FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast - Southend-on-Sea 9th December

[dellzeqq]

only one LCC/BC place left........

 

[TimO]

well it appears that our resident rocket scientist is not so sure of his vapourisation.

It depends on the satellite. X-Ray and Gamma Ray observatories seem to be the worst for big lumps of stuff that may survive re-entry, because their "mirrors" are essentially that, big heavy lumps of stuff.

Modern satellites have to be designed to either break up on re-entry, or leave enough fuel in their engines to deliberately de-orbit themselves in a controlled manner, and target three designated locations which are meant to be used for that purpose. At least one of those is in the Southern Pacific, and I suspect the basic criterion is that they have bugger all of any value anywhere near them.

Uncontrolled re-entry tends to occur in situations like this, where the satellite was never meant to be left in low Earth orbit, it's meant to be in Mars orbit (eventually), but due to some failure they've lost control of it. They tend to still design to minimise the risk of large components staying intact, but that's difficult with some elements, a good example being the fuel tanks, which by their nature have to be strong, and designed to withstand high forces. Batteries tend to suffer a similar problem, because they also need to be pretty solid. That's partially because they can burst and out-gas with age, which is a bad thing. We can see this happening to the very expensive batteries on Cluster (they're Silver Cadmium, because Nickel Cadmium batteries are magnetic) because this causes a slight, but measurable, change in the orbit.

Since this thing weighs 13 tonnes, which is a very heavy spacecraft, there's a good bet that some elements will survive to ground level, but since most of this planet is water, and a lot of what isn't is uninhabited waste land (the Arctic and Antarctic, the middle of Australia, any number of other desserts etc) the risk of actually being hit by something is pretty damned small, and any objects so recovered would be potentially quite valuable. It's an arguable point whether they belong to the respective launching country or not, since you could argue that they've abandoned them! Probably in this country, if it was a US mission, you'd have to turn them in, but with a Russian or Chinese satellite, I'm not so sure we'd be so keen to return anything, not that you'd be allowed to keep it!

 

[dellzeqq]

Adrian C
Andrij B
Anne H
Benjamin B-M
Bruce R
Charles E
Chris Br
Davy W
Els V
Fred C
Grahame D
Greg C
Joan A
John E
John T
John Ty
User10571 B
Kim W
Mark P
Martin B
Miranda S
Nigel C2
Nigel W
Olaf S
Rebecca O-B
Sandra S
Sonia W
Stuart A
Stuart G
Susie F
Tim D
Tim H
Tim O
TJ A
Werner W
Ian M
Peter W
Mike M
Sam W
Ruth H
Ian A
Simon B
Cate R
Charles B
John E
Joan McG
Alan Lu
Tacey L
Ashley N
Titus H

 

[dellzeqq]

At least one of those is in the Southern Pacific, and I suspect the basic criterion is that they have bugger all of any value anywhere near them.

ahem

[media]
]View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYEdezKgbrk&feature=fvst[/media]

 

[AKA Bob]

Yes, please Dellzegg.

I have also posted the Christmas ride details.

AKA Bob

 

[Aperitif]

Yes, please Dellzegg.

I have also posted the Christmas ride details.

AKA Bob

Is this like a curate's egg - only irreverent?

 

[theclaud]

This being alphabeticaly first is all well and good but it would be better to have that poor excuse for a rabid tory back.

Quite.

I'm in, please, Mista DeeZee.

 

[dellzeqq]

Claudine C
Andrew B
Andrij B
Anne H
Benjamin B-M
Bruce R
Charles E
Chris Br
Davy W
Els V
Fred C
Grahame D
Greg C
Joan A
John E
John T
John Ty
User10571 B
Kim W
Mark P
Martin B
Miranda S
Nigel C2
Nigel W
Olaf S
Rebecca O-B
Sandra S
Sonia W
Stuart A
Stuart G
Adrian C
Susie F
Tim D
Tim H
Tim O
TJ A
Werner W
Ian M
Peter W
Mike M
Sam W
Ruth H
Ian A
Simon B
Cate R
Charles B
John E
Joan McG
Alan Lu
Tacey L
Ashley N
Titus H
Gordon P
Ben V-P
Peter L
Tony F?

 

[theclaud]

Ha

Might as well change your name to Zebedee...

 

[Flying Dodo]

This being alphabeticaly first is all well and good but it would be better to have that poor excuse for a rabid tory back.

Ha - I wondered why my ears were twitching.

You could of course just change your name by Deed Poll for around £20.

 

[frank9755]

I'll add it to my list of aliases.

We could have a whip round and change your name to Aardvark. It could be your Christmas present!

 

[martint235]

We could have a whip round and change your name to Aardvark. It could be your Christmas present!

There is a certain similarity in looks. Put me down for a couple of quid towards it.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Bollocks

That would move you a bit further down the list.

 

[Wobblers]

Bollocks

With language like that you can keep Frank company at the back of the ride! The rest of us will pretend you two are not with us.

 

[Wobblers]

I'd quite like to join this one - I've not been to Southend yet this year (No loss! I hear you cry... ) Please add me to the list, Dell.