The crew of the international space station had a close call with space junk, the Associated Press reports.
The three astronauts took refuge for 11 minutes Thursday in a Russian escape capsule before returning inside. Officials were worried that the space station might get hit with a piece of space junk.
NASA says the debris was a small piece of an old spacecraft motor and it was passing within three miles of the station.
The piece measured less than an inch but tiny pieces of debris could cause a fatal loss of air pressure in the station. NASA says it isn’t the first time they’ve sent the station crew into the capsule for safety.
There are two Americans and one Russian aboard the space station.
(Source: Associated Press)
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4 Responses
This is what comes from a global culture that is more concerned about short term benefit (not having to worry about space debris when the debris was being created) than long term detriment (debris damages space ships, sooner or later).
Same principle guided American automakers and most of the world’s banks. Arguably, it is the underlying ideology of secular culture (enjoy yourself in this world and don’t worry about what comes next).
Do they have any sort of escape shuttle up there in case something happens?
What if the piece hits the capsule?
dear shor yoshuv guy ( a lantsman) if you do the math then you will quickly figure out the catastrophic consequences of even a 1 mg projectile colliding at mach 25 (will rip through anything and cause an explosion like a major bomb) now if you take a 2 kg piece of space junk and it collides then you are looking at something like a atomic bomb.
ps to no 1 space junk is unavoidable and it eventually comes back down to earth and burs up on its way.