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Old part of International Space Station lands on family home
- robertlagrant 2y agoI was hoping it was junk from a SpaceX satellite so I could moan about how private companies are careless. I'll keep quiet though, since it's NASA.
- Alex3917 2y agoReminds me of this old Yahoo commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxsftGNpFaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxsftGNpFaI
- xanderlewis 2y agoCBBC is the Children’s BBC. Here’s a link to the proper article for grown-ups like us: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68828078.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68828078.amp
- jareklupinski 2y agoi think i like the cbbc version better reminds me of when i had Apollo/reddit set up with a bunch of filters for depressing words
- willcipriano 2y agoThe kids article dosent try to click bait them.
- brookst 2y agoThis seems a curious use of the word “lands”
- xanderlewis 2y agoWhy? I can drop something (accidentally) and have it land on the floor (in a chaotic manner). It doesn’t imply any sense of controlled descent.
- voytec 2y ago> The 1.6lb (0.7kg) metal object tore through two layers of ceiling I'm ok with "landing" preceded by "crash".
- brookst 2y agoIf you dropped a plate and it broke into a million pieces, would you say “the plate landed on the floor”? There’s an argument that it’s not wrong, but it’s definitely not a typical use of the word. “Land” does not imply controlled descent but it does imply a non-catastrophic settling in the new position.
- williamcotton 2y agoIn the context of “space debris” the word “lands” does not imply a non-catastrophic settling in a new position.
- sfn42 2y agoI threw a rock and it landed in a field
- defrost 2y agoAbsolutely, if I threw a plate in the air I might ask where it landed, on the roof or on the floor, I might follow that by asking in how many pieces did it land. I've spoken fluent Commonwealth English in Australia and across multiple countries for > 6 decades .. what flavour of English do you speak ? Addendum: By way of example: The incident comes roughly a year after another similar Chinese rocket fell to Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean but not before it reportedly left a trail of debris in the African nation of Cote D'Ivoire. as written by: Steven Freeland Professorial Fellow, Bond University / Emeritus Professor of International Law, Western Sydney University, Western Sydney University https://theconversation.com/a-giant-piece-of-space-junk-is-hurtling-towards-earth-heres-how-worried-you-should-be-160254 https://theconversation.com/a-giant-piece-of-space-junk-is-h... Dunno 'bout you but I reckon an Emeritus Professor of International Law from a Commonwealth country might not be too shabby at the olde mother tongue? FFS don't go all Webster, Strunk & White on us now .. #NotMyEngrish
- rsynnott 2y agoIt's written in, essentially, Basic English; it's intended for children. 'Land' is probably the closest available word (and, I mean, I'm not sure it's wrong).
- abathur 2y agoFalls/fell would presumably still be valid and likely satisfiy the concern here.
- perihelions 2y ago'burbobraking Verb (intr.): to park a spacecraft by gently cushioning its uncontrolled ballistic descent with a house
- lazide 2y agolithobraking is an entirely valid engineering term, and does require some land.
- rsynnott 2y ago> According to space research and development company Aerospace, the chances of being struck by an object from space are one in a trillion depending on where you live. I have doubts about this, given that this _keeps happening_.
- xanderlewis 2y agoWell, what does it mean? Each time a piece of debris falls you have probability p = 10^-12 of it hitting you? Or there’s probability p every day that there will be a piece of falling debris? Or p chance of being hit across a lifetime? Extremely events do indeed happen regularly if you have enough rolls of the die.
- outop 2y agoMaybe it's one in a trillion that a particular piece of space junk, not already known to be falling from the sky, will fall and hit a particular person. This seems quite scary since the product of the number of people and the number of pieces of space junk is much more than a trillion.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoThe question GP is really getting at though is "1 in a trillion per what?".
- krisoft 2y agoWhat exactly keeps happening? Nobody got struck by the object in this specific case.
- dotnet00 2y agoLiterally a handful of cases of this happening throughout history, barring the space shuttle disasters, which were a somewhat different situation. This incident makes ~15 cases of debris striking people or property since the start of the space age. In most of those the debris was found either washed up on shore or landed in some wide, open area like a farm, with only 4 of those incidents involving actual hits on humans/animals, 7 humans in total (5 sailors injured in one incident, a woman tapped on the shoulder, a boy getting hit in the head and toe, and a sheep being killed).
- perihelions 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047193 ("Object that slammed into Florida home was space junk for ISS, NASA confirms (space.com)", 155 comments)
- xanthor 2y agoCompare the comments when people imagined a similar event might happen 18 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33491215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33491215
- tyjen 2y agoAnyone know how liability works in this situation?
- perihelions 2y ago- "By all accounts, this is the first time a piece of space junk has fallen out of orbit and damaged someone's home, at least in the United States. This means Otero and his attorney, Mica Nguyen Worthy, are entering uncharted legal waters as they prepare to file a claim with NASA for damages." - "Otero's insurance covered damages to his home, but the provider will make a subjugated claim to seek reimbursement, Worthy said. Otero will also file a claim for unspecified non-insured damages, she said." - "Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi, said the Federal Tort Claims Act outlines the government's liability for damages in instances like this one. But Worthy said the laws in this area "may be inadequate."" - ""This may be a situation where we have to make the claim and make the law... and we'll see how NASA responds," she said. "We have a good rapport with the (NASA) general counsel. Our goal is to make Alejandro whole, but in addition to that, we're trying to engage in a conversation about what do responsible space operations look like in the international picture."" https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/florida-man-tells-ars-about-his-encounter-with-something-that-fell-from-space/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/florida-man-tells-ars-...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- russdill 2y agoThe damage is minimal and it's an extremely rare situation. Responsible parties are basically tripping over eachother to insure that the homeowner is made whole.
- dmurray 2y agoNASA have set a precedent that they won't pay, even if ordered to by a government that has jurisdiction where the debris landed: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/34928/did-nasa-refuse-to-pay-a-400-fine-for-littering-caused-by-the-deorbiting-of-sky https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/34928/did-nasa-...
- seper8 2y agoLands?