Space material found on a beach in Western Australia | Hacker News Reader

Space material found on a beach in Western Australia

nytimes.com

66 pointseigenhombre21 comments

That is absolutely the PS3 stage of an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. It is a very unique upper stage in that that 'tank' is actually a Kevlar wrap over a solid Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) propellant. The part that is broken on the bottom is where the nozzle sat; they use a 'submerged' nozzle where much of the nozzle core is actually up inside that.

So, it is not a vessel for a liquid propellant like many people would think.

This page has a few photos and a cool cross section of the type of construction, under 'PS-3':

http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/India/PSLV/Gallery/PSLV....

It's been identified. Reddit FTW. :-)

https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1515q3w/found_on_a_b...

"This is the third stage of India's PSLV rocket."

There should be regulation that requires such objects to be properly labeled.

Half of it is probably burned up

They ARE labeled, but they don't exactly come back down in a controlled fashion where the labels necessarily survive.

And even if it the label survived, its not like a bunch of part numbers would mean anything at all to a lay person and would still generate these dumb posts.

Meanwhile integrating sufficient labeling to the manufacturing and testing process costs time and money in perpetuity.

If you zoom in on some of the pictures you can see what looks like partial labels, maybe part or serial numbers? But all of them are pretty burned and chewed up. And based on the barnacles, it spent a lot of time at sea too before washing up.

That's pretty typical. SpaceX debris that washes up in the Caribbean is in similar condition.

Hah, I love stuff like this, but part of me wishes it had taking just a bit longer to figure it out. I really enjoy the mystery.

The answer may surprise you!

Use this one weird trick to attract the clicks!

We found space material on a beach in Western Australia, and then this happened...

Rockets hate this! [1]

1. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-weird-trick-doctors-hate-...

Looks like a rocket stage to me, it's made of glassfiber wound into form and baked with resin.

Imagine the headlines if this was Chinese or North Korean. Indian though.

Well North Korea doesn’t have a space program, and debris from chinas rockets have been found before as well. Ditto for US, EU, …

So what is your point?

Eh, yes they do? They have 2-3 satellites they launched themselves way back in 2015 or so.

My point was that a Chinese weather balloon caused diplomatic reactions still not rolled back today and a military operation to shoot it down, and when China launches a rocket it is alway doom and gloom about its path and the debris. You know very well how MSM scream when something is Chinese.

> My point was that a Chinese weather balloon caused diplomatic reactions

No, a Chinese airborne reconnaissance platform - in the press quickly dubbed 'spy balloon' - caused diplomatic reactions, as well it should. The problems would have been averted had the USA authorities reacted when the thing entered their airspace instead of when it was about to leave it - surely China would not object to having their 'blown off-course weather balloon' taken down before it could crash on a school bus full of children? - but that is another story.

China does have a problem with spent stages from its rockets falling down on land but the victims mostly reside in China itself due to the location of the launch bases and the launch trajectories, e.g.

Long March 2C first stage crashes in village:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6n7t3s?syndication=273844

Long March 4B first stage crashes next to school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjlB48N7Tus

China's rocket dropping habit, Chinese rockets are frequently launched over populated areas - sometimes crashing into towns and villages. This video looks at why China began doing this in the first place and how developing reusable rockets might fix this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh2CRwVgqHA

China Tries To Solve Its Rocket Debris Problem Warnings aren't enough, but reusable rockets might be

https://spectrum.ieee.org/chinas-rocket-debris-problem

Ìt's the steam boiler of an aetheric void ship. Clearly so.

Was it kangaroo ACLs?

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