Space debris is nothing - Earth's orbit is so littered with abandoned junk that many countries are working on establishing "best practices" to mitigate it - but the
#ChineseRocket has caught the attention of an already paranoid, pandemic-weary
Twitter. "Just a normal Saturday night in 2021," noted one jittery survivor. Another, viewing experts' possible routes: "
One of those lines goes right over Nashville. I swear to God, if we have to check 'space debris catastrophe' off our bingo card after a tornado, pandemic, derecho..." Observers reported tracking its path like an Amazon order, bemoaned possibly surviving COVID only to die of "rocket dump," wondered if cops would shoot it down before it could land, offered weather forecasts - "Partly cloudy, with a chance of Chinese rocket" - and shared weird existential geographical riffs. Person 1: "Is Lebanon safe?" Person 2: "In general?" Mostly, there were suggestions for favored targets, including Target. Several people wanted the rocket to land on the Pentagon. Others thought it should hit the Chinese guy who
wrote, "I am pray this rocket strikes the residence of a black person or homosexual." But the winner by a vengeful landslide was...."Mag-A-Loco."
Update: It
landed in the Indian Ocean.
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Abby ZimetAbby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
Space debris is nothing - Earth's orbit is so littered with abandoned junk that many countries are working on establishing "best practices" to mitigate it - but the
#ChineseRocket has caught the attention of an already paranoid, pandemic-weary
Twitter. "Just a normal Saturday night in 2021," noted one jittery survivor. Another, viewing experts' possible routes: "
One of those lines goes right over Nashville. I swear to God, if we have to check 'space debris catastrophe' off our bingo card after a tornado, pandemic, derecho..." Observers reported tracking its path like an Amazon order, bemoaned possibly surviving COVID only to die of "rocket dump," wondered if cops would shoot it down before it could land, offered weather forecasts - "Partly cloudy, with a chance of Chinese rocket" - and shared weird existential geographical riffs. Person 1: "Is Lebanon safe?" Person 2: "In general?" Mostly, there were suggestions for favored targets, including Target. Several people wanted the rocket to land on the Pentagon. Others thought it should hit the Chinese guy who
wrote, "I am pray this rocket strikes the residence of a black person or homosexual." But the winner by a vengeful landslide was...."Mag-A-Loco."
Update: It
landed in the Indian Ocean.