Okay...the sky IS falling...

[ramanth]

Saw this article and thought of that satellite thread from a few months back....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/od_nm/spacejunk_dc

Farmer finds mystery space junk
Fri Mar 28, 10:58 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A cattle farmer in Australia's remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites.

Farmer James Stirton found the odd-shaped ball last year on his 40,000 hectare property, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) west of the northern Queensland state capital of Brisbane.

But Stirton only started inquiring into what the ball of metal really was, and where it had come from, in the past week.

"I was riding out to check some cattle, and I came around the corner and there it was in a paddock," Stirton told Reuters on Friday.

"I know a lot about sheep and cattle but I don't know much about satellites. But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket."

He said the object was hollow, and covered in a carbon-fiber material. He has contacted some U.S.-based aerospace companies to try to find out what the object really is.

Sydney's Powerhouse Museum said it was not uncommon for people to find spacejunk in remote areas of Australia.

In 1979, large parts of the Skylab space station fell to earth near a tiny outback town in Australia's west. A local council sent NASA a ticket for littering and then United States President Jimmy Carter rang a local motel to apologize.

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by David Fox)

DUCK!

[Lady's Human]

Okay, that beats the chunk of airliner that fell a couple hundred yards from our old house in Mass.

I'd rather be in the landing pattern for an airport than in the way of a de-orbit path.

[Cinder & Smoke]

I'd rather be in the landing pattern for an airport than in the way of a de-orbit path.

I dunno ... ...

The airline industry manages to drop some pretty BIG stuff every now and then ...

* Main Landing Gear - complete support leg + multi-tire wheels - lotta weight there!
* The occasional private jet's complete passenger DOOR assembly
* A few JET ENGINES (Harry! Didn't YOU tighten the bolts?)
* A loose FLAP or RUDDER
* And every so often - the WHOLE darn Plane

* Not to mention the random *FLUSHING* of the potties

How DEEP should I dig my CAVE?

[Lady's Human]

Makes buying one of those out of service missile silos all that much more attractive.......

[Cinder & Smoke]

Makes buying one of those out of service missile silos all that much more attractive.......

Neber Thunk a that!
Would save a LOTTA diggin!

Wunder iffin the roofs are still good and don't leak?

[smokey the elder]

I saw a show called Extreme Homes or something like that a few years ago, where someone converted an old missile silo to a house. It made a pretty BIG house!

Then there's what happened in the UK this weekend; a private plane had an unscheduled landing on someone's roof.