NASA has criticised China for allowing its Long March rocket to crash back to Earth completely uncontrolled, putting lives at risk.
“That’s kind of the equivalent of dropping three pick-up trucks on somebody’s head or crashing a small aeroplane.“I usually use this as like winning the lottery. The odds that you will win the lottery tonight are really low – I’ll bet my pay cheque you will not win the lottery. I won’t make the bet that no one will win the lottery. That’s a different bet.”
In China’s case, he pointed out that the last uncontrolled re-entry which occurred was also of a Chinese rocket, questioning whether they should have “learnt their lesson” after that. “This is the second largest uncontrolled re-entry in the last couple of decades. The previous one was the previous version of this launch last May and that one rained pieces down in Eastern Africa and did some damage, I believe.“Most people thought they would have learnt their lesson and not done it again. But apparently they have.“The question that people have asked is, did they not plan for this, and if not, why not. But the Chinese haven’t said.
“I think this speaks to the fact that for those of us who operate in the space domain … there should be a requirement to operate in a safe and thoughtful mode,” he said.China certain space junk posed no risk In the lead-up to the re-entry of the debris, China was adamant it would pose no risk to human population., reported the Long March 5B rocket would land in international waters. It added that reports that the rocket was “out of control” and could land in an inhabited area were “hype”.
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