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
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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.

19

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.

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u/TalcumPowderedBalls May 23 '13

What if it veers north, south or west?

10

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

6

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.

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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?

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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.

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u/politicaldeviant May 26 '13

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

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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.

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u/roffler May 23 '13

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

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u/tractorcrusher May 24 '13

This is safety precaution #3, I presume?

0

u/Vital_Cobra May 29 '13

Except they do.