Illuminati-R-Us

by **KLA2** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 12:52 am

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is coming home tomorrow.

This reminds me of the lyric from the Tom Lehrer song:

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun." (Thanks, hippie)

I just hope the remnants do not land on Bill Thompson's house. Really. :lol:

by **Enzo** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:25 am

SO you don;t want the shit to hit the fan?

by **Heid the Ba** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:26 am

My now brother-in-law was in a punk band in the late 1970s called "The Wayward Skylabs". They weren't as bad as you might think.

by **Arneb** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:45 am

THAT would be one for Craig Feguson to monologueize!

by **KLA2** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 2:53 am

Now expected between 11PM and 3AM.

I will not be staying up to watch for it. :lol:

by **tubeswell** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 3:20 am

Well its just gone 3:18pm (NZ time) and I ain't seen a thing. (Altho' I am high on enamel paint fumes (from house renovations), so I could've hallucinated a blue sunny sky with nuthin in it.)

by **KLA2** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 3:49 am

tubeswell wrote:Well its just gone 3:18pm (NZ time) and I ain't seen a thing. (Altho' I am high on enamel paint fumes (from house renovations), so I could've hallucinated a blue sunny sky with nuthin in it.)

Well, that is US time. Not sure which time zone.

Enamel paint in your home??? Do you mean latex? Isn't enamel paint for model airplanes? :lol:

by **Enzo** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:16 am

Those poor innocent enamals. Nature gave them fur, I think painting them is just cruel.

by **tubeswell** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:41 am

Its gib sealer enamel

by **tubeswell** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:22 am

Meanwhile, back on the original topic...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-n ... t-Auckland

(Taken by photographer Peter Idoine, - satellite crashing into the Tasman Sea near Auckland, New Zealand, last night.)

by **Enzo** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:14 am

Hmmm, so they told us they weren't sure where it was coming down, or came down alreaqdy, but you folks knew and even filmed it?

What else are they keeping from us?

by **tubeswell** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:23 am

The NZ Govt was probably quietly advised by the US Govt (who I guess obviously were tracking it reasonably accurately) to prepare for possible casualties, so the NZ govt sends a guy out with a camera to film the catastrophe. My take on it. Any other theories?

by **Enzo** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:35 am

Hello John, Barack here. How's things? Uh huh, and the missus? Good good. Um listen... Uh, weather holding up OK? Good. Yeah, listen, about that satellite of ours. Uh, heh heh, a funny thing. Yeah, y'see, well, it looks like it just might fall on YOU. HAH! What are the odds??? Yeah, I know what you mean... What? No, I'm not a betting man either. Look, we were talking about it and we think maybe someone down there might, you know, get a camera and film it. Yeah, I know, sounded crazy to me too, but then you know Rupert Murdoch is always looking for pictures that make ME look bad, so well, he ought to pay a pretty penny for this, don;t you think? He's from down your way, sorta.

Hey, I gotta run. COme to think of it, you should too.

by **Мастер** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:55 am

If I have a correct understanding of how these things work, various factors cause the orbit to decay. When a portion of the orbit is low enough that the atmosphere is non-negligible, the decay gets faster - the atmospheric drag slows the satellite down, changing its orbit. So it comes into the atmosphere at the low point of an elliptical orbit, and then either is or is not slowed down enough to come crashing down. Trying to model this is tough, because it depends on too many factors, like how the craft tumbles as it goes through the atmosphere, etc.

So the people tracking it, know when it is about to dip into the atmosphere. What they don't necessarily know is whether it will make it back out, to dip back in the next orbit around. So I believe what they know is a range of possible times/locations where it will come down, but considerable uncertainty about which trip around the earth will be the last one.

At least, that's how I understand it. A fair amount of hearsay and speculation in the above, so don't take it as authoritative.

by **Enzo** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 2:37 am

And the atmosphere itself is not monolithic, the density at any altitude is never known precisely as it varies. Temperature and other factors will move the density up and down, so an orbital altitude that is relatively free of air drag one day, may not be a week later.

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