Space Station Crew Prepares to Dump Space Junk
According to this Environmental News Network story, NASA plans to dump 1,600 pounds of obsolete equipment into the Earth’s atmosphere during a spacewalk starting Monday. NASA managers no longer need a 1,400 pound tank of ammonia used for the old cooling system and a 212 pound camera stand, and they believe that these devices will burn up when released as “space junk.”
“The discarded equipment is expected to remain in space for at least 300 days before friction from crashing into atmospheric particles drags them into the atmosphere. The camera stand is expected to burn up completely, but chunks of the ammonia tank as heavy as 39 pounds could survive re-entry and fall to Earth. NASA said that while the debris is most likely to land in an ocean, there is about a 1 in 5,000 chance it will hit a populated area.”
The story makes no reference to the potential environmental impact of dumping this much ammonia into the Earth’s atmosphere (forgetting the smell, one must consider the health risks posed); the idea of a 39 pound chunk of metal potentially landing on a building is probably scary enough. At least we can all look forward to an “Ammonia Borealis” in the near future.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
rvearthaid
posted on September 7th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
THIS IS FOR “EARTH 911″, AND PERHAPS, SPECIFICALLY, “TREY GRANGER”, AUTHOR OF SPACE DEBRIS ARTICLE, ABOUT SPACE STATION, TO DISCARD JUNK – “AMMONIA”.
I WISH YOU, TO EVALUATE, THIS COMMUNICATION, AS A POSSIBLE ALERT, FOR DISSEMINATION, THROUGH YOUR NETWORK (EARTH 911). IT IS MY OPINION, THAT THIS AMMONIA TANK DUMPING, WILL RESULT IN A FISSURE, OF THE TANK, WHILE STILL, HIGH, IN SPACE, WHERE THE AMMONIA WILL BLEED OUT, AND THE RESULTING SOLID WILL FURTHER, ACCRETE, TO AN ASTOUNDINGLY, MUCH LARGER MASS, SOMETHING APPROXIMATING, THE SIZE OF A LARGE, 18 WHEEL SEMI-FREIGHTLINER TRUCK, OF ROUGHLY, 165,000 #’S, AND MAY STRIKE EARTH, IN THE AREA, OF SAN DIEGO BAY, SAN DIEGO, CA., S. OF LA JOLLA, WITH, GREAT, EXPLOSIVE DETONATION, IN LOWER, ATMOSPHERE, WITH FRAGMENTATION PIECE, ALSO, STRIKING NEAR LA JOLLA, CA.. IT IS BELIEVED, A SIZEABLE AMOUNT, OF DESTRUCTION WILL OCCUR. THE EXPLOSIVE NATURE OF SOLID AMMONIA, HEATED, TO POINT OF FLASH, SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED, FOR TYPES OF BY-PRODUCTS AND MEASURE OF FORCE. IT IS MY OPINION, THAT THIS SOLID, KNOWN BY ITS RARE, OLD, NAME, “SPIRIT OF HARTSHORN”, LIKENS, THE MASS, TO AN AIPLANE, LIKE AS IN “SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS”,AND WITH THE ADDITION, OF HORN, IMAGES, A VEHICLE, EQUIPPED, WITH A HORN. BEING, OF THE SIZE ENVISIONED, IT IS EQUATEABLE, THEN, TO A FLYING TRUCK. I HAVE BEEN ADVISED TO CALL 911.
THANK YOU.
VERY, SINCERELY,