The US Department of Defense wanted to make a launch that would head over the Newfoundland offshore Oil rigs.
Nevermind that the actual chances of getting hit with debry on some of the worst planned trajectories is incredibly remote, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams ordered the offshore platforms to be evacuated anyways. Then he said this:
"It's the one is the number that's that important. ... if there's a one chance that something could happen out there ... with regard to human lives and human safety, that's simply not acceptable."
Williams also said, "We don't have any idea of what the consequences of that size of an object dropping in the ocean are.
"We have not been told what the effect would be on the wave action or the ocean floor. We haven't been given the full ecological impact, so at this point we're not getting answers to the question that I want answered."
Rocket paranoia is not uncommon in Canada. Unfortunately a great deal of it stems from a Soviet satellite that spread radiation over the Canadian north long ago. Canadians have been jittery ever since.
But quite frankly anyone familiar with space, and physics can't help but laugh a little bit. What poor mistaken soul was advising the Premier on this one?
Really, for all the space junk floating around in low earth orbit, you don't see people getting struck in the head all the time by rocket debris. The chances are somewhere near a trillion to one. Something tells me that the Premier of Newfounland should be able to live with that level of risk.
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