While the Chinese missile is wandering space, sparking a wave of anticipation and cynicism, many may not know that in the past 50 years the world has witnessed similar incidents such as the fall of the Skylab station in Australia and the Soviet satellite Kosmos 945 in Canada. Which was containing a very dangerous nuclear reactor.
While social media users make fun of the Chinese missile, some of them went out hoping that it would fall over the Renaissance Dam to solve the problem of Egypt and Sudan.
Despite the funnyness of security, the chances of space components falling on vital installations or populated residential areas or causing deaths - even if they are slight - increase day after day whenever a person launches a satellite, missile or space station to orbit around the Earth.
The more components swim in space, the more likely their waste will fall over our heads (Shutterstock)
The infamous Chinese missiles
Although the Chinese missile is the latest space component that has caused global concern due to its out of control, it is not the first and it will not be the last.
The thrust surrounding it is its heavy weight of 20 tons and the unpredictability of where it will fall.
Perhaps we should compare Chinese missile technology and its bad reputation for falling and straying into space before its fall, with SpaceX rockets, which return to their bases safely and very accurately without causing the slightest crisis.
There is no doubt that China suffers from a fatal technological deficiency in the field of missile control, and has a well-known bad reputation in this field.
Less than a year ago, in a near-identical scenario, the same missile - "Long March 5B" - fell to the ground on May 13, 2020 after passing directly over Los Angeles and Central Park in New York City before landing in the ocean. Atlantic, but some parts of it have fallen in Ivory Coast, West Africa.
The irony is that the missile, which weighed 18 tons, was described as the largest piece of space debris to fall on Earth, because the same description was launched on this year's version of the missile, which this time weighs 20 tons.
The approximate location of the fall of the Chinese missile near New Zealand according to expectations (Aerospace Authority)
The fall of Skylab in Australia
The Chinese missile will certainly not be the last space component to spiral out of control and cause anticipation;
The Chinese missile incident preceded many historical accidents in which space debris fell to Earth, but it was not as dangerous or as heavy as the Chinese missile.
As a report by The Conversation indicates, one of the most famous of these incidents is the fall of the American space laboratory "Skylab", which was launched in 1973 with the aim of exploring the universe and as a platform for scientific research and experiments in space.
After 6 years of flying in orbit around the Earth, it derailed and began a rapid and unexpected descent towards Earth, which received great attention from the international media around the world.
Skylab in space before its fall (NASA)
As is the case with the current state of anticipation about the harbingers of the location and time of the Chinese missile, the "Skylab" fall was surrounded by a great media momentum, so that a NASA official testified in the US Congress that the probability of the vehicle hitting a person equals 1 to 152%.
On July 12, 1979, the components of the US "Skylab" space laboratory, which weighed 77 tons, were disintegrated and parts were scattered over Western Australia around the city of "Esperance" on the southern coast of Australia.
The news was met with enthusiasm and fun, and many of these fallen pieces from space were picked up by space amateurs.
Certainly 40 years ago, technological pieces rarely fell from space.
Pieces from the Skylab space laboratory are on display at a local museum in Western Australia (James Shrimpton - Social Media)
Prize money
It is interesting at the time that the fall of the Skylab was surrounded by the same atmosphere filled with anticipation and excitement around the world that held its breath, so that the newspaper "San Francisco Examiner" ("The San Francisco Examiner") offered a prize of $ 10 thousand (a huge amount by the standards of that time) for the first time Someone comes to her office with a piece of the station.
When 17-year-old Stan Thornton learned of this award, he boarded the first plane to the United States with a bag full of space debris that landed in his front yard.
The funny thing is that the cost of his trip was funded by the Perth radio station, and he was barely able to obtain a passport and obtain a visa, so that he did not carry any clothes with him.
One of the famous stories related to the accident of the Skylab fall is that the city council of "Esperance" issued a fine of $ 400 against NASA due to the "garbage" caused by the station's waste, and an American radio station collected enough money to pay the fine, which became one of the novelties surrounding the fall of Skylab.
An oxygen tank from the components of the "Skylab" station that was found by the couple Pauline and Jeff Gruard in 1993 (Jeff Gruard - Social Media)
Nuclear satellites
Every satellite orbiting the Earth has a lifetime, and after it has accomplished its mission or mission, it is deliberately and controlled to be taken out of its orbit to ascend to higher orbits that burn in the upper atmosphere, and small parts of it that collide with the Earth.
And like the Chinese missile that has gone out of control, there are satellites that malfunction and fall to the ground unexpectedly, threatening human and animal lives and causing environmental pollution.
Imagine if one of these satellites had an active nuclear reactor inside it!
During the Cold War period, both the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia) launched dozens of nuclear-powered satellites into space.
During the period from 1959 to 1988, the United States launched 41 satellites orbiting the Earth to form the "Transit" system, which was the first satellite navigation system before GPS, and a few of them were powered by nuclear energy.
A picture of one of the moons of "Nimbus" (NASA)
What is disturbing is that these satellites, although they are no longer working, are still in their orbits roaming the Earth's sky while they are still carrying their nuclear reactors inside them, and you can imagine if a Chinese missile or any other space piece, for example, collided with one of them or that one of them went out of its path and fell on Earth for any reason.
During the period from 1964 to 1978, the United States launched another 7 nuclear-powered satellites within the Nimbus program, to help climate and weather scientists study the Earth's climate, climate change, the ozone layer and sea ice, and of these seven satellites there are still Two satellites in their orbits around the Earth.
The Soviet Union, in turn, began launching nuclear satellites into space in 1965, and over the next 22 years, more than 30 satellites were launched, each containing a nuclear reactor within it to operate its various machines and components.
Most of these satellites were intended for reconnaissance or, rather, to spy on ships and submarines of the US Navy.
And since these satellites use radar to monitor marine traffic, and because the radar signal loses its energy quickly with the length of the distance, these satellites had to be placed in low orbit.
Searching for Nuclear Space Waste (Nevada National Security - Social Media)
But that, in turn, meant the presence of air resistance during the orbiting of the satellites around the Earth, and this resistance, in turn, prevents the use of large solar panels, making nuclear energy almost the only practical option.
Most of the nuclear reactors in these nuclear satellites are powered by highly enriched fuel of uranium-235, a level of enrichment comparable to nuclear weapons, so that the reactors are fast, efficient and powerful.
Although the nuclear reactors were in a separate unit that would be thrown into the orbits of the upper atmosphere at the end of the satellite's work so as not to cause radioactive pollution, the winds do not always come with what ships desire, especially when it comes to planning space missions, just as the Soviet Union - like China Has a bad reputation for nuclear failures.
The nuclear bomb that fell from the sky
The Soviet Union launched the Cosmos 954 satellite on September 18, 1977, to orbit the Earth at an altitude of between 259 and 277 kilometers every 90 minutes, carrying 50 kilograms of uranium-235 on board.
A piece of the Russian Cosmos 954 satellite in the middle of the ice (Library and documentary archive in Canada - social media)
Within weeks, the satellite began to vibrate in its orbit, foretelling its failure, and everyone knew that the end of its short life had become inevitable.
While the Soviet operators were trying to control the satellite, which started its downward journey faster than expected, matters got worse by the failure of the system that was supposed to launch the nuclear reactor into a safe orbit.
In a rare gesture of assuming responsibility, the Soviet Union quickly notified the United States of America and all nations located directly on the satellite's path of potential radioactive contamination.
In a series of secret meetings with the United States, Soviet Union officials provided all the details regarding the nuclear reactor inside Cosmos 954. In turn, the United States warned its NATO partners and offered assistance to remove any potential radioactive contamination.
On January 24, 1978, Cosmos 954 entered the atmosphere and crashed over Canada, and the waste was scattered in an uninhabited area along a 600-kilometer path from Great Slave Lake to Bakker Lake, including parts of the Northwest Territories.
The search and cleaning process resulted in the discovery of 65 kilograms of satellite pieces, all of which were radioactive except for one large piece.
A piece of the Russian Cosmos 954 satellite (Canada Science and Technology Museum - Social Media)
The next search and cleaning operation cost Canada approximately 14 million Canadian dollars, and the United States of America in turn spent 2.5 million dollars, bringing the total to about 16.5 million dollars and a half.
Although Canada only asked the Soviet Union to pay 6 million Canadian dollars, the Soviet Union paid only half of it.
It is a pleasant fate that Cosmos 954 did not fall on the city of Toronto or Quebec, otherwise the radioactive waste would have forced the Canadian government to carry out large-scale evacuations of residents from these cities.