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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-goes-up dept.

The out-of-control Chinese space station is now predicted to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime around the beginning of April. Most of it will burn up on the way down, but it's possible some pieces of the 9-ton spacecraft could make it to the surface.

Tiangong means "Heavenly Palace" in English and Tiangong-1 was China's first space station, launched in 2011. The original plan for the craft's demise was a controlled re-entry that would allow it to burn up over an unpopulated section of the South Pacific, with any surviving fragments falling in the sea. 

But as early as March 2016, reports began to suggest that Tiangong-1 was malfunctioning and ground crews had lost control of the craft. In other words, there appears to be little chance of performing the maneuvers to steer it to a graceful breakup over the ocean. Instead, it's all up to chance.

According to a new projection from the European Space Agency on Tuesday, the space station is expected to make a likely uncontrolled re-entry roughly between March 29 and April 9. The ESA stresses that it won't be possible to make a precise prediction about exactly when or where Tiangong-1 will burn up and how much of it will get all the way through the atmosphere to the surface. 

That said, the Chinese space station is fairly easy to track and ESA says in an online FAQ that we should know about a day in advance of the craft's end which regions of the planet might be able to see it actually burning up in the sky. Predicting where any impact might occur is significantly more difficult, however. 

"Even 7 hours before the actual re-entry, the uncertainty on the break-up location is a full orbital revolution -- meaning plus or minus thousands of kilometers," writes ESA's Daniel Scuka.

Tiangong-1's orbit spans from 43 degrees north to 43 degrees south, or from the central United States down to the southern tip of Australia, according to Jay Melosh, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University. He explains that it could come down anywhere between the two points but is more likely to land at either extreme because the station spends more time there.


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  • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)

    by fritsd (4586) on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:17PM (#650947) Journal

    Lawyers interpret the rules written down by previous generations, but those written-down rules can sometimes be at odds with what the current generation of citizens finds important. Especially in the USA with the "corporations have first amendment rights" law suit precedent (sorry, I don't remember the name of that law suit)

    Sociologists study what the people are *actually doing* and describe and model that.

    For example: maybe according to the law mariuana is illegal (previous generation compelled the government to write a law forbidding it), but maybe (a) people use it anyway, or (b) studies reveal that the damage it does to society is less than the damage done to society by forbidding it.

    Laws have to change if they're not good for the country. After the prohibition of alcohol in the USA, Al Capone had a whole state in his pocket, I thought. So maybe the theory of alcohol prohibition was humanitarian, but the results of its implementation were dreadful and "the cure was worse than the disease". A lawyer wouldn't want to change that, because it's good for lawyering business, and the law is the law.

    In the EU we currently have the Brexit issue, where the UK wants a strong border on the French side and a weak border on the Irish side (I know; it's idiotic). If they don't amend their plans, it's going to be a strong border on the Irish side as well. However, criminals and terrorists will greatly benefit from a strong border because it will make smuggling very profitable. (My granny once smuggled butter and cigarettes over the Belgian border, and I had an uncle who didn't dare to drive the 5 km to Belgium for fear to be arrested and put in jail, so I have an idea what I speak about, for a change)

    People are happy when there's rule of law (one of the many pre-requisites), however rule of law means: don't make laws that you *know* your people are going to break anyway. So the police only needs to be bothered with enforcing important laws.

    I don't follow all the news about "SJW" et cetera, but I thought that in the US there is a focus on laws to which toilet a person who is trans-gender can go. Why bother?!?!? How many of them are there, and does it really matter? Meanwhile the country is robbed blind by its government of millionaires, but noo... pay attention to the trans-gender toilet visitor instead!

    Hm. It turned out more ranty and off-topic than I meant to. Sorry khallow.

    Oh and about your first quote: IIRC it was "the Economist Magazine" that complained about Bhutan's dubious economic record.
    Who cares. 500 years ago people worried about how many scholastic angels could dance on a pin. Now they worry about the economy. Who knows what they will worry about in 500 years if there are people left. I don't think it will be "The Economy".
    About Bhutan's dubious social record: yes, that is a valid criticism by The Economist Magazine.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:25PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:25PM (#650949) Journal

    Lawyers interpret the rules written down by previous generations, but those written-down rules can sometimes be at odds with what the current generation of citizens finds important.

    That's a dangerous slide from rule of law to "rule of men". Law can and is changed all the time through well-established, formal practices precisely because someone found them wanting, but done in a way that relatively well respects democratic traditions. We don't need sociologists upending the law on a whim.