By Gurman Sidhu
On Apr. 29, 2021, China launched its Long March 5B rocket into the low orbit of earth from Wenchang, China. This rocket launch was a part of China’s mission to build its Tianhe Space Station. Unfortunately, a part of the rocket, a booster, detached and moved back towards earth without China having any control over it. This weekend, that rocket part landed in the Indian Ocean, just west of the Maldives.
For 10 days, the entire world was predicting where the Chinese rocket would land. Many were worried that the rocket could crash into an inhabited region. It was impossible to predict where the rocket would land due to its speed and the earth’s atmosphere dragging it down. Though, it was most likely that it would land in the ocean since the ocean covers about 71 percent of the earth’s surface.
This event kept many scientists and space agencies on their toes for over a week and has begun a conversation about the controversial topic of uncontrolled debris floating in space. Many highlighted that this was not the first time China has had uncontrolled space debris that headed towards earth. Last year, a different Long March 5B rocket part also landed on earth uncontrolled by the Chinese space agency. The rocket landed in the Atlantic Ocean near the West Coast of Africa, but some of its debris hit the mainland of the Ivory Coast, and no one was harmed, but several buildings were damaged.
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University expressed that, “What’s bad is that it’s really negligent on China’s part. Things more than ten tonnes we don’t let them fall out of the sky uncontrolled deliberately.”
The Chinese rocket that crashed on earth this Sunday was 18 tonnes. This raises questions about countries like China and whether or not they are being safe when they launch rockets into space. Should the Chinese space agency be held responsible for this event? Will other countries punish China for the failure in their rockets that could’ve caused damage much worse than it did?
During a White House press conference, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “The United States is committed to addressing the risks of growing congestion due to space debris and growing activity in space and we want to work with the international community to promote leadership and responsible space behaviors.”
A reporter then asked Psaki, what would the United States do if China continued its reckless behavior in sending rockets into orbit. Psaki replied, “I think we’d, of course, refer to the advice and guidance from US Space Command and Department of Defense and others, but we’re not at this point. We’re certainly tracking its location through US Space Command, and hopefully, that’s not the outcome that we are working through.”
On Sunday, in a statement released on NASA’s website, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that “Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations.”
For more than a week, China kept the world waiting to see where their uncontrolled rocket booster would crash. China’s actions spread fear among people and had them wondering if the rocket would crash on land, and possibly hurt people. Many are beginning to recognize and discuss the patterns in China’s space program’s reckless behavior.
This event sparked fear of an increase in the hate and racism against Asian Americans for the Chinese government’s mishandling of the rocket. They have been facing increased racism and hate crimes since COVID-19 emerged from China.
Gurman Sidhu is a first-year Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior major at UC Davis from Union City, California.
Wait for it, wait for it….
It wasn’t until the last paragraph but I knew it was coming.
Without even reading this article, I knew it was coming from the headline.
It’s a social taboo in the first place, to call it a “Chinese” rocket.
Strange, how some will not separate a “critique” of a government from its people. On purpose – for political reasons?
By the way, how’s “little rocket man” doing, these days? (I’m guessing that he didn’t catch-on to the possible double-meaning, regarding that. Or, didn’t care.)
Maybe Elon Musk is right – regarding colonizing other planets. Not much hope for this one. 🙂
I saw your comment coming… wish it had landed in the Atlantic…
I’m quite certain that you did not see that comment coming.
Good point Ron. I wonder how long it will take before calling it the “China” rocket will be considered racist even though it came from China.
I’m sure he didn’t either, but I did see his all too typical disparaging response coming.
How do you “punish” an ascending world leader, which is already involved in the affairs of other countries? Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government will be “appropriately” focused on issues such as “white privilege”, and printing currency until it’s worthless. 🙂
Wow! Talk about inane conflating!
And if you want to “punish” China for something, how about focusing on something more important – such as its relationship with Myanmmar and the military coup, there? Along with the associated “ethnic cleansing”? (Have you guys been paying attention at all, to what’s been occurring there?)
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/05/myanmar-coup-chinas-non-interference-could-hurt-china-says-analyst.html
As far as the difference between Trump and Biden, I’d say that Trump had a much clearer understanding of “which country” is a potential threat – both economically, and militarily.
Anyone who does not have a problem with the headline and the text, please sign up for Geography 10…
The rest is suspect, but still worthy of thought…
That isn’t actually a geography gaff. That’s just claiming one fact (one ocean) in the headline, and another fact (another ocean) in the text.
Like, “Titanic sunk by penguins in the Antarctic” as your headline, and “The Titanic hit an iceberg in the Arctic” in your text.
Get your oceans straight, Jack!
😐
Wow . . . . . . . . . I didn’t see that final twist coming at the end. A rude a-woke-ening, you might say.
So we write a perfectly decent and interesting article about the hazards of space debris, and in the end, we discover the entire point of the article was to further the narrative that Trump awakened and inflamed white-supremacist anti-Asian bigotry.
I don’t doubt that he did to some extent. But who is pouring ever-more-expensive gasoline, on the fire now, in Spring of 2021, with the red tufted one all but muted? Then adding solid rocket fuel manufactured by China to make the flames grow higher and higher? And it burns, burns, burns . . . . . This article with it’s türd-in-the-punch-bowl final paragraph reads like an Onion parody of woke press.
Was the very intent of the article the last paragraph, or was the last paragraph added at the last minute to better align with the understood values of the publishing blog’s perceived core mission?