The Sky Is Falling!! Track it so your boat's not squashed

TikiHut2

So there's this (yet another) Chevy Suburban sized low earth orbit satellite crashing to earth this weekend somewhere.......but the experts can't predict too accurately just where so standby with your tinfoil helmet. Reminiscent of the new Clooney/Bullock movie "Gravity" it just may be coming (movie spoiler alert) to a marina near you.

As a public service and especially to protect our Rinker crew I've posted a link to a pretty incredible website packed with cool satellite info and real time tracking. Ignore this whole topic at your boats risk....... If nothing else and being VERY unlikely it'd wild to see it at reentry. Mike

(LINK TO LIVE TRACKING OF SPACE DEBRIS)

The link defaults to the ISS (intl space station) but click on the GOCE and you'll see if it's heading toward your precious sea sled.

Black_Diamond

Wow..usually these have a known orbit and they can predict pretty good.  This one orbits over the poles, so it literally coveres the entire planet as it rotates.  Be a neat souvenir to have if it misses you. 

We had a small plane splat about 0.5 miles from my house, it's path went right over my home, 'lucky' it went into a soybean field, not good for them though.  Flying in IFR conditions in low dense fog, in the winter, with snow on the ground, when you are not IFR rated is a bad idea it seems.

TikiHut2

This baby is dead weight running about 18,000 mph. It'll be interesting to see if anything makes it to the ground and if anyone sees it.

As a side note. I went to see Gravity in the theaters. Rotten tomatoes rated it at 90 something and I'd agree it was fun entertainment and worth my time. It was especially great for the big screen. The Admiral kept holding her breath when their oxygen was low (often).

Black_Diamond

Claim is: "About 25 to 45 fragments of the one-ton spacecraft are expected to survive all the way to the surface, with the largest perhaps weighing 200 pounds."  That would make a small hole in the ground at 18,000mph  lol       

TikiHut2

The Burbs eh? Own one myself. Its my boat mule. Great truck but it won't survive rentry any better than that Euro space junk will. Keep a helmet on for the next few days just in case

l-skynyrd

Very cool web site.....

Michael T

Two nights ago on NBC News Brian Williams showed several shots of orbiting satellites, space junk etc. I knew there was a lot of traffic up there but the NBC shots were unbelievable......and I'm just tapped-out on insurance premiums so I'll have to pray that if some hunk of junk from space picks picks our marina that it lands on a sea ray. ;-) . MT..... P.S. I lived in Europe for four years - they haven't, don't now and never will build anything near as solid as a burb - their sh*t falls apart faster that a wet piece of tp.! Buy North American!!!!!

TikiHut2

According to ABC News the chances of a human being hit by space debris is one in 32,000 which seems amazingly low unless you saw the amount of stuff circling the Earth. (EDIT: anything actually hitting YOU is 1 in 21 trillion so they were slightly off) The only known human to actually get hit by flying space trash was Lottie Williams who was quoted as saying " if you see a piece of space junk coming for you, RUN...just RUN."   Gotta love that

Be careful not to confuse real flying space debris with Rinker Yans smoke belching diesel Suburban hurtling toward you on re-entry   Just sayin.....

Black_Diamond

Makes winning the powerball look easy!

Black_Diamond

Well, looks like everyone was spared being hit by space junk on this one, definately a good thing. Saving my tinfoil hat for another day!

TikiHut2

Tinfoil hat

What a relief. Well, that's one probe we missed......at least until the next visit to the proctoligist.  [-X Yikes

terrypage

That is something else. We'll done.