Chinese Space Station To Re-enter

[enf]

“There will be lumps of about 100kg or so, still enough to give you a nasty wallop if it hit you,” he said. “Yes there’s a chance it will do damage, it might take out someone’s car, there will be a rain of a few pieces of metal, it might go through someone’s roof, like if a flap fell off a plane, but it is not widespread damage.”

Duh!

[ol' boy]

What, more Chinese junk distributed to other countries

So is it currently maned?

[mandc]

So is it currently maned?

If it is manned, it won't be for long when it re enters the atmosphere.

[ol' boy]

If it is manned, it won't be for long when it re enters the atmosphere.

Stirfry ?

[mandc]

Stirfry ?

Hot pot.

[ol' boy]

No.34 Changs Sizzling Beef with Asian Noodles

[gordon_s1942]

I would think any debris even as small as a match head coming down Red Hot at whatever terminal velocity is would be sufficient to cause major harm if it hit anybody let along a chunk weighing a 100 kgs !!!
I hope the damage field is all around where that chowder head lives who stated it wont cause widespread damage.

[lsemmens]

I'd think that the Chinese station is manned and they are looking for a cheap way to bring them home.......

[enf]

I would think any debris even as small as a match head coming down Red Hot at whatever terminal velocity is would be sufficient to cause major harm if it hit anybody let along a chunk weighing a 100 kgs !!!
I hope the damage field is all around where that chowder head lives who stated it wont cause widespread damage.

Remember Skylab? The odds of ANYTHING hitting anyone are miniscule, but it would be terminal if it did.

[Uncle Fester]

it might go through someone’s roof, like if a flap fell off a plane, but it is not widespread damage.”

That is a load of crock.

The metal will melt together to a very dense form with a much higher terminal velocity than a hollow aircraft flap.
It should go through the the roof and several wooden floors including unfortunate skulls as well.

[trash]

Damn shame because they were just about to send a manned mission to it in the next week or two.
I'm guessing they were probably making some corrections to the station with maneuvering thrusters and it's got out of control.
This is what happened to Neil Armstrong with Gemini when it they were docking with the Agena target.

I would think any debris even as small as a match head coming down Red Hot at whatever terminal velocity is would be sufficient to cause major harm if it hit anybody let along a chunk weighing a 100 kgs !!!
I hope the damage field is all around where that chowder head lives who stated it wont cause widespread damage.

So there is a few things to consider with this scenario.
The first thing is that anything small burns up and vapourises, none of it makes it to the ground.
So big solid pieces are more likely to make it to the ground than small pieces.

The next thing to look at is the space station itself. Spacecraft are fragile things. They're not designed to drive on gravel roads, they just float in nothing.
The only rough ride they get is on the way up for 5 minutes. This is like a train ride from Central to Redfern.

Spacecraft by their nature need to be light and minimalist. They don't have much strength because they don't need it.
So when they start to experience rapid deceleration from the friction of re-entry they break apart quite quickly.
Think of it like this.... a storm passes over your house and the windspeed is 15,000kph. How many 'big' pieces are left? Not a lot.

The pieces that do make it into the troposhere will be slowed down to about 150kph. Certainly still enough to ruin your day if you're this by something.
However as mentioned, the odds are rather small.

The surface area of the earth is about 510 trillion square metres. You occupy approximately one of those.
If say 1000 pieces make it to the surface and each one of those averages a square metre then your odds of being hit are still 510 billion to 1.

The mothership from close encounters of the third kind could have a power failure and you're still better than 1 billion to 1