Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home, and NASA is on the case.
In all likelihood, this nearly two-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida.
Otero wasn't home at the time, but his son was there. A Nest home security camera captured the sound of the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8. That's an important piece of information because it is a close match for the time—2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC)—that US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of space debris from the space station. At that time, the object was on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida.
This space junk consisted of depleted batteries from the ISS, attached to a cargo pallet that was originally supposed to come back to Earth in a controlled manner. But a series of delays meant this cargo pallet missed its ride back to Earth, so NASA jettisoned the batteries from the space station in 2021 to head for an unguided reentry.
[...] If the object is owned by NASA, Otero or his insurance company could make a claim against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi.
"It gets more interesting if this material is discovered to be not originally from the United States," she told Ars. "If it is a human-made space object which was launched into space by another country, which caused damage on Earth, that country would be absolutely liable to the homeowner for the damage caused."
This could be an issue in this case. The batteries were owned by NASA, but they were attached to a pallet structure launched by Japan's space agency.
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NASA confirms origin of space junk that crashed through Florida home
The 1.6-pound metal object should have burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.
[....] The agency analyzed the cylindrical object after it tore through the roof and two floors of a house in Naples on March 8th and established that it came from a cargo pallet of aging batteries that was released from the ISS back in 2021.
More specifically, NASA revealed in a blog post on Monday that the offending object was a support component used to mount the batteries on the 5,800-pound (2,630-kilogram) pallet released from the space station. Made from Inconel (a metal alloy that can withstand extreme environments like high temperature, pressure, or mechanical loads), the recovered stanchion weighs 1.6 pounds and measures four inches high by 1.6 inches in diameter — a smidge smaller than a standard can of Red Bull.
Object that slammed into Florida home was indeed space junk from ISS, NASA confirms
It was part of a pallet jettisoned along with 5,800 pounds of aging batteries back in March 2021.
We covered the story here: Trash From The International Space Station May Have Hit A House In Florida
That home, in the seaside city of Naples, belongs to Alejandro Otero. Shortly after the March 8 incident, Otero said he thought the offending object was part of a cargo pallet packed with 5,800 pounds (2,630 kilograms) of aging batteries jettisoned from the ISS in March 2021.
And he was right, according to a new NASA analysis of the object, which was performed at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
[....] The nickel-hydride batteries were dumped after new lithium-ion versions were delivered to the ISS for a power-supply upgrade. The pallet and the batteries were expected to burn up completely in Earth's atmosphere, NASA officials said in today's update — yet that didn't happen, and the agency wants to learn why.
[....] "NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break apart during atmospheric reentry," they added. "These models require detailed input parameters and are regularly updated when debris is found to have survived atmospheric reentry to the ground."
[....] And, as has been demonstrated, some of this junk comes crashing back to Earth from time to time. For instance, the 23-ton core stages of China's powerful Long March 5B rocket routinely fall in an uncontrolled fashion a week or so after their launches, to the consternation of the international space community.
NASA's new analysis may have financial consequences for the agency and for Otero, by the way.
Don't look up. It's a sign of things to come.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday April 04, @11:06AM
At least it wasn't blue ice from space ... Still it sounds like a nightmare, who is going to pay. Seems like they are going to pass the buck around between nations and I doubt it will be easy to get compensated. Oh we are sorry, we didn't own X we are only responsible for Y and that can't possibly have made all that damage. You should talk to the others.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 04, @01:56PM
If you roll the dice enough times, you eventually hit the jackpot. (assuming I'm mixing my metaphors properly)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 04, @03:04PM (3 children)
Great, so they're liable under law, but who enforces payment? What court determines the extent of damages? What is the cost of collection?
When North Korea launches a satellite with a lead brick in it and that brick falls to Earth and sinks my sailboat... who's going to be getting Kim to buy me a new boat?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Thursday April 04, @05:08PM
Taken as a rhetorical question; but there are real world cases like the great Volvo heist [thedrive.com]. I think if you had a judgement against them it would be carried on the books somehow. Maybe it would be a marketable security--at pennies on the dollar.
AFAIK it's illegal for me, an American, to sell anything to North Korea. If it were not, I'd triple the price and require half payment up front.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Friday April 05, @05:22AM (1 child)
When Skylab deorbited, pieces of it landed all over Australia.
The US was cited for littering. We never paid the ticket.
]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05, @12:16PM
That would have set precedent... can you imagine the littering bill for nuclear fallout?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Whoever on Thursday April 04, @03:37PM (2 children)
Why does it have to be Florida? Just by pure chance, a ridiculous and dangerous thing happens in Florida.
Does Florida have some unknown force attracting the crazy?
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 04, @04:22PM
New Jersey isn't targeted by manmade junk, it's targeted by the Universe: https://www.space.com/meteorite-strike-new-jersey-house-confirmed [space.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bmimatt on Thursday April 04, @05:00PM
Ever heard of the Florida Man? I'd bet he is involved somehow.
(Score: 5, Informative) by SomeRandomGeek on Thursday April 04, @03:44PM
I listened to the Teaching Company lectures on legal principles a while back. This sounds just like one of the lectures (on torts, I think). Where ordinary people would try to assign blame, the law tries to assign responsibility for damages. So, if a meteorite destroys a person's home, no one is to blame. It was just a freak occurrence of nature. But someone is responsible for damages. Is it the person harmed? The home owner? The insurance company? The state? Alternatively, what if the meteorite is made of unobtainable and is very valuable? Who gets to own it? The correct answer to both questions is: whoever is specified by the law in the applicable jurisdiction. The concept that the lecture was trying to teach was that sometimes in life bad things happen. The law can't make them unhappen. Sometimes it can create incentives to prevent it from happening again. Sometimes it can spread the damages around. But when it can't do those things, all that is left is deciding who gets stuck with the bill.
I have to imagine that in this case, the legal fees from figuring out who is responsible for damages will be more than the damages themselves.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday April 04, @03:49PM (3 children)
Obviously, NASA did it to save money. They need to have the bejeezus sued out of them. There needs to be a significant cost attached to making a conscious choice to send a potentially lethal object on "an unguided reentry".
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 04, @07:48PM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday April 04, @11:53PM
As a side note, it seems odd to for us to be in agreement on something, but your concern is entirely valid. Nuclear power has been used on various US space missions since at least 1961.
https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-nuclear-power-space [energy.gov]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 05, @07:06PM
It's not that big a deal. You're probably creating more risk for others when you hop behind the steering wheel. And NASA probably will just pay for the house repair. A comfortable settlement and a lot of Floridians will probably be hoping they're next.