Big ass satellite due to crash to Earth this weekend

[Miss Chicken]

It did come down near to where the roadhouse was and the metal had been exposed to very high temperatures. I also believed that experts had looked at the pieces to verify that they came from Skylab. If the roadhouse had sold fakes would probaly been charged with some crime.

 

[Myasishchev]

Or to put it another way, 1250 people may die if it hits New Zealand.

Or if it was Australia, they'd probably fine America for littering, as happened with skylab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#End_of_Skylab

The Shire of Esperance fined the United States A$400 for littering, a fine which remained unpaid for 30 years.[15] 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.

That's rather fantastic.

The 1/3200 thing seems high to me too. Maybe it's including human structures.

 

[RJDiogenes]

If some part of this lands in your back yard can you sell it?

Sure. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Who here would have bought one?

 

[Squiggy]

If some part of this lands in your back yard can you sell it?

Sure. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Ah...no.

Government property.

 

[Amaris]

Is this much different to when Skylab came down back in about 1980? I was on a camping trip crossing the Nullabor Plains in Dec of that year and one of the roadhouses in the area it came down had pieces of Skylab for sale for $20 each (with a certificate stating they were from Skylab) They were only melted, twisted pieces of metal but i wanted to buy one but my then husband and father-in-law said they were a waste of money.

Who here would have bought one?

I would have bought a couple. One for me, and one to sell to the press at a substantially inflated rate.

 

[Candlelight]

If some part of this lands in your back yard can you sell it?

Sure. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Ah...no.

Government property.

If they're lax enough to allow space debris to potentially kill someone, it's mine. Not on American soil, tough shit.

 

[Miss Chicken]

If I remember correctly NASA only wanted people to let them tell them if they found a piece so that they could have a look at it to verify what part of Skylab it was and find out roughly where it landed.


Edited to add - just checked. NASA did send experts to look at the wreckage but it seems that it was the Esperance Shire that verified the pieces

NASA officials arrived in Esperance to check out the wreckage. Every local that brought a piece of Skylab to the shire offices to be verified was given a plaque.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2009/07/09/2621733.htm

 

[ToddPence]

If I was a SIMS character, I would be very afraid right now . . .

 

[Squiggy]

Sure. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Ah...no.

Government property.

If they're lax enough to allow space debris to potentially kill someone, it's mine. Not on American soil, tough shit.

Then, if NASA chose to enforce their ownership rights it would be a matter between you, your government, and the United States.

 

[MANT!]

And the USA is a bit crazy right now..so I'd not push it...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Y'all remember what happened to the town folk who collected up that satellite in The Andromeda Strain, right? (I mean the book or the 1971 movie.)

 

[Amaris]

Y'all remember what happened to the town folk who collected up that satellite in The Andromeda Strain, right? (I mean the book or the 1971 movie.)

Psh. Yeah! We could only BE so lucky!


John, who never finishes anyth

 

[M'Sharak]

I read a pretty informative article about this earlier today:

Keeping track of UARS' reentry
Sep. 21, 2011 | 11:40 PDT | 18:40 UTC


Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably heard that a very large Earth-orbiting satellite is going to be reentering Earth's atmosphere soon, and there's a small but nonzero chance of debris coming down where somebody might actually find it. The chance is smaller, but still nonzero, that something or someone will get hit by a piece. The odds of any one person getting hit by a piece are somewhere around 1 in 20 million million.* The actual date and location of its fall has been very uncertain because it depends upon qualities of the upper atmosphere that are themselves influenced by highly variable solar weather. As time gets shorter, predictions get a little more certain, so we now know for sure that Friday is the day. (Depending, of course, on your time zone.)

Here's a roundup of some useful facts and links that you can use to learn about and follow UARS' demise. (Article continues.)

Includes charts & graphs, as well as a fuzzy video clip of the satellite itself. Also the explanation for the asterisked "1 in 20 million million".

 

[infinix]

Regarding who get to keep what if a piece actually falls in your backyard... The satellite is the property of whoever put it in orbit. The person that found it has no claim to it. Though most of the time, countries that put it up in the first place don't want it back.

On a related note, if the debris did damage to anything you belong, the country that put it up there will be responsible for all your losses.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I pity whoever is dating Maggie O'Connell.

 

[Trekker4747]

Georgia Lass, look out!

 

[Candlelight]

Ah...no.

Government property.

If they're lax enough to allow space debris to potentially kill someone, it's mine. Not on American soil, tough shit.

Then, if NASA chose to enforce their ownership rights it would be a matter between you, your government, and the United States.

Rights of salvage.

Plus if a Chinese satellite hit American soil I highly doubt an American would rush to return it.

 

[Trekker4747]

You can only claim salvage rights if you don't know who the "owner" of the "salvage" is and if a presumed owner doesn't lay claim to it in a certain amount of time.

A piece of space station/satellite debris landing on your property wouldn't fall under any "salvage rights." The destruction of Columbia alone proved that as people who took remains of the shuttle were repramainded/fined/jailed for taking surviving pieces of the shuttle.

 

[Miss Chicken]

The difference between Columbia and Skylab was a) Columbia wasn't abandoned and b) Columbia didn't crash on a foreign country's soil.

 

[Marc]

The difference between Columbia and Skylab was a) Columbia wasn't abandoned and b) Columbia didn't crash on a foreign country's soil.

plus they needed to investigate what caused the orbiter to break up and the issue of personal remains and property.