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This deals with current events, but it also relates to space history.
A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.
Disabled spy satellite threatens Earth The story mentioned what has happened in the past when uncontrolled satellites fall back to earth:
The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia.In 2000, NASA engineers successfully directed a safe de-orbit of the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, using rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.
Due to the nature of the one due to hit earth in the next few months, I wonder what the U.S. government's response will be. Say it hits somewhere in the middle of the Mexican desert, or in the mountains of Peru, or whatever they have out in Bulgaria....do you think the U.S. will send a covert team in to recover it? Enter into diplomatic negotiations to retrieve it? In all likelihood, though, I'd say it will fall into the ocean.
