Satellite Rain

“Until now in the more than 50 years of space history not a single person has been harmed [by pieces of falling satellites].”
 — The press does a nice job of tacking that unspoken part on to Professor Heiner Klinkrad of the European Space Agency’s Titanic-esque pronouncement on the future of ROSAT, the out-of-commission German satellite that’s due to fall back to earth in 30 pieces sometime this weekend (the second falling satellite in as many months). Odds are apparently 1 in 2,000 that someone will be hit, so heads up/down. And they still haven’t found any pieces of that first one, but if you come across one, “do not touch it,” NASA snaps.