drawn back toward the planet as it interacted with the planet's upper atmosphere. This is a rather large object to make an uncontrolled return to Earth. According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and keen observer of satellites, this is the largest vehicle to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth's atmosphere since 1991, when the Soviet Salyut 7 space station broke up over Argentina. [...] It is perhaps worth noting that before it entered Earth's atmosphere, the core stage track passed directly over New York City. Had it reentered the atmosphere only a little bit earlier, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes, the rocket's debris could have rained down on the largest metro area in the United States.
Clickbait much? (Score:2)
"McDowell said there were some reports emerging about possible debris found downrange in Cote d'Ivoire."
Re:Clickbait much? (Score:5, Interesting)
"McDowell said there were some reports emerging about possible debris found downrange in Cote d'Ivoire."
It's not clickbait. China sent up a rocket with no way to control how it came down - but was destined to come down within a short time (comparatively) after the launch. The rocket itself spent 6 days in a decaying orbit before it entered the atmosphere, and when it did come down it was tracking right over the top of NYC. There was no way to predict exactly when the rocket would re-enter as the orbital decay was purely a result of the rocket interacting with the upper atmosphere and there was huge number of random elements at play. That 15 minute window represents 0.1% of the orbital decay period which could have easily been eaten by unpredictable interactions of the rocket with atmosphere.
So it was pure roll of the dice that large chunks of metal didn't rain down NYC and instead rained down on a much less populated area. (when they hit they would probably have been traveling at subsonic speeds, but image the damage caused by someone dropping several V8 engines out of a plane at 10,000 feet over the top of NYC).
On top of all of that you have the current pandemic rancor directed at China, which follows on from the previous years trade war, and a president who is at best "twitchy" when it comes to relations with China, in an election year when things aren't going all the best for him - and that roll of the dice could have gone very very badly for everyone.
Re:Clickbait much? (Score:5, Informative)
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Meaning it already nailed something it had a
What's your point?
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Yes, but in the end, 15 minutes was the dividing line.
That's called survivor bias, like those people who declare: "I won the lottery and you can do, if you just play it". The fact that it was 15min doesn't change the statistics anymore than being told someone else won the lottery makes you more likely to win it yourself.
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The way I see it, they launched a rocket with a huge booster they knew would hit the ground instead of burning up. They didn't take care to ensure that it would come down somewhere safe - like the ocean. That's reckless endangerment in my book.
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Wonce ze rockets are up, who cares were dey come down...
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I may have missed something, but other than SpaceX, who exactly is sending rocket boosters up that have ways to control where they come down?
By controlled I don't mean landing a la SpaceX. What I mean is giving the rocket in orbit a precisely controlled burn of a thruster so that it enters the atmosphere at a known time and place such that it burns up over a remote area. As opposed to letting it bounce around on the outer atmosphere until some random process determines where and when the rocket finally enters the atmosphere.
That is what you are supposed to do when you launch things into space, but is something that China couldn't be bothered w
"Only a little bit earlier" (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re: "Only a little bit earlier" (Score:5, Informative)
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The point is that saying it missed NY by 15 minutes is deceptive. It missed a pretty good chunk of the planetary surface by 15 minutes.
Another way of putting it is that it missed by 0.1% of the uncontrolled and stochastic orbital decay period. That's rather slim.
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Another way of putting it is that it missed by 0.1%
Another way to put it is that it had a one-in-a-million chance of hitting NYC.
The 0.1% probability is only if it can down earlier in the same pass.
If it had come down a few hours before or later it could have hit almost anywhere on earth between 40N and 40S.
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A pretty good chunk of the planetary surface is water. Next time, China, aim for the bigger target. The big blue part to the east of your shoreline.
Re:"Only a little bit earlier" (Score:5, Informative)
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and if it had taken 15 minutes less
If it had taken 15minutes more it would have been very close to the complete opposite side of the world. What's your point? Are you regularly concerned about a bit of metal hitting some large part of the middle east potentially hitting you instead? If so I suggest you ask your doctor if anti-psychotics are right for you.
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"So the debris barely missed New York...by about 1/5 of Earth's circumference."
A tiny fraction of an hour sounds better.
Re:"Only a little bit earlier" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and for the other comments defending the time based, the fall is uncontrolled so you can't look at the 15 minutes in the context of the entire re-entry time and use that percentage as anything meaningful.
It was an uncontrolled re-entry. If it had taken an extra 4 hours to de-orbit it would have been 15 minutes from some other locale. And that's the real issue, this is a launch profile that apparently involves dropping 20 tons of debris 'somewhere'.
That sounds sub-optimal.
Re:"Only a little bit earlier" (Score:4, Informative)
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Nah, most of that debris burned up in the atmosphere. We don't know how much came down exactly but it wasn't 20t.
That was the plan, have most of it burn up in the atmosphere, like most stuff being de-orbited.
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We just take the IP rights to cover the damage (Score:2)
We just take the IP rights to cover the damage
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orbit is less than 2 hours (Score:5, Insightful)
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I feel like we already got a Tom Clancy novel on 9/11/2001.
And yes, that was one of my reactions at the time. Probably because I had recently read a bunch of his books.
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Do you want to get a Tom Clancy novel? Because that's how you get a Tom Clancy novel.
2020 has already been written, thanks. He called it “Rainbow 6.”
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He'll write it and send it to us from the afterlife.
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Fortunately writing a novel with the help of an ouija board takes a very long time.
If only! (Score:2, Redundant)
Had it reentered the atmosphere only a little bit earlier, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes, the rocket's debris could have rained down on the largest metro area in the United States.
Had I only breathed a little bit earlier before my head broke the surface of the pool, I could have DROWNED!
If my fork had missed my mouth by less than five inches, I could have stabbed myself in my carotid artery and BLED to death!
Had my neighbor's car drifted only a few meters off-course when he pulled into the driveway, he could have smashed into my house and collapsed my roof and KILLED my whole family!!!1
I mean, anything can be made to sound frightening if you want it to. No news here. Just a rocket
Re:If only! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rocket launches are not planned so as to drop their first and largest stages literally anywhere along an orbital track that has been repeated every 2-4 hours over 6 days.
Rocket launches are planned so as to drop their first and largest stages in large, empty patches of ocean due to known ballistic trajectories.
In short, the plan was "it'll come down somewhere. Hopefully not somewhere important."
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In short, the plan was "it'll come down somewhere. Hopefully not somewhere important."
Considering [theguardian.com] China's [reuters.com] track [scmp.com] record [extremetech.com]. That seems to always be their plan. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked to learn that this new rocket design is made just so its more likely to fall in some other country instead of in their own.
Re:If only! (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference here being that, I hope, you have a plan for where to put your fork and not just jab it blindly at your face and hope for the best.
When did.., (Score:2, Redundant)
When did "15 minutes" become a measurement for distance? Care to translate 15 minutes into miles?
On the back of my envelope I came up with an estimated 1,000 mi/hr for earth's rotation (25K circumference, one rotation per 24 hr, so in the neighborhood of 1,000 miles/hr) so a quarter-hour would translate to just north of 250-300 miles... is that what they are saying?
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Sorry, undoing wrong moderation.
15 minutes is a long way ... (Score:2)
For an item reentering from orbit.
If the orbit is just over 90 minutes (simple number) that is 24000 surface miles in 90 minutes.
90/15 = 6 (1/6th of an orbit)
1/6 * 24000 =
4000 miles.
Business as usual (Score:2)
China's rocket launch bases are inland. Pretty much all of their rockets drop their first stage on land, occasionally narrowly missing a village.
It's not surprising this attitude carries through to a rocket with a much larger first stage.
Looks like from Kerbal Space program (Score:2)
The parts look very similar: shape, color, surface texture. Even my rockets often looked like that, even with these stabilizers, which I never saw on real rockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Fins!
Saturn 5
https://www.blendswap.com/blen... [blendswap.com]
Soyuz
http://www.russianspaceweb.com... [russianspaceweb.com]
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What was the point? They would lose a war with the US 100x over, everyone knows that.
Re:You think that was an accident? (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much everything larger than a rat would lose that war. Even a small nuclear exchange would set off a nuclear winter event that might well mean the end of civilization if not of our species entirely.
Re:You think that was an accident? (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look at how most countries are handling COVID-19 and get back to us on that diagnostic.
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https://www.rona.ca/ [www.rona.ca]
Re:You think that was an accident? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cities burn, massive burns reach the stratosphere, especially with a nuke providing the initial piercing of the troposphere. Ash in the stratosphere can linger for years, even relatively heavy ash like the volcanic detritus of Mount Pinatubo, can linger for years and dramatically increase the planet's albedo. The comparatively small amount of Pinatubo ash that reached the stratosphere (most of it stayed under 7,500 meters) lowered Earth's average temperature for two years and affected climate worldwide. Modeling shows that even an exchange of the relatively small nuclear arsenals of Pakistan and India would be enough to cause a nuclear winter event. We do not have the food stores to survive two years of worldwide crop failure, it would essentially be a Toba event (when the Toba supervolcano blew up human population may have been reduced to under 100 individuals worldwide).
No, life would NOT "go on", not life as we know it.
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like the volcanic detritus of Mount Pinatubo
Mount Pinatubo was far more powerful than a China-US exchange of a few hundred warheads.
Did Mount Pinatubo end human life on earth?
Nope. Most of humanity didn't even notice except for the colorful sunsets.
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The 10kt of conventional explosives does more long-term damage. Mostly because it wastes less energy than the nuke, which radiates a lot of energy to space.
Remember that the really frightful thing about Hiroshima was NOT that the city was trashed (Tokyo was trashed MUCH worse by the firebombings), but that it was trashed by one (1) bomber. Instead of, say, the thousand bomber raids agai
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The conventional explosions would cause more damage.
Lots of small explosions cause more damage than one big explosion by an factor of x^1.5.
This is why cluster-bombs work. It is also why the firebombing of Tokyo killed far more people than the Nagasaki nuke.
The smaller bombs would also cause a more severe firestorm and put more debris into the atmosphere.
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Radiation is mostly local unless you're in the yield range to cause huge dust clouds. The point is that the warheads that would likely be involved with not be in that yield range. Or at least, that's what they seem to be saying.
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I said long term damage, as in radiation. You completely missed the point, perhaps on purpose.
Sorry, I thought you were talking about the "long-term" effect of particles on global weather.
For radiation, the amount released by modern weapons is far less than older nukes. An exchange of 200 warheads is going to release less radiation than Chernobyl or Fukushima. That is significant, but between them, those two accidents only killed a few dozen people from radiation.
In a nuclear war, the blast, firestorms, weather changes, and economic disruption will be WAY bigger problems than radiation.
There were
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Atmospheric tests don't create much of a fallout.
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An exchange of 200 warheads is going to release less radiation than Chernobyl or Fukushima. ....
That again depends on what unit you want to use
The question is not how much "radiation" is released but how many people are affected, especially short term.
After Nagasaki and Hiroshima, in both cases far over 100,000 people died due to radiation till the early 1980s. Radiation as in: inhaling/eating/exposure to contaminated material or plutonium or uranium or other decay/fission products.
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This is why cluster-bombs work. It is also why the firebombing of Tokyo killed far more people than the Nagasaki nuke.
Nope. Tokyo is imply bigger. Target rich environment. The city burns, people die. To fire, to bombs, to collapsing houses and to CO.
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A small 10kT nuke would likely not leave that much radiation. What is interesting is that in Japan, about 1/2 of the deaths occurred after the first day. And only about 25-33% of the deaths was from the latent radiation. And those were DIRTY bombs. The current ones do not release nearly as much radiation, unless they are designed that way (dirty and neutron bombs).
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And those were DIRTY bombs.
They were dirty because they used heavy uranium reflectors, and didn't use any DT or lithium-deuteride boosters like a modern fission warhead.
The Hiroshima bomb was dirtier although the Nagasaki bomb was significantly more powerful.
Many more people died at Hiroshima but mostly because the city was made of wood while the homes in Nagasaki were mostly made of stone.
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And only about 25-33% of the deaths was from the latent radiation. And those were DIRTY bombs.
That is wrong, it is more 40% - 60%. Most people died during the 40 years after the bombs.
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The smoke of a major metropolis turned into a firestorm and lofted into the stratosphere. Times 100 or 1000, depending on how ridiculous the exchange is.
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You can accomplish that effect with conventional weapons.
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Nuclear weapons open a channel into the stratosphere, where the smoke would be far more harmful and last for years. Also, a nuclear exchange would take a few hours at most, while even trying to do the same thing with conventional weapons requires hundreds of thousands of explosions over years and the assumption that neither side is going to try to prevent delivery of those weapons. So no, you can't.
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The smoke of a major metropolis turned into a firestorm and lofted into the stratosphere. Times 100 or 1000, depending on how ridiculous the exchange is.
That is minor compared to a major volcanic eruption.
Mt Pinatubo ejected 5 billion tonnes of ash in 1991, including 20 million tonnes of sulfur.
It is unlikely burning even a thousand cities would produce so much.
Not only did humanity fail to perish, most people don't even remember the event because it had no noticeable effect on their lives.
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A nuclear exchange would channel much of the burning gasses into the stratosphere, not the troposphere where the vast majority of Pinatubo's material ended up. It's different material as well, almost all of Pinatubo's ejecta fell back to Earth within a couple hundred miles. Apples and oranges.
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Uh no. I would assume that CHina would throw 1000-2000 neutrons at America. We would respond with 1/3 to 1/2 of our arsenal, iow, ~1000-1500 nuke. Most of America's nukes are now quite small, but CHina's are very likely neutron bombs. I would expect 1/3 to 2/3 of America's population to be dead.
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70 megatons [usgs.gov] is the only estimate I can find. About 466 150 kilotonne warheads.
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You are mixing up equivalent tons of TNT with what I actually going to happen ...
And both China and US have a few 10-thousand war heads, not only a few hundred.
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The Youngest Toba eruption has been linked to a genetic bottleneck in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, which may have resulted from a severe reduction in the size of the total human population due to the effects of the eruption on the global climate. According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by some genetic evidence suggesting that today's humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago.
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My memory may have left a zero off, I thought it was under 100 people. Anyway, imagine the ash and smoke of 1000 cities turned to flaming infernos in just an hour, lofted higher than normal by the channel opened by the mushroom clouds. Not a good time to be alive.
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To be fair I also wouldn't at all be surprised if my own U.S. has a few of those hidden away, just in case.
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Neutron bombs cause way more than "minimal" damage. They were originally designed to counter Soviet tanks because the neutrons can go through the metal armor. But that doesn't really work because the tank crews would take several weeks to die, and by then they would have been washing their boots in the English Channel.
Neutron bombs would make no sense for strategic weapons. Neither China nor America would have any interest in minimizing property damage since neither would have any plausible capability to
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I wouldn't be so sure China wouldn't want to settle another continent if it got the chance. You know how packed Chinese cities are, and how expensive real estate is relative to wages. They would call it a special administrative region under one country three systems.
Of course that's against international treaties, but if a superpower settled two continents we would be past the time of multilateral treaties anyway.
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Re:You think that was an accident? (Score:4, Interesting)
neither would have any plausible capability to occupy the other.
The Pentagon was highly perturbed after the fall of the Iron Curtain because they weren't able to find whatever plans the Soviets had for occupying western Europe and North America, they were convinced that they just hadn't bribed the right people yet. Finally the Kremlin explained to them that they had enough trouble just maintaining control of their buffer countries in eastern Europe, they had no illusions of being able to take on more than they had.
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This is why the DoD wants China to be part of any real nuke and/or space treaty.
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China only has a few hundred warheads
Oh, is that all? So we'd only lose the US Eastern seaboard, West Coast and major population centres in the middle?
If there was exchange of 200 warheads each
In which possible future scenario does the US respond to a 200 nuclear warhead attack with a like-for-like exchange?
That's not going to happen. Hong Kong might survive the initial exchange. Tibet may get a free pass. The rest of China.. well, let's just say you're not going to be seeing any more pandas.
Still, Greta would be happy. It'd solve global warming.
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AWESOME! (Score:2)
Burn all the coal we want. Use all the gas we want. If it gets too hot, we just drop a few nukes and all our problems are solved. Oh ATOM BOMB, Oh ATOM BOMB, what problems can you not solve!
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Oh, good grief, 3000-6000 miles of underground track? Do they have a magical tunnel drilling wand? The current longest tunnel in the world, Gotthard Base, is only 35 miles long.
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You realize your source is Phillip Karber, right? https://foreignpolicy.com/2015... [foreignpolicy.com]
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That was the whole point of nuclear weapons by the way, in case anyone forgot that: mutually assured destruction, and War To End All Wars. We can nuke them until they're nothing but molten earth, and they can do the same to us. Collateral damage includes the other 6 billion people on the planet, along with all other forms of life.
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In fact, it would be very easy for China to win a war with the west. Simply stop us before the war starts.
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What was the point? They would lose a war with the US 100x over, everyone knows that.
You're assuming the US would go to war over this. There's a chance China thinks we may not have the balls to, especially if they claim it was an accident, so sorry, we'll cut you a check.
Let's face it, the US is war-weary, and half the country would celebrate if NYC went up in flames.
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Let's face it, the US is war-weary, and half the country would celebrate if NYC went up in flames.
I have no doubt you're right.
They'd cheer as their economies collapsed around them.
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You seam not to grasp what MAD means.
You lose both, and the whole planet loses, you should know that.
And a conventional war of America against China ... how do you want to win that? Lol ...
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yes, yes your god is stupid
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Hell yeah, something is wrong.
Missing it by 15-20 minutes? Considering the Earth's rotation, that's missing it by 400-500 kilometers.
HOW DO THEY DARE, dropping their stuff only 500 kilometers into the ocean?!?!?!? Clearly, they should have dropped it much further, somewhere over Africa.
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It was in orbit. 500km per minute, so 15 mins is thousands of km.
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500km/minute would keep it in orbit, so it was clearly going slower than that.
We'd need to know how much slower to translate time into distance. 15 minutes from NY is still in New York if you're scooting along on your bottom so the distance could be anything from Central Park to Moscow.
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You're correct. It's deliberate. This wasn't some mishap; they know how to operate their spacecraft.
Two days ago China lofted a nuclear build-up trial balloon in the party mouthpiece; The Global Times. They're going to expand their ballistic missile capability. This isn't coincidental.
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Another bogeyman they can use to get some more of that sweet taxpayer's money.
This time they didn't even have to invent it themselves.
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Never assume malice when stupidity will do.
This is just another example of blatant disregard for the environment. They simply don't care about where their trash winds up, because they are idiots. They've polluted themselves silly because no regulations. It's so much cheaper to produce a product if you don't give shit about the toxic waste it produces.
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I think the article is mostly just sensational BS. 15 minutes - think about that. The average orbit is say 90 minutes? By my simple math that is a miss of over 4000 miles.. real close.
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The distance isn't too relevant when you're talking about orbital velocities.
As you pointed out- an average orbit is, say 90 minutes.
This means it could hit anywhere on the planet every 90 minutes.
When someone says "If I had walked around that corner 30 seconds later, I'd be dead..."
They're not sensationalizing it. Time is the more relatable domain here.
One quarter hour earlier re-entry, and it would have hit NYC.
Of course the idea that it was planned is fucking stupid.
It was coast
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Not really though. The distance isn't too relevant when you're talking about orbital velocities. As you pointed out- an average orbit is, say 90 minutes. This means it could hit anywhere on the planet every 90 minutes. When someone says "If I had walked around that corner 30 seconds later, I'd be dead..." They're not sensationalizing it. Time is the more relatable domain here. One quarter hour earlier re-entry, and it would have hit NYC. Of course the idea that it was planned is fucking stupid. It was coasting garbage dragging against the atmosphere. Nobody had any idea where it was coming down.
What's more interesting is how big the window to hit NY would have been. The fact of the matter is the surface area of earth and the speed of orbit are both orders of magnitude beyond what people can comprehend. What I'm interested to know is this a situation like accidentally walking across the path of a bullet i.e. extremely unlikely or is it like taking the day off work on the day it burns down i.e. extremely lucky and just a little suspicious.
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Its orbit was decaying unpredictably. The orbit where it finally went in is the only one that tracked over New York City, and none of the many, many, many organizations that had eyes on the object knew when it would finally decay to the point of diving in.