Rocket debris washed up in my backyard

reply to post by daisyglaze

You have a very nice backyard. It's much prettier than mine.

Originally posted by daisyglaze
I did consider finding a way to drag it home but I'm not keen on knocks on my door in the middle of the night.
Man, I wish I'd thought of eBay first.

Regardless of whether or not it would have been a good idea to keep it in the first place, and not report it, that is not really an option anymore. Especially since you have uploaded several pics of it.

Calling it in may have been the correct move in the first place anyways. There is one thing that may even be worse than unusual knocks on your door, in the middle of the night. You don't want to go to bed tonight wondering if this is going to be the night that they come. Paranoid over every little sound you hear. Same thing tomorrow, and the next night, and the next night etc. etc.

Originally posted by Bordon81
Wow real extraterrestrial UFO!

You think?
I might agree with it being real. Also it does seem to qualify to be an 'O.'
I think I'm gonna have to disagree about the 'extraterrestrial UF' part though.

wow thats pretty cool!!
good pics also, i would check if for any alien bugs or stuff ;-)

nice find you can find more info here if it is the a5 it was carrying telecommunications for Saudi region all part of future telecommunications and the sky net 5 currently a NATO xband communications and tomorrows internet enjoy the internet you currently have the next one will be different. tick tock.

orbiter-forum.com...

Originally posted by OccamAssassin
It's floatsam.

It's yours if you want it.

You might find that the company who launched the rocket will pay you for it back(I doubt it but you can try).

According to maritime law, floatsam is finders-keepers.

The same goes for yachts abandoned at sea. The first one to hitch a line to it claims ownership.

Does it matter if an insurance claim has been made and paid? Wouldn't the yacht then be under the ownership of the insurance company and simply listed "as yet unfound" legally?

reply to post by BrokenCircles

I think I'm gonna have to disagree about the 'extraterrestrial UF' part though.

Looks like it has been in the water for a while judging from the aluminum corrosion. I'd guess it might have been the first A5 flight that had the flight software problems. A 64 bit value got moved into a 16 bit field and that caused a fatal problem, so the auto destruct sequence was initiated. There may be a deeper conspiracy involved with this particular Object. I wonder if the payload was controversial?

Originally posted by BrokenCircles
reply to post by daisyglaze

 

You have a very nice backyard.

It's much prettier than mine.

Originally posted by daisyglaze
I did consider finding a way to drag it home but I'm not keen on knocks on my door in the middle of the night.
Man, I wish I'd thought of eBay first.

Regardless of whether or not it would have been a good idea to keep it in the first place, and not report it, that is not really an option anymore. Especially since you have uploaded several pics of it.

Calling it in may have been the correct move in the first place anyways. There is one thing that may even be worse than unusual knocks on your door, in the middle of the night. You don't want to go to bed tonight wondering if this is going to be the night that they come. Paranoid over every little sound you hear. Same thing tomorrow, and the next night, and the next night etc. etc.

Haha! Thanks. The eBay thing was a joke (I've never even used eBay, actually), though the "drag it home" bit wasn't - I like turning found junk into art, the more obscure the better. It would've made a cool conversation piece, if nothing else.

Funny thing, when we were on the beach I was paranoid that some organization would swoop down in helicopters and demand my camera so they could destroy the pics. Not kidding. Like I said, I had no idea what it was at the time so I was continually looking up and around, which probably made us look VERY suspicious. After I researched it I stopped worrying. My favorite response on the Nasa Space Flight forum to the guy who found a similar piece and was warned that the company would try to retrieve it:

That strikes me as rather silly behavior. If they don't want their stuff ending up in other people's hands, maybe they should rethink the whole concept of dropping it from the sky into international waters in the first place.

Has anyone figured out what espace is yet?

Originally posted by yakuzakid
Has anyone figured out what espace is yet?

It's piece of the word Arianespace. They're a French launch service provider.

More info on them here: Arianespace Service and Solutions

European Space Agency................ espace

www.esa.int...

I thought they only launched out of French Guiarna

A little too late to say anything, but I would not have gotten close to that thing at all. The fuel used in rocket fuel is not the nicest for human contact. Also rockets have remote controlled explosive devices attached all over it. When a stage of the rocket is burnt up, it has to be jettisoned. Small directional charges are used to do this. Sometimes these charges don't go off. The electromagnetic field from a cell phone can set these charges off. Kinda why these rockets aren't built out in the open, with just any joe-schmoe adding pieces to it.

Cool find though. The materials used in the aeronautics programs are simply amazing. Lots of technology there that isn't really known about in mainstream circles.

Yep, Europe's Arianne, they've been competing with the Shuttle for years now.

Their claim to fame was their ability to launch satellites into orbit for considerably less cost and risk of life than that of the Shuttle since it's automated.

This looks like an outer panel section for one of the stages. I doubt they'd even want it, for they're throwaway components anyway and are meant to disintegrate in the atmosphere.

What do you think covers the satellites inside the booster rocket itself ?? Thin and light , note the honeycomb construction panels.....

I'd have kept it as well.

But I have enough junk laying around already....

What a freaking awesome find!!!!
I am sooo jealous!!

Get back over there with some bolt cutters and chop off a small bit,maybe some with writing on or that cool honeycomb material.
Then mount the piece on a board with a photo of the Arian 5 on launchpad.

What a souvenir!

Thats what I would do-what a present that would make for your grand children one day!

You could always give the rest back,and who's to know who cut a small bit (or few bits )off.
Really,you could consider yourself a good citizen if you just phoned them to let them know where you found the thing-its up to the company to collect I reckon.

Who knows what could happen to the item by the time they collect it

WHAT a find!!

Originally posted by SrWingCommander

It is illegal (was put into US law), if you find pieces, to posess or sell any recovered pieces of either Challenger or Columbia.

Everything is illegal these days. Keep it!

I don't think you need to worry about fuel contamination as its been in the water long enough to dissipate any residue.
I would definately keep it!
Nice find!

I just drafted a letter to Arianespace. Just waiting for my flatmate to get in and review in case he has anything to add. Will let you guys know if I get a response. Thanks again for all the comments.

reply to post by daisyglaze


Well done for being more honorable than I would in the same situation,and you never know-maybe they won't want it back and you could turn it into a really cool shed roof or something!
Great that you can at least keep the pictures too.

Wow! This is really cool.

From the pics that others have posted you seem to have found one of the better pieces, aesthetically. Did you go back to find it again?

It seems like the ocean would have diluted any harmful or foreign agents, bacteria, etc. to be found on it. I mean above and beyond what you might already find on things coming from the ocean, lol.

Really nice thread.

reply to post by daisyglaze


Well... As long as it didn't land on the beach. Cause then you could sue them for endangerment.

grab your nearest sledge hammer, knock out a wall from your house, maybe a nice chunk out of your roof, then send pics to the space company and say the debris landed on your house and ask them to give you cash to fix it

It's all fun and games until someone pokes your eye out with a huge piece of space debris.

Very cool find though. I too, would have kept it. Imo, they are irresponsible. They deserve to lose it. Consider: 60 years ago, we were irresponsible.. especially the government.. dumping willy-nilly without thought to hazardous effect on our environment. The company I work for does a -ton- of Federal work, because of it. Fast-forward - even though they KNOW they handled dumping poorly.. they are doing it again, in space. It's already hazardous to by in a shuttle because of it. So much space trash. And it's going to get worse. Screw 'em imo.