[meteorite-list] Space junk - marine life - shame on NASA

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 12:52:23 -0700
Message-ID: <2D1637531B9B4C28BA79E3F8B22C9273_at_bellatrix>

There is established international law dealing with legal liability for
damage or injury caused by space debris reaching the ground. All space
missions (in the U.S., at least) consider the likelihood of material
surviving reentry. It's a question of statistics, and the chance of damage
is almost always extremely small. In rare cases where something very large
is being returned, it is usual for the object to be scuttled under
controlled circumstances, to ensure reentry over the ocean. This
refrigeration unit did not require a semi-controlled reentry because it was
very unlikely enough material would survive to the ground to matter,
regardless of where the decay occurred.

Of course, if an object should land on a school, it's easy to say how much
cheaper it would have been to return it. But that logic only applies if you
return everything, and that would be far, far more expensive than the cost
of a single object hitting a school. In this case, given the size of debris
remaining (if any), it's likely that something hitting a roof would just
knock off some shingles and slide down.

I'll bet your risk is much greater from being hit by something falling off
an airplane than being hit by something reentering from space. And neither
risk is high enough to spend much time worrying about!

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Catterton" <star_wars_collector at yahoo.com>
To: "Chris Peterson" <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Space junk - marine life - shame on NASA


>
> It is the first thing I was aware of, until reading more about it.
> I know what ifs are really meaningless, however... if it had landed on a
> school full of kids, Im sure the cost of returning to earth would have
> been very cheap compared to the loss of life.
> If it had impacted on a house or other private property, would NASA have
> been liable?
>
> The replies about this have been really good and informative, Thanks to
> all for your input.
>
> Greg
Received on Mon 03 Nov 2008 02:52:23 PM PST