A TikTok video about an out of control rocket freaked me out so I did some research and here's the result!

Link to TikToker's Profile:
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Link to the tracking website:
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A version of the script:
The Chinese National Space Agency’s Long March 5B rocket was meant to deliver its payload and then the core was meant to fall back to earth. Instead it went into orbit.

And it is staying up there until gravity and the atmosphere bring it down.

Essentially it’s going to keep zipping around all the while losing altitude until it dips into a thicker part of the atmosphere

At this point drag from the air will quickly bring it down and the friction from the air will turn it into a fiery mess.

Most objects that go this through break up with much of the debris melting away.

Thankfully there’s nothing particularly nasty left on board (as far as we know) so we’re not looking at any kind of contamination or radiation...

But this is one of the biggest uncontrolled reentries ever and this increases the likelihood that something sizable will make it to the ground...

The best guess for “when” is “sometime before May 10”

The “where” is currently impossible to tell until after it enters the atmosphere

As it streaks through the atmosphere it might be tumbling or it could shift direction. And at the expected speed and height even a movement of 1 degree could change the trajectory dramatically.

When it finally comes down there won’t be a lot of time for warning anyone in its way

After learning all of this I was having visions of Armageddon or Deep Impact or whatever…and doing a little bit of research I rediscovered the footage of that Russian meteor back in 2013. That thing exploded in the atmosphere with the force of a nuclear weapon...

I’ll be honest: at that point I was maybe a little freaked out and the early draft of this script had me examining the yields of nuclear weapons and I was speculating about the strength of the material used in Long March rocket...but I quickly realized that I have no fucking idea what I’m talking about…

So I took a breath and reached out to the expert many of the articles were quoting on twitter and asked him...and he actually responded...god bless the internet...this is what he had to say:

Now don’t get me wrong being around something that is the equivalent of a plane crash won’t be fun…but this is a highly unlikely worst case.

I couldn’t run odds to save my life but hopefully this will illustrate the point:

To harm anyone this Long March 5B core or at least a sizeable chunk of it would need to

- Survive reentry (this is not a given)
- Then Hit land instead of the sea (more than 2/3s of the earth is covered in water)
- That land would need to be inhabited (around 60% of land is uninhabited)
- And finally if it did hit an inhabited piece of land it would then need to hit a person or something kind of dangerous, explosive thing that causes more damage

The earth is so big and we actually don’t cover that much of it. In fact the chances are pretty high that no one will even see this thing come back let alone be hurt or killed by it…

And if you’re still not convinced by my dubious explanation: a similar scenario has actually played out before...

Just about a year ago an earlier Long March 5B rocket made a chaotic reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, with pieces of it falling onto the west coast of Africa.

The debris fell onto two villages in Côte d'Ivoire, causing damage to people’s businesses and homes.

But no injuries or fatalities were reported...

That’s right: this isn’t even the first time the CSNA has lost one of these large rockets this way…

and actually...this kind of uncontrolled reentry is kind of common…

But that might be cold comfort going forward

As uncontrolled reentries might be set to get even more common:

The pace of space traffic is projected to increase dramatically in the next couple of years:

The CSNA for one is planning to complete its space station by the end of 2022 and this blistering pace will require a dozen or more launches of Long March rockets in the next 18 months…so that’ll be fun

It’s hard to know for sure...launches get scrubbed all time, and budgets get cut...but the 2020s could be the busiest decade for orbital launches since the 1970s…hell it might be the busiest since spaceflight began…

But all it will take to destroy these programs and dreams for future exploration and development is to have a rocket sized piece of man made space crap smash into a children’s hospital or orphanage or, god forbid, something important like an oil rig or nuclear power station...to very quickly turn public opinion against space travel…

Now I get it: it’s unlikely but I’m unconvinced that the current policy of “meh” is the right way forward...

#longmarchrocket #spacex #reentry

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