Why cant they just shoot the thing into space? Wouldnt that be easier and MUCH safer to do than to have this 27.5 ton object falling toward the earth? ------------------ "Her Box Started Buzzing Ever Since She Heard The CRÜE"
And you are probably one of those people who throw your litter along the freeway. If we start littering up space, we will not be able to launch any craft. ------------------ Nice guys finish last ... and im surely not going to finish last!
You equate objecting to sending this object screaming down toward earth to littering? There is no doubt in my mind we should have just shot this into space. Even though the 'experts' say there is 98-99% chance nothing will happen, what happens if it the 1-2% unfortunate incident happens? I guess by you that would be okay. Let this thing slam into Australia or wherever, because well golly, I dont want to 'litter' in space. If you put enough fire behind this thing it would clear ANY area that we would ever care to travel in the future. I just see NO NEED for it to slam back to earth, 'potentially' a HUGE disaster in the making. ------------------ "Her Box Started Buzzing Ever Since She Heard The CRÜE"
I have a question Will it hurt if a part of MIR hits me? PS DUDE where is my car???? ------------------ "Repression never did me any harm (I finally ceased to include "stop masturbating" as one of my guilt ridden New Year's resolutions, but that's a different topic)." Achebe - programmer by day, Mrs Palmers Husband by night [This message has been edited by SmeggySmeg (edited March 22, 2001).]
It would be a pretty massive opertion to build new propulsion onto MIR and send it off beyond the Earth's orbit. There's likely a far greater chance for loss of human life rebuilding the station with the multiple launches and space walks than there is simply doing a controlled "landing". ------------------ Houston Sports Board Help Finance My Movie - Buy A T-Shirt or Make a Donation
unless you're a whale or dolphin and there are 6000 bullets firing down at you. LOL. ------------------ (===)
No Dude, It was a joke, but to clarify, I was using an anology of you littering on the freeway and letting someone else clean it up instead of bringing it home and throwing it out. ------------------ Nice guys finish last ... and im surely not going to finish last!
do you guys realise the precision within which they can bring this thing down? they know all the constants, variables, mass/velocity, drag, everything. I am sure that the only risk is how exactly the station will brek up, and once broken up, how far of a spread will those objects have.(like shooting buck shot from our upper atmosphere vs shooting a slug) also they are shooting this station at a safe target the size of, well way the F bigger than the broad side of a barn. ITS A FRIKIN OCEAN!!. if left in space, there is a chance, and a good chance that it will colide with other space junk. this willl over time rip peices of the station. these peices travel at 17,000mph, so an object the size of a screw (1 OZ) has the momentum of a 16 lb Bowling ball traveling at 66.4 MPH sow that may net seem like much, but there are currently over 100,000 such objects already floating around in space. there are many larger objects as well. objects that would easily move Mir, and cause its already terminal orbit to become uncontrollable, and truely dangerous. there is in reality no risk to ANYONE in the splashdown scenerio. and i for one congradulate the russians for their responsability in handling this matter. our telecom companies have left more garbage up there than you can imaging. and as you can see, no one got hurt, not even smegg peace ------------------ Hanta-Force Paintball www.hanta-force.com
Did they drag it up out of the ocean or are they leaving it there? I think's Dude's proposition is probably the way we'll go with many things in the future: shooting stuff out past the gravity well so we can be rid of it forever. However, with Mir, it's probably way too expensive to do. Plus, now they can sell the remnants as souvenirs! ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
Good idea ... out of mind, out of sight...except it won't be gone forever. I can already see the 500 million dollar Sputnik XXIV orbiting Saturn and then SMASH, out of nowhere, Mir slams into it, sending our precious project to the surface of Saturn. Not a wise way to plan for the future. ------------------ Nice guys finish last ... and im surely not going to finish last!
I think they would be able to find a way to shoot it off in a direction that is not one of our 8 other orbiting planets or their moons.... give our scientists a little credit. Or they could just launch it off in the direction of the Sun, and it will vaporize, no muss no fuss! ------------------ "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." Lee Simonson
My point is you can't tell the future. But you do have an idea about the sun. ------------------ Nice guys finish last ... and im surely not going to finish last!
How about we crash Mir into the 'SUNS'. Woo Hoo. Then we'd only have the puppies to worry about. ------------------ humble, but hungry.
