This refers to the recent incident of presumably meteorite impact near Vellore in Tamil Nadu State, India, and supposedly first ever human causality due to meteorite(?) fall.
Knowing the quantum of space junk and their uncontrollable nature, nobody could write-off the plausibility of reentry of such materials into the atmosphere. If so, as they are nobody's child and also no country would own up their mess (as it may fix the anus of clearing the mess squarely on them and may also expose their mischief/incapability in space craft prowess) that in turn may warrant moral-monetary compensation. Nobody will own up their mistake, should the space junk was the source of the impacting materials. Should space junk was the source of the impacting material, Who is to be blamed? Who has to monitor? Who will fix the responsibility?
Probably nobody will be responsible until a regulation will be established by United Nations.
As it emerges, national and international space research organizations are showing undue interest in the incident and provide conflicting views, which enhance Spae the possibility of space-junk related cause for the incident. In this circumstance, and for the matter, what sort of teeth the United Nations will have in regulating the space junk? We all know how effective the strictures and directives or the apex body of UN (the Security Council) are: especially with the so called rogue nations. If this is the case, when it comes to the dirty linens of the "Elite" , space club nations, how can we expect actions from UN? In India, we have a general tendency - leave it to the fate; be it an isolated incident or a calamity.
It is the responsibility of the Government as in case of other natural calamities.
Basically, the issue is handled by the UN Outer Space Treaty and relating regulations, which are binding for all space faring nations. However, attribution of the specific space junk to the original and obliged owner can be difficult. Thus and in the worst case, victims will not be compensated unless the causator has been identified. This is at least morally unfair and could be only healed by the reverse of burden of proof.
That is the precise reason, I was airing my concern Stephan Lingner. Perhaps, we, those involved in geoscience-space research should air voice at appropriate forums
Hi,
The Piece of a meteorite found at the private engineering college in Vellore that led to one person's dead had nothing to do with UN or any government. The space rock came from outer space, which does not belong to any body or government on Earth, was big enough to survive the Earth atmosphere. The small space junk and debris circling above the Earth atmosphere will eventually burn out dust during re-entry. The bigger and identified ones like old satellites were used by the countries as target practices during re-entry, like the US 193 and the Chinese Fungyun 1c. That generated more space junk in space, but cannot kill anyone on Earth.
Again, meteorite or any space rock has nothing to do with UN or any government.
I fully agree with your view that meteorite and resultant human causality had nothing to do with UN. My question is, given cognizance to the enormity of space junks and their chances of entering into the atmosphere and landing on the earth's surface. My question is, If and when they fall, who is responsible ? What is our roles as scientists to save our own ilk - the mankind?
Hi,
I worked on tracking and cataloging satellites and space debris for about 10 years. Whenever an object re-enter Earth, it will fragment into dust by the atmospheric friction and heat. That is why early Apollo spacecraft and the Space Shuttles have heat shields against heating over 3000F during re-entry. It does not matter how many pieces of space junk up there, the atmosphere will "eat" them up.
The space rock that survived the atmosphere became a small meteorite that killed a person in Vellore had to be hundreds of times bigger. A big space junk circling around the Earth would have been easily detected and cataloged long ago, since we have been cataloging for over 50 years. In other words, small space junk cannot survive the atmospheric heating and therefore the resulting dust cannot kill anyone on the surface of the Earth.
We should worry about the fighting in Syria that may lead to the third world war. In my opinion, only human can destroy mankind.
Yes, Only human can destroy mankind and we dont need any other to kill ourselves. Well said Gim Der!!
During my lectures on evolutionary trends, I used to tell my students that the biotic history is replete with proliferation, extinction and dwindling of population and diversity. In the geobiological history, whenever major extinction/depletion occurred, it was due to major natural event (either instantaneous and or incremental stress), to which the organisms that were existent were not able to cope with. Successive newer organisms either developed capability to escape from or cope with such events except cataclysmic ones. Under no circumstance organisms themselves never became the reason for their own demise/extinction. We, the humans, being so intellectual than all other species, are CAPABLE OF DECIMATING OURSELVES and we need no extraneous reasons/causes.
I must insist: space activities may even cause dangerous fall-backs, depending upon the limited effectivity of the break-up process during re-entry. For instance the Soviet Cosmos accident produced litter which crashed luckily into remote areas of North America - however poisening the regional environment with radioactive particles ... So there is a residual risk, which should not be ignored.
Remember the Skylab fallout in the 70's? how much stress and terror it has created in the minds of people, even during the Print-Age media. What could have been the fear instilled in this digital media era, should such threat emerge ?
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