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0 pointspvg3y ago0 comments

You're right, I didn't realize they fired quite that many (31?!) BES-5s into space and those are really the only non-experimental ones. Still, the chances of one of those falling out of orbit as a functioning reactor are about nil.

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perihelions3y ago

The posterior probability, given that you've already found a very rare piece of space debris, would have been high.

https://xkcd.com/795/

(By the way, there's an documented instance [0] mentioned in the sibling comments. The hazard is much worse than you'd think: the space reactor didn't simply fall in one piece, but left a trail of fragments 600 km long, some of which were lethally radioactive. It's pretty lucky this one happened in an uninhabited wasteland).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

pvgOP3y ago

Yes but those dangers are the dangers of radioactive material - it's naturally 'hot', much of it also chemically toxic, etc. It's not core-at-criticality-that-murders-you-as-you-stand-next-to-it type of dangerous. I think that's still an essentially hypothetical danger of nuclear space junk.

robonerd3y ago

As a general rule, it's not reactors functioning inside design parameters that are cause for concern, but rather failed reactors that have spew their guts and stopped working. Those are the reactors that will fuck you up.

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