Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball (photos, video)

[Admin]

A big piece of Chinese space junk fell to Earth over Southern California early Tuesday morning (April 2), putting on quite a show for observers in the Golden State.

Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball (photos, video) : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Fireballs from falling space junk are becoming rather common. I can understand that it warrants an article to explain which piece of junk was seen on a particular date by a lot of people. But, it would have been appreciated if the article had stated whether any of this one was expected to have reached the surface. And, unless it was expected to do so, that last part about some other pieces of Chinese debris reaching the surface seems to show some political bias. It would have been a better comparison to the SpaceX disposable upper stages for Falcon 9 launches.

 

[JaneADowe]

But China makes nothing BUT junk. You'll have to be more specific about what it actually is. {rimshot}

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Taking cheap shots at China is just a silly attempt to avoid recognizing the actual technological/industrial achievements that China is making. China has soft landed on the Moon's far side, built a space station, and is advancing it launch capabilities to match the U.S. in weight-to-orbit and reusability. While they are not (yet?) competitive with the U.S. in these areas, there is no reason to expect that they will not become competitive in the near future.

Just because U.S. consumers still are willing to buy low quality/reliability commercial merchandise made in China instead of making it inside the U.S. is not reason to doubt that China can do better and does do better when it comes to the scientific and military equipment that it sees as important to its national prestige.

Underestimating China is not good for the U.S. or others who dislike its authoritarian/totalitarian government.