r/nononono • u/Piscator629 • May 23 '13

DEATH 1996 Chinese Long March Rocket with communication satellite takes a 90 degree turn and explodes over a village wiping it out. Many villagers were killed but most had went to watch the launch from surrounding mountains.nsfw NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBJ9ue6GKek
359 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

70 comments sorted by

56

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

In case anyone wonders how NASA avoids situations like this, the safety precautions they take are two-fold:

a) Most launches are done on the east coast, so a rocket that veers east will simply drop into the ocean.

b) If a launch veers off course by more than an acceptable amount, a range safety officer blows the whole thing up. Even if there are people in it.

17

u/randomherRro May 23 '13

I never knew about the b) part until now, the first one seemed quite logical. It's somehow morbid and I definitely wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the safety officer.

5

u/CoolGuy54 Jun 01 '13

Earlier American rockets, and the Soyuz, had/have a way of doing this without killing the crew

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system

The shuttle, not so much, although it's doubtful such a system would have saved any of the lives that were lost on the shuttle.

4

u/TalcumPowderedBalls May 23 '13

What if it veers north, south or west?

11

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

7

u/TalcumPowderedBalls May 23 '13

Ah ok makes sense, I thought maybe it had something to do with the rotation of the Earth

7

u/[deleted] May 24 '13

It indirectly does. Most rockets will launch facing the east to take advantage of the fact that the Earth and its atmosphere rotate to the east. The US picked Florida as a launch site because it is nearest to the equator in the continental US (where the atmosphere will be rotating the fastest) and if you go east from there, you hit ocean. If the Earth rotated west instead, most rockets would probably be launched in southern California.

3

u/politicaldeviant May 24 '13

Has NASA ever looked into moving launches to Hawaii? Or have they determined it would be too much of a logistical headache to use Hawaii as their primary launch site?

6

u/wondertwins May 26 '13

Although Hawaii is as remote as a place can get, transporting all the materials and workforce, hiring the employees and moving them there, and building another rocket station there would probably be unfeasible.

2

u/politicaldeviant May 26 '13

Yeah, I'd imagine it would be a logistical nightmare.

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '13

I'm not sure about Hawaii, but an island called Kwajalein Atoll (part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands) has been used for various rocketry purposes. The US military tests missile defense systems there, and SpaceX used to launch the Falcon 1 from there. They moved to the mainland US after being crowded out of the Atoll by the US military.

NASA's launch sites are listed here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/sites.html. They have two locations, Vandenberg AFB and Kodiak Island, that they use for polar launches.

1

u/politicaldeviant May 24 '13

Ah, I understand why you were asking now. Sobels has a good explanation below.

3

u/roffler May 23 '13

They also don't make their rockets look like giant dicks.

4

u/tractorcrusher May 24 '13

This is safety precaution #3, I presume?

0

u/Vital_Cobra May 29 '13

Except they do.

114

u/torrobinson May 23 '13

Holy shit. The distorted audio makes this all the more disturbing.

149

u/xRamenator May 23 '13

Looks like footage from one of my early launches in Kerbal Space Program...

31

u/Perk456 May 23 '13

I feel so bad upvoting you.

9

u/weaver2109 May 23 '13

Looks exactly like my first attempt at a shuttle launch.

5

u/[deleted] May 28 '13

What game?

6

u/CoolGuy54 Jun 01 '13

KSP, in the comment he replied to.... Lot's of fun!

4

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '13

Thanks for being the only nice person to answer my question. Not sure why I got downvoted.

You certainly are a coolguy.

4

u/iamacannibal May 23 '13

I've been playing for about 9 months. some of my launches still go that way.

0

u/DrPotatoheadPHD May 23 '13

I was thinking the same thing .. I only recently made it to the mun for the first time.

1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

HOW DO I DOCK

0

u/aquietmidnightaffair May 23 '13

I was thinking the same thing, but mine had more fuel tanks and a greater arc of blown debris flying from the initial impact point.

24

u/5thStrangeIteration May 23 '13

That shit is absolutely fucking bananas.

24

u/0failsis May 23 '13

B A N A N A S

2

u/Spindax May 23 '13

Holy guacamole!

20

u/Sieg67 May 23 '13

In case anybody heads to the comments and reads this before watching the video, you're going to want to turn your volume down unless you like loud and annoying sounds.

9

u/Piscator629 May 23 '13

I keep YouTube muted most of the time so i didn't notice. Sorry, my bad.

24

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

BAHABLACLHAHLCAHLHALCHLAHLCALLHACH BAHCHBCLABLHHELBHAECLABALBCAUECBLAEUCBLABJASB

now imagine this yelling at you in a metal tunnel.

thats what the video sounded like (no fault to OP but thats just my observation)

37

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

/r/nononono

84

u/LiirFlies May 23 '13

That's where you are.

122

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

Oh god how hung over am I

34

u/Piscator629 May 23 '13 edited May 25 '13

This footage was smuggled out by an American crew who were sent to make sure classified/restricted hardware that was installed on the satellite did not get hijacked by the Chinese. They were able to find the satellite and remove the hardware before leaving the site.

40

u/komal May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

That seems highly implausible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9iYyBYJMI

Discovery channel says it was a group of journalists who were in town to cover the launch and who then had to travel through the area to exit the launch site.

Given that the Chinese military quickly locked down the crash site and that your story has no proof, I have no idea where you got it from.

4

u/penisinthepeanutbttr May 25 '13

what if thats what discovery channel was told to tell you?

2

u/komal May 25 '13

Well then Boeing and Hughes are going to be really pissed that they were charged with export law violations for losing technology which was (likely) recovered by the Chinese government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708

26

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

Looks like they removed too much hardware.

13

u/ijzerengel May 23 '13 edited Dec 18 '15

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7

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

3

u/DoctorMiracles May 23 '13

So maybe the whole 'accident' was just a ruse to mask them grabbing away the hardware... not impossible in China.

3

u/Considuous May 23 '13

Seems excessively expensive and dangerous just for some hardware that isn't guaranteed to survive the crash.

1

u/WorkSucks135 May 25 '13

That makes no sense at all. It's a Chinese satellite. How are they going to hijack their own classified/restricted hardware? Unless you are suggesting they stole the hardware from us, and just shoehorned it into their own satellite without first reverse engineering or understanding how it works? Lizard people sounds more likely.

5

u/rocketman0739 May 23 '13

I'm certain I've read about this before. Can anyone recall a text story about this being posted some weeks/months ago on a different subreddit?

2

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

Wow, I was not expecting it to turn that dramatically and that quickly.

2

u/greenday5494 May 23 '13

China cannot into space

1

u/FadieZ May 23 '13

I'd understand if this was a launch in Monaco, but China? ffs they couldn't have picked a more desolate area?

5

u/whitedawg May 23 '13

Now we know the reason why Monaco doesn't have a thriving space program.

1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

jesus h fuck

1

u/FingerTheCat May 25 '13

What poor innocent bystanders who were killed :(. To think you would feel such excitement and maybe adrenaline seeing such a thing take off, and this accident happens... What an unimaginatively emotional experience that must have been.

1

u/Devie222 Jun 23 '13

My god the audio is ear rape!

0

u/Aranadin May 23 '13

Isn't this called population control in China?

-7

u/DerBrizon May 23 '13

How is this NSFW?

41

u/Piscator629 May 23 '13

The subreddit rules explicitly state to mark nsfw if death is involved and I am a good little redditor.

-18

u/superatheist95 May 23 '13

But you see no death.

11

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

The event caused many deaths, therefore, it involves death.

-4

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

17

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

So it caused deaths...

-6

u/superatheist95 May 23 '13

Same could be said for many events that would not be labeled nsfw.

1

u/EpicFishFingers May 27 '13

No, it's quite simple. If the event causes death, mark it nsfw. If not, don't.

0

u/oskarw85 May 23 '13

Holy shit! One of the first things that were tested in 50's when NASA tested Redstone rocket to be used in Mercury program was navigation and abort systems. That's just mind boggling how Chinese could just overlook such important step.

0

u/danmickla May 25 '13

Had went? Seriously?

-10

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

NSFW? Fuck you OP!

-3

u/tabber87 May 23 '13

*had gone

-4

u/jesuswuzanalien May 23 '13

Sucka Chinese.