Philosophy
Who is Lottie Williams? She is a very fortunate person to dodge the effects of some space junk.
1997: Lottie Williams is strolling through a park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she sees a flash of light resembling a meteor. A short while later, she is struck on the shoulder by a piece of metal apparently from a disintegrating rocket, making her the only person believed to have been hit by a piece of space debris.
Although the fragment, which measured about 6 inches long, was never positively identified as having come from a rocket, NASA confirmed that the timing and location of the incident were consistent with the re-entry and breakup of a second-stage Delta rocket that fell to Earth after orbiting for several months. The main wreckage was recovered a couple of hundred miles away in Texas.
Williams was not injured. She was struck a glancing blow, and the debris was relatively light and probably traveling at a low velocity. It was also subject to wind currents, which mitigated the impact even further.
The amazing thing is that, given the amount of space junk that falls to Earth on a regular basis, there have been no other reports of someone being hit. Despite the veritable junkyard raining down on our planet — over a 40-year period roughly 5,400 tons of debris are thought to have survived re-entry into the atmosphere — the odds of actually being struck are infinitesimally small.
Components made of materials with high melting temperatures, such as stainless steel and titanium, are the likeliest candidates to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Predicting where the space debris will land is an inexact science, though, despite the ability to track a satellite's decaying orbit. The best that ground controllers can do is change a dying satellite's altitude, so its re-entry footprint — which can stretch hundreds or even thousands of miles — falls mainly over water or sparsely populated land.
Perhaps the most famous space junk of all time resulted from the demise of Skylab, the first U.S. space station, which orbited the Earth between 1973 and 1979. Increasing drag on the vehicle, caused partly by heightened solar activity, had a deleterious effect on Skylab's orbit, prompting ground controllers to bring it down early. They maneuvered Skylab into a re-entry footprint that would cause it to break up over the eastern Indian Ocean and western Australia.
It did, and several large chunks came to ground between the Aussie towns of Esperance and Rawlinna. Stan Thornton, a 17-year old living in Esperance, recovered some Skylab wreckage from the roof of his house and raced off to California, where the San Francisco Examiner was offering a prize of $10,000 (roughly $30,000 in today's money) to the first person who could deliver a piece of the space station to its newsroom.
- Mark Your Calendar...2020...iss Scuttled
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- Scrapyard Will Pose Problems For Future Space Flights
"Space junk storm will up mission costs: experts" by Kate Kelland November 4th, 2009 Reuters LONDON--A growing storm of debris flying around in space is dramatically increasing the risk of orbital crashes, and steps to avoid them will add greatly to...
- Iss And Orbital Debris
"Space Station and Crew Avoid Debris" March 13th, 2009 The New York Times The three-man crew of the International Space Station climbed into the Soyuz spacecraft lifeboat for 11 minutes Thursday afternoon as a small but potentially dangerous piece of...
- Kaboom!...clash Of Two Titanic Satellites
What were the odds of this event happening. "2 big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia (Update)" February 11th, 2009 Associated Press Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting...
- Sign Post Up Ahead: Beware Of Space Junk
"NASA Announces That Space Junk Orbiting The Earth Will Confine Man To Earth Forever by 2010" by Scoop Dung The New York Times April 10th, 2008 A fake headline of course, but it is not that far from the truth and mankind might well consider what to...
Philosophy
Lottie Williams...lucky woman
Who is Lottie Williams? She is a very fortunate person to dodge the effects of some space junk.
"Jan. 22, 1997: Heads Up, Lottie! It's Space Junk!"
by
Tony Long
January 22nd, 2011
Wired
by
Tony Long
January 22nd, 2011
Wired
1997: Lottie Williams is strolling through a park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she sees a flash of light resembling a meteor. A short while later, she is struck on the shoulder by a piece of metal apparently from a disintegrating rocket, making her the only person believed to have been hit by a piece of space debris.
Although the fragment, which measured about 6 inches long, was never positively identified as having come from a rocket, NASA confirmed that the timing and location of the incident were consistent with the re-entry and breakup of a second-stage Delta rocket that fell to Earth after orbiting for several months. The main wreckage was recovered a couple of hundred miles away in Texas.
Williams was not injured. She was struck a glancing blow, and the debris was relatively light and probably traveling at a low velocity. It was also subject to wind currents, which mitigated the impact even further.
The amazing thing is that, given the amount of space junk that falls to Earth on a regular basis, there have been no other reports of someone being hit. Despite the veritable junkyard raining down on our planet — over a 40-year period roughly 5,400 tons of debris are thought to have survived re-entry into the atmosphere — the odds of actually being struck are infinitesimally small.
Components made of materials with high melting temperatures, such as stainless steel and titanium, are the likeliest candidates to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Predicting where the space debris will land is an inexact science, though, despite the ability to track a satellite's decaying orbit. The best that ground controllers can do is change a dying satellite's altitude, so its re-entry footprint — which can stretch hundreds or even thousands of miles — falls mainly over water or sparsely populated land.
Perhaps the most famous space junk of all time resulted from the demise of Skylab, the first U.S. space station, which orbited the Earth between 1973 and 1979. Increasing drag on the vehicle, caused partly by heightened solar activity, had a deleterious effect on Skylab's orbit, prompting ground controllers to bring it down early. They maneuvered Skylab into a re-entry footprint that would cause it to break up over the eastern Indian Ocean and western Australia.
It did, and several large chunks came to ground between the Aussie towns of Esperance and Rawlinna. Stan Thornton, a 17-year old living in Esperance, recovered some Skylab wreckage from the roof of his house and raced off to California, where the San Francisco Examiner was offering a prize of $10,000 (roughly $30,000 in today's money) to the first person who could deliver a piece of the space station to its newsroom.
- Mark Your Calendar...2020...iss Scuttled
"ISS to be sunk after 2020: Russian space agency" July 27th, 2011 Space & Earth / Space Exploration Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to...
- Scrapyard Will Pose Problems For Future Space Flights
"Space junk storm will up mission costs: experts" by Kate Kelland November 4th, 2009 Reuters LONDON--A growing storm of debris flying around in space is dramatically increasing the risk of orbital crashes, and steps to avoid them will add greatly to...
- Iss And Orbital Debris
"Space Station and Crew Avoid Debris" March 13th, 2009 The New York Times The three-man crew of the International Space Station climbed into the Soyuz spacecraft lifeboat for 11 minutes Thursday afternoon as a small but potentially dangerous piece of...
- Kaboom!...clash Of Two Titanic Satellites
What were the odds of this event happening. "2 big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia (Update)" February 11th, 2009 Associated Press Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting...
- Sign Post Up Ahead: Beware Of Space Junk
"NASA Announces That Space Junk Orbiting The Earth Will Confine Man To Earth Forever by 2010" by Scoop Dung The New York Times April 10th, 2008 A fake headline of course, but it is not that far from the truth and mankind might well consider what to...