More wikipedia humor
So, as you might remember, I'm a huge wikipedia addict. It is like crack for the trivia geek in me. And the knowledge vampire. One of my interests is atmospheric reentry, like the physics of bouncing off the atmosphere, verus burning up in it, versus making it through alive (which requires a much slower speed than we use, for some reason I haven't been able to ever nail down.)
Anyway, the point is, I was reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_reentry and way down the article there's this section:
In 1979, Skylab reentered uncontrolled, spreading debris across the Australian Outback, damaging several buildings and killing a cow.[citation needed] The re-entry was a major media event largely due to the Cosmos 954 incident, but not viewed as much as a potential disaster since it did not carry nuclear fuel. The city of Esperance, Western Australia, issued a fine for littering to the United States, which was finally paid 30 years later (not by NASA, but by a privatelly collected funds from radio listeners).[43] NASA had originally hoped to use a Space Shuttle mission to either extend its life or enable a controlled reentry, but delays in the program combined with unexpectedly high solar activity made this impossible.[citation needed]
That just cracks me up.
Anyway, the point is, I was reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_reentry and way down the article there's this section:
In 1979, Skylab reentered uncontrolled, spreading debris across the Australian Outback, damaging several buildings and killing a cow.[citation needed] The re-entry was a major media event largely due to the Cosmos 954 incident, but not viewed as much as a potential disaster since it did not carry nuclear fuel. The city of Esperance, Western Australia, issued a fine for littering to the United States, which was finally paid 30 years later (not by NASA, but by a privatelly collected funds from radio listeners).[43] NASA had originally hoped to use a Space Shuttle mission to either extend its life or enable a controlled reentry, but delays in the program combined with unexpectedly high solar activity made this impossible.[citation needed]
That just cracks me up.