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Space junk: India says object found in Australia is theirs
- gdsdfe 3y agoa space archaeologist ... well that's the first time, I hear such thing exists
- kazinator 3y ago"Dude, it doesn't take a rocket paleontologist to figure out that ... "
- dv35z 3y agoYou might get a laugh out of this. Cheers. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
- xNeil 3y agoNot who you were replying to, but thank you - I'm on the floor laughing :)
- sparkie 3y agoOnly takes a redditor to figure it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1515q3w/comment/js6wa7z/ https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1515q3w/comment/js6w...
- bell-cot 3y ago> There were initially concerns about potentially dangerous toxins leaking from the object if it was found to be part of a rocket. From the photo - the object is a cylindrical tank, with a huge hole in one badly-damaged end of it. It was adrift at sea long enough for barnacles to be growing over much of its surface. IANARS (not a rocket scientist)...but I'd bet that there are absolutely zero carried-in-tanks-on-rockets toxins which are barnacle-friendly. Ditto ones which would not have been washed away in the first hour of the sea water sloshing in & out of that big hole. And IIR, the intersection of two empty sets is also empty.
- fit2rule 3y ago[dead]
- orbital-decay 3y agoThe tank in the photo looks like the second stage pressurization tank. If that's the case (I could be wrong), it carries helium.
- elteto 3y agoI don't think it's a helium tank. A high pressure tank (helium or otherwise) in a rocket is normally a COPV [0]. Those are welded, don't have rivets/bolts, and are wrapped in carbon fiber. To me it looks like a regular fuel or oxidizer tank. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure...
- Turskarama 3y agoThe pictures of the vessel when close up DO look like it's overwrapped, the rivets around the outside look like theyre from the structure which held the tank rather than the tank itself.
- elteto 3y agoYou typically see COPVs attached from the top and bottom with linkages. And a regular tank can be overwrapped in a composite as well. The top looks like a regular tank dome to me, maybe a common dome.
- mlindner 3y agoIANARS but I play one on the internet. Depending on exactly where it came from on the rocket and which rocket it came from there could be smaller tanks embedded within larger tanks and fuel lines that are still pressurized behind closed valves. That wouldn’t be known until they confirmed its origin. Finally the content of what could be pressurized is some pretty toxic and carcinogenic chemicals like nitrogen tetroxide or monomethyl hydrazine.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago> Countries often plan for debris from their launches to land in oceans to prevent them damaging people and property. Is there much thought about the retrieval of these things? It seems incredibly short sighted just to litter them on the ocean floor..
- kneebonian 3y agoI'm imaging the rationale is probably that the amount of space junk ending up in the ocean is far far far less than the amount of terrestrial junk ending up in the ocean. EDIT: Not defending the reasoning just saying it's probably what they used.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoJust because most of the windows are smashed, doesn’t mean it’s okay to smash a few more. Even if it were offset by other marine environment investment. Hell, create a trust and drop a 10th of the recover cost in each time so that when recovery is cheaper in the future, it could be funded by all the compounded money.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoWOrse things: https://www.treehugger.com/shipwrecks-could-sink-environment-4862932 https://www.treehugger.com/shipwrecks-could-sink-environment...
- userbinator 3y agoIf you want to retrieve it, it's probably yours.
- elzbardico 3y agoBecause it doesn't make sense to waste thousands of tons of fuel to recover what is basically metal from the ocean floor. This kind of almost religious view of the environment is exactly the same error behind some incredibly stupid decisions like germany getting rid of their nuclear power plants (and now they are burning coal, genius!)
- srvmshr 3y agoI am puzzled & maybe someone could throw light: The canister looks like metal, and isn't airtight anymore. It has barnacles on one side, which makes it likely it was probably floating, rather than sitting on the seabed. How did it manage to float so long without sinking? It looks structurally compromised from the photograph.
- jmholla 3y agoMaybe it was on the seabed and the barnacles were working their way up when it was brought to shore tumultuously? Or maybe it was floating and the processes that brought it to shore caused that damage?
- asow92 3y agoMaybe there's a sequestered, hollowed out part inside keeping it afloat?
- sawjet 3y agoIt is likely that there are smaller, internal pressurant tanks that are sealed and could keep the craft bouyant
- justinclift 3y agoMaybe instead of floating it was half-buried for a while?
- nsenifty 3y agoIs it really "space junk" if it was meant to fall back into the ocean during launch? I thought it meant the junk orbiting earth and pose a risk of orbital collisions.
- JohnFen 3y agoI think it is, yes. Whether or not it was intentionally allowed to fall back to earth doesn't make refuse suddenly not refuse.
- biot 3y agoMuch like how "garbage collection" is industry terminology referring to a specific feature of memory management in programming languages, "space junk" is also industry terminology that's specific in its meaning: > Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in space – principally in Earth orbit – which no longer serve a useful function. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris If it's no longer in space, it's no longer "space junk".
- nsenifty 3y agoIt is junk, but "space junk" has a very specific meaning [1] and this is not it. Pretty much all rocket launches have debris designed to fall back down into ocean, some recovered and some not. Not only that, but defunct satellites are intentionally crashed into the ocean and left there [2]. There is literally nothing special about this part other than perhaps it floated and ended up in another country. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery
- mrlonglong 3y agoTime Australia fined India for littering. NASA paid a fine when Skylab crashed in the outback years ago.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoHas India been dumping trash in Australia for a long time or something?
- nineteen999 3y ago[flagged]
- AverageDude 3y agoThere are more like that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robertlagrant 3y agoWho mentioned race?
- nineteen999 3y agoI did, clearly, in my second sentence, for what are pretty obvious reasons if you think about it. The accused could have been American for all I care.
- ajvsnsdli 3y agoI did not know that was a thing. Though, maybe I am uninformed but I can't think of both how and why this is a thing. First, a quick search on ISRO's wiki page it has a handful of launches every year, and assuming the chances of the rocket debris landing on a particular country is likely single digits a year if at all that is, what's the point of a fine, just to make money? or is it supposed to incentivize countries to invest into research of rocket debris trajectories? Or perhaps deter countries from launching rockets? Second, what happens when a space agency disputes an incident/fine, who is the final authority? What happens on repeat offenses, steeper fines? What if the fine is not paid? Is it a problem worth tensions between nations with sizable bilateral trade?
- Scofield67 3y ago[flagged]
- samstave 3y agoWhelp, there is historical precedence ; "Britain says everything found in every country they took from is Britains" So...
- readingnews 3y agoAs a Physicist, I think this is the best explanation of space junk. With subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1REkejAMnNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1REkejAMnNo
- vidyesh 3y agoSo as part of space research, littering space and ocean is allowed. OKAY. I understand its part of the launch procedure at this point and I naively thought they eventually retrieve it when it lands in the ocean as SpaceX does/used to. But from the article it seems, ISRO doesn't care at this point. Their first instinct isn't to get it or request it back as part of their responsibility but to say its upto ASA to decide.
- gsky 3y agoAnother thing you don't know is no one else does not even NASA.
- vidyesh 3y agoAnd yet the space treaty has made it clear that a) the agency has ownership of those parts b) they are liable for any damages caused and/or should be responsible for it.
- gsky 3y agoIt fell in the ocean and then drifted. It's harmless to the ocean life. Better you should worry about the tons of plastic that's endding up in ocean everyday
- Rebelgecko 3y agoSpaceX only recovers rockets with a reusable launch profile. They're not recovering the ones that crash into the sea like this, and I think they gave up on making the F9's second stage recoverable in favor of making a new, better launch vehicle. It's pretty much business as usual, in the grand scheme of things a few tons of metal going into the ocean is NBD.
- vidyesh 3y agoSome rocket parts are made buoyant to make sure they can be recoverable, some are not which are expected to sink to the seabed. If something surfaces, it can be considered hazardous and the agency which launched it is liable[1] to take responsibility if it causes damages. In this case, no damage happened but not taking responsibility or even attempting to suggest a solution is what I mostly raised my concern about. [1] https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_26_2777E.pdf https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_26_2777E.pdf
- kaycey2022 3y agoUnlike the authorities concerned, a lot more people are salty about littering here for some reason.