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Satellite Headed for Frenchman's House
By
Michael
An out-of-use International satellite is expected to fall into
the atmosphere, with pieces surviving re-entry predicted to hit
Jean-luc Dugelay's house of Montpellier, France at approximately
11:30 p.m. EST on March 20th, 2002. The estimated debris field is
expected to be 20 to 50 meters wide.
Above:
Dugelay receives news of the imminent destruction of his house,
now 120 years old. |
Dugelay, obviously panicked and shaken when notified of the news
said (translated) "Sheet! My house! My grandfather built zis
house vis ees bare 'ands! Who zee hell ees responsible?"
"[Debris] should mostly land in Dugelay's kitchen, with probably
the fragments of solar panels shredding into his lounge room,"
Bob Jenkins of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told 4BG. The
prediction is not hard and fast, because atmospheric drag on the
satellite will spread its reign of deadly fireballs into an ongoing
bombardment lasting several hours."
"Several fuckeeng 'ours?!?" added Dugelay, "You
fuckeeng scienteest pigs! You vill fix zis now!!!"
The satellite is the International 7,000-pound Extreme Ultraviolet
Explorer (EUVE). On Tuesday it was orbiting at 200 kilometers (124
miles) above the Earth with a descent rate of 25 kilometers (15.5
miles) a day. The satellite will start to break up when it falls
to within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the Earth. At that point,
the spacecraft will have only four or five 90-minute orbits left
before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and pulverising Dugelay's
house into oblivion.
Above:
Jenkins relaxes with colleagues at an informal lunch meeting. |
Jenkins, the EUVE mission director at Goddard, said up to nine
pieces of the craft have a chance of reaching Dugelay's underground
garage rather than completely burning up in the atmosphere. The
components weighed between four and 100 pounds at the time the satellite
was built, although the friction of re-entry should reduce their
mass.
"There'll definitely be enough debris to shred a fully grown
cow into a ground pile of tepid fat and bone," Jenkins added.
"Stop fuckeeng ignoreeng me! Vat am I going to do?" replied
Dugelay, "my cheeldren! Vere vill vee live?!? For ze love of
god!"
The satellite was launched on June 7, 1992. Science operations
ended for the spacecraft in December 2001. It was first operated
from Goddard, until being turned over in 1997 to International hands
- its ownership now distributed between several prominent universities
and research institutes. Slated for only three years of use, Dugelay
never could have predicted the satellite would land on his house.
Jenkins, calmly smoking a pipe, said that the satellite's re-entry
presents difficulties because the spacecraft lacks a propulsion
system that would allow it to be manouvered away from Dugelay's
house, and in fact French suburbia altogether.
"This'll be less frequent as satellites tend to get smaller,"
he said, "and if the satellites have propulsion systems, it
will soon be a mission requirement that they're able to have a controlled
re-entry. We'll treat this one as an experiment. Let's just enjoy
the show, shall we Dugelay? Stop being such a cry baby. Honestly,
you French folk." Jenkins proceeded to acquire a beer from
his fridge and remove the ring-pull.
Dugelay then proceeded to turn red and expel a variety of colorful
French expletives aimed at Jenkins.
"Vy von't you leesten? No-vun ees takeeng responsibilitee!
You can't just ignore me!"
Dugelay claims he has called NASA on several occasions, only to
be put on hold for hours and then disconnected.
Anyone who remembers high-school science classes or Hollywood disaster
movies will recall tales of relatively small meteroids that smashed
into Earth's surface and left devastating craters seemingly out
of proportion to their size. Jenkins stated these films were "nothing
compared to what we're going to see on March 20th."
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