A 2,000-pound satellite may crash in your backyard Sunday night

Who do you sue if you’re hit by a satellite?

A defunct satellite from the European Space Agency the size of a Chevy Suburban is set to plunge to Earth somewhere between Sunday night and Monday afternoon -- and experts say there's no way to precisely determine where it will crash.

GOCE, or Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, ran out of gas last month and has been steadily sinking towards the Earth. As the planet rotates, the satellite whizzes over nearly every point on Earth. Experts expect it to plunge harmlessly into the oceans that cover 70 percent of the surface of the planet. But what if it doesn’t? What if it takes out your old Accord?

MAKING ODDS

Gambling houses will take bets on more or less anything. Here's the odds (as of Saturday morning) on the GOCE satellite crashing down on different continents, British gaming company Ladbrokes told FoxNews.com.

North and South America: 6/4
Russia and Asia: 2/1
Africa: 4/1
Europe: 5/1
Australia: 10/1

Bets are void if it lands in the sea, the company noted

“Basically, governments are responsible for their own spacecraft,” explained Marcia S. Smith, president of the Space and Technology Policy Group in Arlington, Va. “[If] you could prove a piece of GOCE hit your Honda, you could go to your government to make a claim,” she told FoxNews.com.

     WHERE IS IT NOW? Track the GOCE satellite here

But don’t put the ESA’s lawyer on speed dial just yet. Most of the fragments of the satellite are likely to burn up on re-entry, said Heiner Klinkrad, Head of ESA’s Space Debris Office according to an ESA blog.

Via: Fox News

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Americans Being Forced to Pay for Al Jazeera

Two weeks ago, Al Jazeera America launched, beaming into 48 million homes across the country. The media company that allowed Osama bin Laden to use it as a vehicle to communicate with jihadists around the world is now on your TV screen and you are paying for it. The network pushed its way onto basic cable packages with several providers. If you subscribe to Verizon, Comcast, Dish Network or DirecTV, you are forced to subsidize Al Jazeera's propaganda as part of your cable bill whether you like it or not.

I represent a district about 70 miles north of where the Twin Towers once stood. Thousands of my constituents commute to Manhattan every day.  People from this area perished in the savage attacks of September 11, 2001.  Serviceman from our community made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to prevent another attack.  Four Marines I served with left everything they had on the battlefields of Iraq.  When constituents contacted my office to express outrage that Al Jazeera America is now part of their basic cable package, I took it very seriously.

We should not have to fund Al Jazeera through our cable bills. Americans do not want to pay for their vile propaganda. I'm launching a petition drive calling on cable companies to drop Al Jazeera from their basic cable packages.

Via: American Thinker

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America's biggest rocket blasts off, likely carrying spy satellite

A 235-foot-tall rocket carrying a top-secret spy satellite roared to life and blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, leaving a thick white plume as it cut across the morning sky.

The launch took place Wednesday at 11:03 a.m. PDT at the picturesque base, which is located along the Pacific Ocean.

After countdown, the Delta IV Heavy rocket's three main engines ignited and climbed into skies. The hydrogen-fueled engines — each roughly the size of a pickup truck — were guzzling nearly a ton of propellants per second to provide 17 million horsepower.

Although little is publicly known about what exactly the rocket will be carrying into space, analysts said it is probably a $1-billion high-powered spy satellite capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below.

Wednesday’s mission, designated NROL-65, has been on schedule for months.

Although Cape Canaveral, Fla., is the launch site for NASA'scivilian space program, Vandenberg has been the site of military space projects for more than half a century.

Vandenberg, a 98,000-acre base along the Pacific, has been the primary site for launching spy satellites since the beginning of the Cold War because of its ideal location for putting satellites into a north-to-south orbit.

Space Launch Complex 6 is known on base as “Slick Six.” The launch pad was built in the 1960s and later was intended to accommodate space shuttle launches, but they remained in Florida. Since then, the pad has gone through many renovations. Most recently, Vandenberg spent $100 million on upgrades over three years.

This is the second time that a Delta IV Heavy rocket was launched from the pad at Vandenberg. The first time was in January 2011.

The rocket was built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. It made its maiden flight in 2004 and is capable of lifting payloads of up to 24 tons into low Earth orbit.

The launch was streamed live at rocket maker United Launch Alliance's website.

Via: LA Times

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