So…we’re in the home stretch! Kosmos 482 is coming home after 50-some years in space. If that thing comes down in my back yard - I’m keeping it! The metallurgy on that that thing has got to be insane. It was supposed to land on Venus in temps hot enough to melt lead, super high atmospheric pressure, acid rain… the works! Unfortunately shortly after launch its boosters misfired and placed it in a slowly eroding, highly elliptical orbit. May 10 is the day according to the egg heads at NASA. I checked the orbital profile and the chances of it coming down in Aaaadmontin and area are almost negligible… but not zero!
But if I miss out on this one… who knows what other gifts from the gods may fall from the skies?
I heard something about that. The frammerstat shorted out against the main kissamee switch, and several hundred million taxpayer dollars went up in smoke - or will, when we finally get it back.
ReplyDeleteWhat gets on my very last nerve is that for years we, the great unwashed, have been told that NASA is all that and a fifth of the finest, but private enterprise has surpassed NASA in just a few years. If SpaceX decided to build an ISS competitor, it would have five star luxury hotel rooms and room service with gourmet meals.
Ain't coming down in your backyard, and vanishingly small chance of it hitting Canada (and then only the very south-eastern part). And the taxpayers dollars that went up on smoke for this satellite were USSR's in the early 70's.
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