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This is deeply irresponsible by the CSNA and is a disaster just waiting to happen on the ground. Is it laziness on the part of their flight team or just crass d
by Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
This is deeply irresponsible by the CSNA and is a disaster just waiting to happen on the ground. Is it laziness on the part of their flight team or just crass disregard for others safety?
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- graderjs 4y agoI agree. I’m all for China achieving things but this seems really inconsiderate and irresponsible. Dropping debris on populations is unacceptable as nearly happened over the last few years according to this story. Clashes with their environmental stance and desire to be responsible global power. Why?
- zasdffaa 4y agoI can't answer your question but be aware that you are looking through a very western lens, and probably US-centric lens particularly, and other cultures can see things in very different way, starting with assumptions (or simply unthought practices) that you have nothing to compare with.
- cycrutchfield 4y agoYes
- throwaway4good 4y agoIt is a calculated risk; perhaps similar to what have been done by the US and Russia when their space ambitions were at their highest.
- tjpnz 4y agoYou really should learn more about the history of the US program before making such ill informed statements.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
- iwillbenice 4y ago[dead]
- cycrutchfield 4y agoAh, the good old “whatabout the US did it 50 years ago therefore we can do it today”. Also used to justify all sorts of atrocities, imperialism, IP theft, etc.
- throwaway4good 4y agoI also think there is a somewhat hyperbolic anti-China sentiment in the commentary on all of this. Plus a perhaps frustration at the US Space authorities on the lack of communication from their Chinese counterpart, something of course they themselves are entirely to blame for. Anyway; the Chinese have done a few of these "uncontrolled reentries" now. All crashing into the ocean; so they are either very lucky or it is not so uncontrolled after all.
- causality0 4y agoNeither. There just isn't that big a fraction of the earth's surface that's inhabited. You should regard this similarly to someone firing a gun into the air.
- wlll 4y agoIf you fired a gun into the air in the UK I'm pretty sure that a) You'd get in pretty serious trouble for it by itself and b) if you killed or injured someone that trouble would be significantly multiplied to the extent you'd end up in prison. I think it would be a manslaughter charge.
- lsllc 4y agoIn most areas of the US recklessly discharging a firearm into the air would also get you in serious trouble (even in rural areas) along with a (lesser) murder charge if you killed someone. FWIW, according to a study published by the National Library of Medicine, "celebratory gunfire" accounts for 4.6% of all stray bullet-related deaths and injuries: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22743389/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22743389/
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- graderjs 4y agoMaybe; but the optics are terrible.
- nkrisc 4y agoIt was wrong then and is wrong now.
- ch4s3 4y agoThe US and Russia didn't do this. Both space programs either used upper stages to boost into orbit or were small enough to burn up on reentry. The Long March 5B has a giant rocket 20 metric ton that is too big to burn up and falls to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion.
- throwaway4good 4y agoI was referring to them taking calculated risks; not doing exactly the same thing.
- ch4s3 4y agoDumping 20 tons of metal from orbit isn't a "calculated risk" its sloppy and dangerous. They could have built the rocket using 50 years of experience knowing this could be an issue, instead they just lie and say it will burn up. They already dropped one on a village.
- xtian 4y ago> They already dropped one on a village. That sounds pretty serious. Was there any official investigation or just ambiguous pictures posted on social media?
- ch4s3 4y agoIt happened in May of 2020. The debris landed in Côte d'Ivoire and the debris was spotted in it’s way down by a local infrasound station. The debris was tracked in the atmosphere by multiple governments and there are photos. Google it for yourself.
- xtian 4y agoI tried Googling for an official report or investigation but I couldn’t find one. Do you know if any of these multiple governments issued one?
- 8bitsrule 4y agoFor example, some of the US Navy's Transit satellites in the early 1960s were powered by non-containerized SNAP RTG's (plutonium) destroyed when they de-orbited, releasing Pu-238 into the atmosphere. The Cassini Mission was launched in 1997 with 72+ pounds of Pu aboard. NASA calculated the risks of 'inadvertent reentry' beforehand. [https://web.archive.org/web/20030505132905/http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/scope50/chapter02.html#t2.10 https://web.archive.org/web/20030505132905/http://www.icsu-s...] [https://www.space4peace.org/articles/morenukesinspace.htm https://www.space4peace.org/articles/morenukesinspace.htm]
- holoduke 4y agoThis is China in a nutshell. They don't give a fuck about what's happening around them. Unless it Harms their economic interest. Other than that they do not have any compassion for safety, environment etc. It might change in the future, but with this crazy regime I doubt people ever gonna care about it.
- fwipsy 4y agoLet's not make generalizations about a country of 1b+ people based on one aspect of their space program. You could easily draw an equally unflattering image of the US or any other nation if you're willing to extrapolate from a single datapoint like that.
- ghufran_syed 4y agocharitable interpretation: “china” = “chinese government“ in the statement you are responding to. I try to use the latter form myself when talking about nation state actions to aid people who have trouble translating from one to the other, but it doesn’t seem that hard to figure out in this case. otoh e.g. “the chinese value education highly” is a bit more ambiguous since the statement is true for both the chinese people and the chinese goverment
- fwipsy 4y agoThis interpretation is a little better, but I think my objections still apply.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y agoThere are plenty of other data points that line up with this one though.
- pfdietz 4y agoIt's economically hardnosed of them. It's on average cheaper to just take the chance and pay off damages if someone is injured or killed. Remember, the highest chance of fatality will be in densely populated lower latitude countries where the monetary cost of killing someone is lower.
- elteto 4y agoThe won’t even pay for any damages. They would never allow one of these to reenter over US airspace or other large, powerful countries. But if it falls in the middle of some small country, tough luck getting paid for damages.
- pfdietz 4y agoThey are signatory to a treaty that requires them to pay for damages. And they had no control over where this booster came down (except that it would come down between 41S/41N, roughly), so your "they would never allow" is incorrect.
- supertrope 4y agoChina signed the Outer Space Treaty. Your rocket your damage your bill.
- chihuahua 4y agoBut how is anyone going to collect on the bill, if China doesn't want to pay?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y agoJust quickly and quietly paying is likely cheaper than the international incident, the "China refuses to comply with treaty" headlines, and likely resulting souring of international relations.
- supertrope 4y agoTwo thirds of the planet is water. Most land is uninhabited. Population and property is concentrated in cities. The chance of debris hitting you is less than a lightning strike.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoI'd chock it up under crass disregard for others safety. They drop boosters on their own people and don't care: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/china-keeps-dropping-toxic-rocket-parts-on-its-villages/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/china-keeps-dropping... >China's defiance of this norm has resulted in some horrific scenes as its boosters have periodically crashed into villages.
- dangle1 4y agoAnd possibly a fairing half dropped onto a populated area from a different launch yesterday: https://twitter.com/cnspaceflight/status/1589289240776839168 https://twitter.com/cnspaceflight/status/1589289240776839168
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago"It's fine, we did tell everyone to evacuate" - I wonder how many actually evacuate / can afford to evacuate every time.