The video of the re-entry of the cargo ship Jules Verne into the atmosphere is quite spectacular. (If you don't know, the Jules Verne took supplies up to a space station, stayed docked for a while, and was then packed full of rubbish and set off on a trajectory that ensured it would burn up during reentry thus disposing of both itself and all the rubbish.) It looked, of course, like a rather large meteorite burning up in the same manner. There's something very pretty about such fireworks, even if you know that it's "really" just incinerating rubbish. It's the distance I suppose.
What really interested me though was reading that the crew of the space station had found the Jules Verne, while it was docked, to be a nice, quiet place to go and spend some free time. Some of them even chose to sleep there.
Excuse me? They went to sleep in a vehicle that they knew was going to undock, blast off, fall hundreds of miles while burning up and finally explode in a million fiery pieces? I know that the moment I fell asleep there the nightmare would start. The clang of the airlock shutting, locking. The hiss and rattle of the couplings disconnecting. The roar of the engines that, curiously, wouldn't be enough to wake me up... Astronauts it seems, are made of sterner stuff.
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