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Over the last few days, NASA officials have issued warnings that pieces of a 1,400 pound ammonia refrigeration unit will hurtle through the atmosphere and towards the earth's surface today, the Daily Mail reports.
Although shards as heavy as 15 pounds could survive the fiercely hot temperatures of their journey, NASA officials insist there is "a very low likelihood that anybody will be impacted by it." (Just don't ask these New Jersey folks).
So, how did this mass of junk wind up in space, in the first place? In July of 2007, Astronaut Clay Anderson tossed the tank from the International Space Station into the abyss because there wasn't any room on the shuttle to bring it back to Earth. Although NASA astronauts try not to space-litter, there are times when they seem to find no other practical course of action.
We wonder if anybody told Anderson that, in space, whenever somebody improperly disposes of a 1,400 pound ammonia tank, an indigenous spaceman sheds one single, forlorn tear. [From: The Daily Mail]
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Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsneeseeNov 5th 2008 9:06AM
Why wouldn't it fit in the shuttle to bring it back? It must have been
taken there so how did the shuttle shrink? Doesn't make sense. If
they took it out there with them, they could (just a guess) have
brought it back. Clearly a case of littering that the astronaut never
thought would come back to earth on it's own. Hope it hits his car!
cheezasaurusrexNov 20th 2008 3:40AM
The International Space Station was not sent up all at once, rather, it was built in steps by NASA. With each trip into space, more parts were delivered with it. Astronauts worked [and, still are working] to assemble all of the pieces together to create the station. The station is still being expanded and improved to this day. In the article, it said there wasn't enough room on the SHUTTLE. Not the STATION. The Station would not come back to Earth anyway. I am not sure why they were getting rid of the refridgeration unit, but the reason why they tossed the unit out was probably because the cost of sending and returning shuttles to the station is so high that they figured it would be better to toss the unit rather than waste all of that tax money just to retrieve an object that would not fit in the shuttle's cargo hold.
neeseeNov 20th 2008 9:07AM
Well that makes more sense. As for why they decided to chuck it,
I'm thinking all the beer was gone so it was of no use anymore!