World China menaced by threat of an uncontrolled space station falling back to Earth

[tom_mai78101]

In a press conference on Wednesday, Chinese officials appear to have confirmed what many observers have long suspected: that China is no longer in control of its space station.

China's Tiangong-1 space station has been orbiting the planet for about 5 years now, but recently it was decommissioned and the Chinese astronauts returned to the surface. In a press conference last week, China announced that the space station would be falling back to earth at some point in late 2017.

Normally, a decommissioned satellite or space station would be retired by forcing it to burn up in the atmosphere. This type of burn is controlled, and most satellite re-entries are scheduled to burn up over the ocean to avoid endangering people. However, it seems that China's space agency is not sure exactly when Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere, which implies that the station has been damaged somehow and China is no longer able to control it.

This is important because it means Tiangong-1 won't be able to burn up in a controlled manner. All we know is it will burn up at some point in late 2017, but it is impossible to predict exactly when or where. This means that there is a chance debris from the falling spacecraft could strike a populated area.

China Confirms Its Space Station Is Falling Back to Earth

China's space agency confirms the Tiangong space station will burn up sometime late next year.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[Accname]

Just blow it up. Almost everything in china explodes as far as we've learned so there must be something you can throw at it.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Uh, it is inevitable that it will blow up, not sure why you want to waste money resulting in doing the same thing: threat of debris hitting Earth?

 

[Accname]

The smaller the debris the more likely it is to completely burn off on entry into our atmosphere. Instead of having one large chunk fall down on some unlucky saps head you have many small pieces going puff in space.

 

[tom_mai78101]

In that case, I guess the remaining question is whether the political world wants to blow it up or not.

 

[Accname]

The entertainment world sure does. Just give them the OK and they will deliver the fireworks.

 

[tom_mai78101]

The entertainment world sure does. Just give them the OK and they will deliver the fireworks.

But the politicial world rules the entertainment world. Especially, you must consider that this is a global political issue everyone around the world needs to participate in. The importance for that is much higher than the entertainment world by hundred folds.

 

[Accname]

You underestimate the entertainment lobby. Its not politics that rule entertainment, its the other way around. The public media makes and brakes presidential elections. Just look at trump and ask yourself what would have happened if the media reacted differently to him. No publicity at all, never broadcasting his speeches, etc.