Astro Blog

By Bill Chappell , NPR.  Excerpt: Alejandro Otero was out of town on vacation last month when his son called from their house in Naples, Fla., to tell him ...he heard an extremely loud crash — and realized it came from inside the house. ...the object wasn't a meteorite. It was cylindrical, and while one end was melted by the heat of reentry, the other had a smooth round shape with a circular indentation. ...[It was] a large battery pallet from the International Space Station that NASA  released for an uncontrolled reentry , three years ago. ..."The location of the reentry was predicted by the 18th Space Defense Squadron to be in the Gulf of Mexico,". ..."We are in the process of sending NASA our claim which will include the insurance and non-insurance damages," he says, adding that his lawyer has been in touch with NASA's legal counsel. ..."It will depend on whose module of the space station that came from," said Sundahl, who is the director of the...

Source:  Marcus Hirm, NASA Excerpt: I for one am very pleased that the astronauts on the ISS (heroes in my humble opinion) keep sharing images of our beautiful planet with the rest of us. The privilege of viewing earth from space is only granted to a very select few. However, thanks to these images, it is almost like we get to go up there ourselves.... triggerpit.com/2011/04/21/beautiful-planet-oh-i-so-want-to-go-to-the-iss/