Wonkette
SPACE DISASTER SOMEHOW DIDN’T INVOLVE NASA: Some old broken-ass Russian military satellite smashed into an Iridium satellite and now they are both tiny bits of space debris that will eventually cause the Apocalypse — the Russian satellite had a nuclear reactor. [Wall Street Journal]
Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?
Of course NASA wasn’t involved, it was two unmanned satellites. We just send rovers to other planets that are DOA. Any accidents in Earth orbit are, as a rule, fully crewed.
Looking forward to the tainted rainfall.
Shame this didn’t happen in the 80’s. Reagan could have claimed it as a successful test of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Zadig: Tainted rainfall? Oh no, don’t tell me Blagojevich was involved in this!
Industry officials say Iridium has identified the Russian craft as a Cosmos series satellite launched in 1993, weighing more than a ton and including an onboard nuclear reactor. That couldn’t be independently verified. Experts have said the chance of radioactive debris surviving a fall through the atmosphere and reaching inhabited areas is very small.
Well that sets my mind at ease. Who better to trust than the very same experts who didn’t predict this collision?
I think Blofeld and SPECTRE are behind this.
Oops. Oh, well. I always wanted a third eye.
This sounds like one of those plausible cover stories in Science Fiction movies whenever a large spacecraft inexplicably explodes in low earth orbit. ‘Replicator invasion army? What replicator invasion army?’
Apparently we’re a long ways away from Skynet becoming self-aware.
Damn commies, trying to tear down the capitalist system that sees a company launch an obsolete sattelite for a bankrupt corporation to employ nearly useless technology so the wealthy can communicate with their money managers while vacationing on Mustique…
cal: For the win!
…you know your life really sucks, when the thought of radioactive debris raining down upon your head is the least of your problems!
choinski:
My favorite line from “Flash Gordon” as repeated in the Queen soundtrack to the movie: “[TV Announcer] This morning’s unprecedented solar eclipse is no cause for alarm.”
As if an unplanned solar eclipse could mean anything but impending doom on a massive scale.
I have this picture in my head of this bulky Russian satellite plowing around the earth with its right turn signal always on.
AngryBlakGuy: To be honest, it’s kind of a reprieve. Perhaps I’m more hireable at the factory if I have four arms … I can do twice as much work!
Naked Bunny with a Whip:
I for one would prefer not to have taint falling on my dome.
I guess it would depend on just whose taint it was.
I shall await more detailed coverage from Joe The Nuclear Engineer/Astrophysicist.
Under the Bush administration, they would have claimed the mooselim terrorists did it
and we would have been blasting Iran with cruise missiles.
There are geese in space?
Serolf Divad: The Zulus thought solar eclipses were a favorable portent. So it’s all relative.
Is fucking Wall Street running NASA now? Everything they touch crashes and burns.
I’m sure the Russians were planning on warning us about this next week.
It’s been rumored that the Russian satellite was traveling at Ludicrous Speed.
Silly liberals! Everybody knows that garbage just magically goes away. Nothing man does is capable of hurting the environment. Didn’t you read “Why Daddy is a Republican.”
Min: WagTehGod: Deepest sympathies, but only your children and/or your children’s children will have the blessing of extra eyes and arms. You only get the cancers.
See, I think Cheney should be Tom Bombadil, and Gonalez should be Pippin, and Addington should be Merry Took (his real name is Meriodac), John Yoo should be Durin Bandylegs, Condoleeza should be Galadriel, Rumsfeld should be Bilbo Baggins, … wait, wait - oh darn! I’m in the wrong thread.
Large clouds spotted over Siberia. Sounds like Michael Phelps isn’t the only one working the bong.
Also, megakudos for the Spaceballs pic.
Shit! This isn’t going to screw up my tv reception is it?
Obv. BHO has summoned his minions and the invasion has begun.
What a great day for NASA! This lack of being involved in a major space catastrophe will be recorded as one of their shining accomplishments of the 21st century, along with not blowing up the moon, so far.
In Soviet Russia, satellite destroys you.
It’s either radioactive showers or golden showers.
nothing quite like droplets of radioactive sodium whizzing by at 17,000MPH
It’s kind of weird that both Russia’s and US’s satellites crashed into each other days or weeks after Iran put their first satellite ever into space.
Suck! Suck! Suck!
Snark off/
“Experts have said the chance of radioactive debris surviving a fall through the atmosphere and reaching inhabited areas is very small.”
On one level, that makes no sense whatsoever, and/or is misleading.
Assuming that the impact breached the reactor vessel/containment, the heat of reentry is way too low to have any effect on the fissionable material/fuel in the reactor. It will remain as radioactive as before reentry.
True, the heat and aerodynamic forces may, and probably would, break what is left of the reactor and its fuel into very small pieces (even dust size). Also, whatever remains is less likely to land or near humans.
But the entire radioactive “load” would go into the atmosphere, increasing the background radiation and incresing the number of cancers, etc.
It was for this reason that the US quit using nuclear-fueled power supplies (e.g., the SNAP thermocouple generators)in earth orbit satellites. And those SNAP units were much smaller than the sort of full-blown reactor generators the Russians continued to use (to power their high-load radar reconnisance satellites).
On the other hand, if the reactor remained intact through the impact, and was designed to withstand reentry (as the SNAP units were), you’d have a mass of highly radioactive material that would reach the surface more or less intact. (This is what happened to the nuclear power unit that was left in the LEM for the aborted Apollo 13 mission. As far as NASA can tell, it ended up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean around Australian or someplace.)
Snark On/
The Dark Lord of Cheney’s TIE fighter tumbles out of control after the impact . . . .