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back to article Falling debris was no space plane, says NASA

NASA scientists have poured cold water on the theory that a plane en route to New Zealand narrowly avoided a collision with flaming Russian space junk. The pilot of the Chilean commercial jetliner reported seeing the debris as they entered Kiwi airspace. Australian reports suggested that pieces of a Russian satellite could be …

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  1. Dillon Pyron

    Flight 800

    There was a theory for quite a while that a meteor hit flight 800 off the coast of NY. Sounded kind of plausible, and more exciting than a mundane human screw up. But not as exciting as a stray Navy SAM.

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  2. Torben Mogensen

    Timing could be wrong

    The time differential of 12 hours could be caused by an AM/PM confusion, so I wouldn't rule out that the time of observation is that of the expected reentry of the Russian satellite.

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  3. Silas Humphreys

    Since NASA doesn't know which way round Fahrenheit and Celcius go...

    ... not to mention not knowing foot-pounds from Newtons (and thereby crashing a probe into Mars, no mean feat of cock-uppery), a mere inability to tell the difference between AM and PM is nothing...

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  4. David

    Ummmm but...

    If the cargo ship was still attached to the space station, wouldn't that be pretty substantial evidence that the timing WASN'T screwed up?

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  5. Craig Roberts

    Time

    i remember from my piloting days that all these pilots use UTC or Zulu time which is the Greenwich Mean time for all you old timers out there. Any report would have to have that time on it so they should be able work out from there what time this thing decided to fall back to earth.

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  6. Michael Birks

    Ummmm but... (part II)

    Quote: "If the cargo ship was still attached to the space station, wouldn't that be pretty substantial evidence that the timing WASN'T screwed up?" /Quote

    Ummm. Has anyone heard from the international space station since this event?

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Flaming BS...

    That was no meteor...I believe it was a congressional test run for the U. S. DOJ's (Department of Just As We Please) head honcho Alberto Gonzales going down in flames. The next test run should (hopefully) impact the Bush White House.

    Bushmageddon?

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