July 11,1969. Tomorrow marks the fortieth anniversary of man’s first footsteps on the moon, and NASA may be a bit closer to answering the question; “If you complain in space, can anybody hear you?”
Space Station Astronaut surveys surroundings for alternate docking facilities.
Today’s news from NASA is that the main toilet on the International Space Station is out of order. Presently, the station is home to a record 13 inhabitants, looking for…answers. Hindsight (pardon the pun) has it, that this problem would have been solved had only John McCain been elected President. Yep. Joe, “The Plummer” would have been appointed NASA Chairman, and, well, you figure it out.
Flammable gasses should not be taken lightly. Erich Spehl surveys New Jersey aloft on the Hindenburg, 1937.
So, today we get the news of a US/Russian head-on satellite collision smashing both to bits some 807 miles above Siberia. According to those in the know, these things never happen and the chances of it happening again are about the size of a government bailout to one, so we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Spokesmen say “most” of the pieces will “harmlessly drift off” into space or “float” to Earth, but “likely” will burn up before hitting somebody. Besides, both the US and Russians have hired hands who track the whereabouts of space debris 24/7. (Now there’s a job I could easily be re-trained to do!)
Does anybody remember Skylab? Probably not, since that was news of thirty years ago, and most folks can’t remember what they had today for lunch. Anyhow, Skylab was this 77.5-ton space station that served it’s purpose, lost it’s orbit, broke into some 500 pieces, including two weighing about two tons each, and crashed to Earth with no reports of anybody getting damaged. People made a big deal about it at the time, and there were plenty of Skylab themed parties with people wearing crash helmets, radioactive suits, and such.
It was funny then, but a radioactive suit hanging in your closet might not be all that bad of an idea, when you consider the new space debris could hit Soviet-era satellites powered with nuclear reactors, Interfax news agency reported, quoting an unnamed Russian space expert. Nobody knows what that would do, because, these things just don’t happen. Oh.
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