Space @lemmy.world Lee Duna @lemmy.nz 6 mo. ago

Watch a Chinese rocket booster fall from space and explode near a house in southern China

www.livescience.com Watch a Chinese rocket booster fall from space and explode near a house in southern China

Two rocket boosters used in a Chinese satellite launch on Dec. 25 fell back to Earth and exploded near inhabited areas, chilling videos show.

17 comments

They should have set it up to land in the ocean, outside the environment.
- TIL the ocean is outside the environment
  
  I guess you haven’t gotten to see this video yet. Congratulations, it’s your lucky day.
  
  Someone hasn't seen the video
  
  It’s where sharks survive without fins.
All that orange smoke indicates it had hypergolic fuel onboard, which is toxic
- It's not just toxic, it's incredibly toxic... the threshold for toxicity is below human sensitivity, i.e. if you can smell it, it's already too late. It's also flammable/explosive, poisonous, carcinogenic, catches fire without a spark, has no surface tension so it spreads faster than water, and it's generally the single most dangerous chemical known to man. In the words of Isaac Asimov:
  
  anyone working with rocket fuels is outstandingly mad. I don't mean garden-variety crazy or a merely raving lunatic. I mean a record-shattering exponent of far-out insanity.
  
  That's Hydrazine. The other liquid propellant, nitrogen tetroxide, which causes the signature red clouds, is slightly (!) less hazardous. It will still readily kill you. It's odd to see in the twitter photo that there was a fuming red cloud during takeoff, which suggests a problem with the burn ratios. Absolutely zero propellant should be allowed to pass unspent into the air, from engineering, safety and environmental perspectives.
  
  They’re using the stuff the Soviets called Devil’s Venom and just letting it slam back into the earth with unburned chemicals?
  
  IIRC Hydrazine is generally only used, or was used as the RCS thrust fuel for the Apollo program. You know, outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.
They just don't care about their citizens.
Wow, they do not give a fuck.

At least the US has rules and regulations. Even shit like Starlink needs to have a designed re-entry or burn-up plan.

I can't imagine dropping fuel tanks over a populated area, or just not caring enough to redirect it in some way.
Didn't see a video on the site.
- Had to look for it as well, hit "See More" below the Twitter/Xitter post.
  
  Or the post link here. https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1739684413644972475

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