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Have you ever thought about space debris and wondered whether or not it can be controlled or what happens if that debris lands on your property? There are millions of pieces of space debris surrounding our Earth from old satellites all the way down to flecks of paint, but when it comes to objects making it to the ground we only need to worry about the really large pieces (since the small ones will burn up in the atmosphere). In many ways, some space fans even see debris falling near them as lucky instead of unlucky. Want to know why? In this video I'm talking about Space Debris; what it is, how it can (or can't) be controlled and what happens when it hits the ground.
Short on time? No problem. Feel free to skip ahead in this video using the chapter links below.
00:00 Let's Talk About Space Debris
00:48 SpaceX Space Debris Recovery
01:36 The Dangers of Space Debris
03:48 How We Track Space Debris
04:49 Who Owns Space Debris?
06:32 Has Anyone Been Hit by Space Debris?
Enjoy this video and interested in seeing more? Let me know in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe!
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Dr Brad Tucker - / drbradtucker
ABC News Aus - / newsonabc
Starship Gazer - / starshipgazer
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References:
primalnebula.com/the-space-de...
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Music used in this video:
» Lights In The Abyss - Serge Pavkin Music
» Lemon Drops ft. Jacquire King - Stephan Sharp
» Solar Flare - I think I Can Help You
» Pond Life - Jamie West-Oram
» Lie On The Tracks - Trout Recording
» See You - Maxzwell
» Cloud Wheels Castle Builder - Puddle Of Infinity
Credits:
Written and edited by Ewan Cunningham ( / ewan_cee )
Narrated by: Beau Stucki (beaustucki.com/)
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#SpaceX #SpaceDebris #SpaceTreaty
Let's do something fun! Who lives closest to the piece of debris in Australia? Where you at? - Shoutout to Ground News for making this video possible, check it out here: ground.news/primal
Damn ground news looks pretty good ngl, also I’m Australian lol but on the east coast
Um it was in New south whales right next to the snowy mountains
Speaking of that. Pretty sure the US had to pay Australia when Skylab came down
Pretty cool that ground news, I live in South West Vic!
5 comments? *let me fix that*
Imagine suddenly hearing a loud bang while sleeping so you wake up only to find that there’s a rocket fuel tank in your room
Right?! Talk about a stressful morning.
What's inside, kerosene or hydrazine? well, I guess in the latter case there'll be no wakeup.
The inside is liquid oxygen and kerosene oh also let’s say there is probably no “wake up”…
@@WinWin-pz9wq Hey, we pay big bills just to survive through the winter and here comes three years' supply of fuel. Let lox evaporate, and enjoy the fortune. Anyway, much safer than storing trucked gas in underground tanks.
God damn it. I can't even turn my back for 2 seconds before a second stage to liquid fuel booster crashes through my ceiling
Fun fact: NASA was fined $400 for littering by the Shire of Esperance for Skylab re-entering. They never paid until a radio host did it for them.
Very interesting! I'll have to look that one up!
How to sum up NASA in two sentences. Expensive enough to take on the mission. Too cheap to clean it up after.
AND IT KILLED A COW!
@@geronimo5537 Heh, so exactly like SpaceX!
People need to clean up after themselves... *even in space!* 😂
Nah, Elon senpai doesn't have to clean up his mess. His mess makes me happy.
*low earth orbit
I can agree with this.
It’s not possible
@@ethan.salazar4092 - Give me a solution then.... *if you even have one.*
I was really hoping you were going to cover the cow that was killed in Cuba when a piece of a US rocket fell on it. The incident made it so that no US rocket ever flew over Cuba again until SpaceX got permission to start again a few years back. Great video btw!
Omg yes I've heard about that! Poor cow 😥
they just restarted flying over Cuba again, but they're mandating automated FTS systems, so only Falcon 9 can fly that trajectory for now
@@1224chrisng I didn't think that flight actually happened yet. I thought it was given a different trajectory a couple days before launch and they never came back to it.
@@dr4d1s they did plenty now, mostly Starlinks, look up the Polar Corridor
@@1224chrisng thanks for that, i appreciate you taking the time to answer. I guess I didn't realize the polar corridor flew over cuba. I thought that was what the dog leg was for, to avoid it. TIL.
If the ownership of the space debris is automatic to the builder, then the responsibility of removing it and cleaning it up should also go to the builder.
That's also the case, lol.
The bill goes to SpaceEx if the local authorities clean up
Exactly but they write laws to suit their profit. Imagine a scenario where the debris is of no use to them, the land owners owes the mess and when it has some data then they ll rush to show us the law if ownership, instead should be pay up basis
Once a spacecraft has been smashed into hundreds or thousands of fragments, how is their owner identified? And is it the owner's fault if a different owner's spacecraft impacted it?
I wonder if in the future, debris we left on celestial bodies like the moon and mars will be considered a historic site and space tourists could visit them and admire the remains of our long lost robotic pioneers.
I think the coolest thing would be to go and visit the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon. To be able to just walk around that would be endlessly fascinating!
@@primalspace yeah especially since it’s basically eternally preserved, those footprints will be there for at least a million years unless solar storms mess them up, it would be cool for tourists on the moon like 500 years from now to visit the Apollo 11 site and see it exactly how it was over 550 years earlier
Ironically, Apollo 12 (the second human moon landing) touched down within walking distance of the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft. So the astronauts got to see a "historic site", if you will. I think they might have even recovered stuff from it. Maybe someday humans will touch down on Mars, and be greeted by one of the rovers driving up to their camp!
@@thunderbird1921 it could be cool if they bring one of the rovers back to earth, obviously that would be kinda heavy though so maybe not
@@primalspace but won’t the footprints be distributed and erased if that happened? It’s not just all about flags and descent stages you know 😢
Wait so your telling me that when I get a random drop of rain on a clear summers day... that's actually Buzz Aldrin's urine?! I am blessed.
😂😂😂
That Soviet satellite that fell in northern Canada could have landed on the densely-populated US east coast had it done one more orbit. Thank goodness it landed in such a remote area.
Might've led to the end of the cold war.
@@captainjirk9564 with a new world war.
It was too close for comfort. I was out walking the dog that day, and it missed me by only 2,500 km. What a close shave!
I guess my favorite Space Moment was watching the Apollo 13 Splashdown, during School Hours. The Teachers shut down Classes and brought in the TVs. I was 10 at the time, but understood/knew more about the Mission than most of the Teachers.
Love this! So many moments like this watching in awe from school with friends and teachers. Very cool. Thank you for sharing.
When I was eight years old, my best friend and I promised each other that we would share Skylab if it fell in either of our yards. Alas, we did not acquire Skylab. On a related note, I recall reading a book about a group of friends that set out on a one year trek in the Northwest Territories. They canoed through the summer and built a crude log cabin for the winter. They were camped on a very remote inaccessible lake when fragments of Cosmos 954 crashed through the ice. They saw it land and investigated the site. They were shocked when they were suddenly scooped up by the Canadian military, flown back to civilization, tested for radiation poisoning, and then dumped back in the wilderness. If anyone knows the name of this book, please tell me. I would love to read it again.
Its called Operation Morning Light!
@@stephenplayz8265 That's a book I'd like to read as well, thanks. But that was about the search. The book I'm looking for was written by a wilderness adventurer, who just happened to get scooped up in Operation Morning Light. Cheers.
Nice work, as always. Just for the record, the repeated shot of junk falling around the water tower is debris falling back to the pad it was launched from, albeit in the shape of a rocket.
My favorite space moment was the James Webb Space Telescope launch and watching the first images be revealed!
This is a thread about space debris.
@@imho2278 i was doing what he said to do to win the giveaway?
Somewhere among my late Father's photos is one of a piece of a rocket that fell in the bush of Zambia. We lived there at the time, Dad was a pilot flying in and out of remote places. The locals had this piece propped against a (?)tree. There was still visible parts of "USA" painted on it, which clearly shows on the photo. When NASA wanted the thing back, the locals wanted money, so NASA told them to bugger off and keep it!
Was he flying for MAF?
@@2degucitas ZFDS....Zambia flying doctor service. Right now I'm looking at the gift he received when he left them in 1972, up on my bookshelf!
What year was it?
@@dbh_ When it fell I couldn't say, but the photo was likely taken in 1969/70, possibly '71.
2:40 actually there is another case where NASA' got a $400 Littering Ticket For Skylab Debris in Australia
Yeah, but they didnt pay. A radio station did as a joke
@@maxpower7150 Still counts
Bits were sold off.
This might be the first time I've thought to myself "That GoPro needs therapy" lol
My favorite space moment was watching sn8 fly live when I had three streams open and I was freaking out and yelling! It was so awesome though!
I thought it would be forbidden to launch nuclear materials towards outer space. Great and informative video.
i am pretty sure the Story in the Video happened before these Agreements were made to limit their use and set safety standards. Also some Probes do use Nuclear Decay as Power Source, because its reliable over a long time in Environments where Solar Power is not feasible. The Perseverance Rover is a good and recent example of this.
An extra note on this incident - satellites with nuclear reactors are meant to eject the reactors into a graveyard orbit, where they will remain in space for thousands of years. This one failed to eject.
Deep space satellite use radioactive decay waste heat as their heat source. Launch vehicles have a much higher safety requirement than other launches.
specifically nuclear weapons aren't allowed to be put in orbit, nuclear material is used for many missions where solar panels wouldn't be effective, since the radioactive decay produces waste heat which can be turned into electricity, providing a constant supply for over 10,000 years
Thank you for the progress bar on your advertisement, very solid. Great video too!
Thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed the video!
Frozen space pee being categorized as space debris is not the info I wanted to know but here we are.
Great work! I love these channel!
Thanks Andrei!
Video suggestion: ESA's new SUSIE program
Saw a booster come down once. Just over 10 years ago now. We could tell from the speed and the shape that it was artificial. It didn't land anywhere near us, it down in the Atlantic judging by it's direction.
Cool
I studied space law back in my college and cover space debris for my final assigment journal... With amount of rocket launch into the space, its just surprising that is almost little to none mandatory requirment for any goverment or private entity to clean up after the end of satelite life, there is only orbital burn, and graveyard orbit... There is several space debris cleaning project but its really need support form International community, since by International law, the only one has right to do something about their debris is the Country that own the satelite...
Excellent video, thanks!
Thanks AJ!
The starship debris is a interesting case since it never went to space I don't think the OST applies, and since it wasn't government property, starship debris from sub orbital tests is finders keepers.
You might be right about that! But I can't help but feel SpaceX must still have a right in that scenario to get those pieces back
@@primalspace probably depends on airplanes debris law (which I don't know off the top of my head) since they were effectively experimental aircraft for those sub orbital hops. Edit: found this on Wikipedia about Aircraft Archeology (which seems relevant) "If an aircraft wreck, or the remains of any aviation property, is located on private land it is not automatically protected by any federal, state, or local law.." so yeah finders keepers seems to be the law of the land unless its a federal plane (including military) or under federal investigation for an aircrash.
I think thats an awesome sponsorship, for once it’s something I would use
I liked the new animations but the 2d photo animations with the smoke was the coolest part to me lol.
5:10 A small correction: it was actually part of the TRUNK attached to the Cargo/Crew Dragon capsule. This is where the solar panels and radiators are located, as well as the unpressurized cargo, and the fins help provide stability in the event of a launch abort.
I say and show that in the video
Smartest KZhead commenter.
@@primalspace You do say its part of the capsule which is where I think the confusion is from.
Awesome video
good video. I noticed your image shows NSW and you said the debris landed in Western Australia...
I'd say he may have crossed wires there,The pieces discovered in WA were of SkyLab at the end of the Apollo era.
You hit the nail on the head! My bad, I had written an extra bit in about Skylab but deleted 🤦♂️
They barely mention this awful situation on the news. I didn’t have any idea of how bad and dangerous it is. Thank you very much! 🙏🏻👍🏻👏🏻
And thank you for watching. I'm glad that you enjoyed the video.
Sounds pretty fair. If a company refuses to remove it, you either take ownership or have the city remove it for disposal and have them bill said company. Love to see the litigation on wrangling payment on those haul aways.
Haha for sure!
2:11 I like how they don't specify the temperature scale, because they don't have to.
If the ISS when it's scheduled to fall to earth in 2031 lands in my back garden, it's going on ebay!
I’ll place starting bid of 1K
If you still have a back garden. The cupola is big.
Very informative
🙏🙏
The country the debri falls on could look at it as a nuisance or a material gain, JUST hopefully no one got hurt or anything destroyed-- AND we should be looking to collect material just whipping up there in space, right in our zones. (if so, there should've been insurance for THIS)
Saw the remains of Skylab in the 70's that fell in Australia.
I have a broken, charred bolt that I assume is one of the exploding bolts they used to use in stage separation. My gramps found it when he was 28. It may not be what I think but it doesn't look like any other ordinary broken bolt.
Very good video, thanks! Just a minor nit-pik: you stated the debris was found in Western Australia, but then the map showed it landed in Eastern Australia.
Ground News is wonderful!
🎶 _Let's talk about space debris, let's talk about you and me! Let's talk about all the boosters and the rockets that may be!_ 🎶
Hahaha I wish I could give multiple "likes" to this comment. I'm going to be singing this all day now.
@@primalspace 😁
A shooting star might be an astronauts's digestive burrito.
Back in 1969 I was hit with a piece of the saturn rocket. It left a cut on my leg. It was still hot. I just dusted myself off and got back to work.
That woman... Can you imagine the chances of not only being hit by space debris, but also that it was a piece small and light enough that somehow survived reentry, but also didn't kill you so you can tell your family and friends about it? I think you would be more likely to win the lottery twice.
And think about how more likely that is to happen now 😱
I wish that in the future, we will return rocket stages (SpaceX and Blue Origin are already doing this) and find the way to return existing space debris from the orbit.
I hope so as well.
Starship could in theory do that.
great vid
I did enjoy this video
Another reason why SpaceX Starship is something to really looking forwards for than just another rocket that'll just go up into space and back, just hoping they'll make it a thing to make sure everything is not wasted away.
Agreed.
I got mentally stuck at “3 businessmen who were on a vacation”.
it is bcoz of u i become space fan
So cool 😁 welcome to space Daniel!
Space companies should have a debris buyback program
I'm Canadian and 60 years old and NEVER heard this before
collecting metal scraps from spaceships is some starscape drone hunting type shit
Space cleaner will be a good job in the future funded by all countries according to capacity , I remember an anime about Space which had a Debri section whose only job was to clear dangerous Leftovers in space
So true. I can absolutely see some version of this becoming a reality.
is there a straight trajectory for debris to fall? As in, a typical line of how the debris falls into the layers of atmosphere, via a "track", which is common amongst debris found? So then you roughly guesstimate the site to which debris falls? Or is it geographically common for your example of China?-send a rocket and it fails within said place of origin of launch? As I am just curious about round vs flat universe...and if "flat", then there would be a trajectory estimate-if launch is successful, no? And does insurance cover getting "struck by space debris"? Asking for a friend...
My Parents lived in Texas and had some pieces of Colombia land in their trees.
Who knew when space debris lands on your house and call it a museum.
0:29 just spotted Elon Musk with maraca's Nice one @Primal Space
Thanks
The SpaceX piece that landed in Australia was from the trunk, not the capsule.
I feel like space debris falling back down to Earth is the desired outcome when compared to how that same debris could rather be orbiting Earth and hitting spacecraft at tens of kilometres a second.
Six million dollars? That's just one Malibu house.
Debris from space is still owned by… the owners. It’s no different than a car or truck crashing into your house. You don’t suddenly own it just because it’s on your property.
That's what I said in the video!
@@primalspace why did the Boca Chica guy get to keep and sell Starship debris if SpaceX wanted it back?
@@ericy.2108 Spacex probably didn't want to sue him, especially considering they already have hundreds of pieces to analyse
That is probably untrue in most jurisdictions.
Space x doesn’t need that piece of metal washed to shore, you should ship it to your house and keep it in your basement (jk I’m glad I got to see that awesome shot of it coming back to earth)
A huge amount of that liability is gonna end up on Space X I'm assuming
They deal in rockets. I’m sure they can handle the liability.
You forgot about large chunks of Skylab falling in Western Australia when it was decommissioned.
And Australia fined NASA for ilegal trash dumping
Esperance fined NASA $400 for littering when that happened.
Constellation urine! Always wondered if some still orbited earth.
Finding a full fueltank ... nice !
People: “hey what do we do with this?” Government: “oh thats a old rocket part just let it either cook in the atmosphere or fall into the ocean” Fish: “beautiful day today, wait whats that thing in the sky. AHHH” *fish dies*
We were living in NWT, Canada, the searchers found radio active particles in my back yard!
Wow! Pretty wild!
Magnetic north focuses cosmic rays of how nuclear is essential for propulsion since even diborane fuel to condense oxidizer from air is still too limited,
I hear one video saying the tiny pieces are bad, due to the speed that might not be seen and can cause catastrophic damage to Satellites. I hear this video saying the big pieces are bad, because those are what make it back down to Earth.
The video was focused on what's bad for the people down here. And not spacecraft
The worst case scenario would be a piece of space junk taking out a passenger jumbo carrying a couple of hundred people.
Which then crashes into an office tower block, which then crumples onto the street, which then drops into the subway....
@@imho2278 Or falls on a nuclear silo then Russia attacks USA
Interesting that there was nothing recognizable on the "crater" allegedly left by Flight 93.
That is because there was no jet plane that crashed,anyone with a IQ over 70 can figure that out
Space debris is supposed to burn up on re-entry but that was always a belief especially in more recent times.
Funny thing is even when you have infinite amount of space you still have to clean up your after yourself
Favorite space moment is SpaceX starship.
7:42 is very misleading. The only piece of Starship SN11 that went 7km was not metal, but just a piece of lightweight insulation (the piece shown at 7:47). I have no idea what those other pieces were, but if they were from SN11, they were found in the fields just next to the launch area. In fact, the StarshipGazer footage of the large piece also shows orange tape on the right side, hinting that it was in or next to an area that was taped off to try to keep the public out, so obviously it was very close to the launch/landing area. Also, at 7:57 you mention heat shield tiles, but no Starship with heat shield tiles has flown yet, so that also isn't right.
we really need to build a small orbital vehicle that can go around collecting all the junk and pushing it down to earth for a more controlled and targeted descent. most of this stuff is orbiting for a year before it comes back down, plenty of time for a small remote craft to give it a nudge and yeet it towards an ocean rather than land.
Agreed. There must be a better way to manage our debris.
0:38 is the image that always puzzles my mind. How they manage to fool people to believing this is actually how this debris looks like is just crazy. You all know how vast the oceans are, how big the ships are but never even visible from space...and now you use this? Lol
I don't know where you obtained your photos of space objects around Earth, but they look as though they are from the 60s or early 70s since I have seen them in 1992 when working at NavSpaSur and the density was much thicker. All the objects (every one) is tracked by our space fence and their decay is tracked. Of course, that is the US, what China and Russia do, I have no idea. Advancements always have their caveats. Just think, it may not be a rocket piece that bonks you on the head. It may be a real meteorite. But is it yours at that point?
02:10 "The search team went out into the negative forty degree tundra" Fahrenheit or Celsius? (Just kidding 🤣)
If a piece of space junk landed in our garden, knowing my luck it would be a hydrazine tank, lol
Makes me think of a song "Space Junk" by DEVO!!!!!
1:00 how did they get the footage back? was it not being streamed? what would be the point of putting a camra on it if it wasnt gona be viewable and you werent planing on getting it back?
Kinda upbeat reporting on what will soon be common: space debris raining down on the world, with no thought of the consequences…
Really hoping to see more cleanup / retrieval efforts made in the future.
This is just a regular day in KSP for me
😂😂😂
If a rocket parks in my backyard, it's my rocket. If anyone wants to keep their parts, don't land on my property.
So up to which size will you keep?
@@imho2278 depends on the size that dropped
Space x definitely had burner ebay accounts to buy that 1k of debri back 😂 thats a small donation and they would have paid their workers more or a companu to return them
Not sure it landed in WA, I reckon it was on the East Coast,maybe NSW.
I saw the delta 2 rocket break up over oklahoma. It passed over our football game.
At what altitude?
I heard Rocket Lab (RKLB) was going to help clean up the space debris, but I wonder who will flip the bill.
Great now that piece of metal is gonna come down from space and spear me while im sleeping. New fear unlocked!
😅😅 sorry about that!
If you're Survive you can sell it to exotic Collectors
My MIT work on isotopic fueled spaceplanes could have solved such a problem since I can furnish a bibliography.
I will respond to post an entry of my MIT peer reviewed bibliography in your "When Russia leaves ISS" since it is most likely to be read by viewers.
I feel like there is some risk to space debris, but right now we really overreact to these risks, and instead of thinking about how to minimize it, we straight up make space exploration impossible. Especially in central europe right now we really lack any competition to companies like spaceX and our only space agency ESA is not even launching from europe.
more likely to have a government communications satellite fall as debri than anything else.
Well the US has the largest debt in the world. So right now it is absolutely fine that Europe does not waste the money they have on space exploration. There are manny problems right now that are more important. On a side note. While space debris falling back on earth are a problem. Actual space debris in earths orbit are much more dangerous. Manny of these debris are really fast and straight up smash through rockets and satellites / destroying them
Ethically if a piece of space debris fell over a country, the spacecraft's owner should cough up the cash if it wants to retrieve it. If I were the only one to ever retrieve it, I would absolutely sell it for cash.
Man that’s literally the smallest fraction of an issue to them..
The amount of crap we have left behind on the moon is just shocking. Humans are disgusting. "Ah, but it is PROGRESS!"
Who’s gonna complain that a small 5m square on the Moon has human trash? Definitely not the Moon people!
New Fear Unlocked: Being hit by a piece of space debri
They have the audacity to think that they are getting the junk back they put into space if it falls into someone's backyard, let alone harms someone. It should cost them thousands or more to the land owner for putting them at risk.
6.28 that went over my home
What if a passenger airliner flies into a broken up metal piece? Crushing the windshield and ingested by engines.
It is very unlikely, so its not a problem.
@@ahmetcemalyasar6975 very unlikely, doesn't means won't
There is that.
@@warbot2544 %0,0000000000001
@@warbot2544 You have a very unlikely chance to die by choking, but does it mean we shouldn’t be eating?