back to article Chinese rocket parts land on village

Residents of a remote Chinese village became unwitting participants in China’s much-vaunted space program over the weekend when debris from a recently launched carrier rocket took out a 10 kilovolt (kv) power line and damaged several houses. The Long March 3B rocket launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in western …

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  1. Crisp

    One local apparently suffered a shock when they touched the wreckage.

    What on Earth possessed them to touch it?

    1. phear46

      Re: One local apparently suffered a shock when they touched the wreckage.

      Who WOULDN'T touch it? It fell from space as far as he knows. Obviously you woukdnt touch it if you noticed the power lines, I'm assuming he didn't.

    2. h4rm0ny

      Re: One local apparently suffered a shock when they touched the wreckage.

      Perhaps they read a lot of comic books. As I understand it, the primary teaching of the format is that if something glowing falls from the sky, touching it will give you super-powers.

    3. Graham Bartlett

      Re: One local apparently suffered a shock when they touched the wreckage.

      Suffered a shock? It would have scared the living crap out of me!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A fake?

      The casing had a BMW badge on it, there was a hub cap with Fiat and a Nike trainer was found nearby.

      Sadly they were all counterfeit goods.

  2. TRT Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Well I've always said...

    don't blame the Peking satellite.

    1. Ilsa Loving
      Facepalm

      Re: Well I've always said...

      I couldn't decide if I should upvote or downvote, so here's a *groan* instead.

  3. Alan Brown Silver badge

    This

    Is why sane countries try to have water downrange.

    Or swamp in the case of French Guiana.

    Lovely swamp and it loves rocket parts. I've seen a few pictures of french Foreign Leigonairries up to their eyeballs (literally) in mud retrieving bits of broken Ariane 5.

    Better that than extracting the parts from squished villagers.

    1. LateNightLarry
      Pint

      Re: This

      Or from extracting squished villagers from the downed parts...

      Beer, because it's wine o'clock somewhere...

  4. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Ah. I see the problem.

    ".....fell to earth hundreds of miles away....."

    They need a bigger megaphone to get their cry of "FORE!" to carry that far.

  5. ravenviz Silver badge
    FAIL

    Earth observation satellites

    If they allowed Google Earth then they could get the info they needed for free!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unlkely to fall on inhabited areas...

    ...is what they usually say.

    Is it that they have done complex trajectory computations --- or just that they figured out that most of the planet's surface is covered in water, and most of the rest isn't inhabited, so, hey, it must be true...

    1. Local Group
      Trollface

      Re: Unlkely to fall on inhabited areas...

      It knocks me out that 1,300,000,000 people are so hard to hit in only 9,326,410 sq km.

  7. mhenriday
    Boffin

    I suspect that within a year or so

    launches of this type will be made from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan, which has the advantage of being closer to both the equator and a rather large body of water. Thanks for your in-depth reporting, Phil !...

    Henri

  8. elderlybloke
    Mushroom

    The Poms

    having a great time sneering at the Chinese because some Rocket parts landed on a House,

    The English did not succeed in any Rocket launches at all when they were at Woomera in Australia many years ago.

    You gave up and left space to the Americans,Russians, Chinese and Japanese.

    The Rockets on your Submarines are American and can only be launched if the Yanks will approve the launch/launches.

    I remain,a disobedient servant of Her Majesty .

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