I understand that the People’s Republic of China labors under the limitation of a third-rate political and economic ideology, but really, orbital mechanics are hardly new: “China launched the first module for its space station into orbit late Wednesday, but the mission launcher also reached orbit and is slowly and unpredictably heading back to Earth.” One does hope that it doesn’t land on anything populated.
But hoping is all I can do, mind you. Given that it wasn’t us that imprudently put a twenty-one ton hunk of metal in an unstable orbit, and all that. I mean, you can’t expect the oceans to always cover for an inability to do complicated math right…
(Via Instapundit)
Moe Lane
PS: Damn right I’m being snide. Like a large hunk of the planet, I’m currently in a potential impact zone: “The Long March 5B core stage’s orbital inclination of 41.5 degrees means the rocket body passes a little farther north than New York, Madrid and Beijing and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand, and could make its reentry at any point within this area.
Skylab, baby!
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Okay, we mostly got that one into the Indian ocean ..
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Mew
Orbital artillery is *also* not a new science. I know incompetence is usually the answer to such a thing, but also not always. They *are* commies after all.
Hey, this would be a good chance for the US to show off its anti-satellite laser and missile programs.
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What do you mean we don’t have those? I was promised anti-satellite lasers and missiles! How are we going to deal with the Eatees when they come if we don’t have good anti-orbital weapons?
To be fair, if we did have those, I wouldn’t tell us about them either.
Peking is also under the gun?
It would totally be a shame if cosmic karma took a hand.
(A shame for the slave-subjects. The regime, OTOH…)