Don’t look up!

It wasn’t a particularly nice ad., but serves as a very good metaphor for what could happen any day now.

NASA, we hear via news circulating the globe, is “worried” about the imminent crash “anywhere on Earth” – possibly as soon as 23rd September – of an inoperational, obsolete satellite, put into orbit 20 years ago.

Due to the “quantity of variables involved”, the date and location of impact can only be calculated two hours in advance – and even so, experts will be working with a 6.000 mile error margin!

But apparently there is no reason for alarm: NASA scientists have calculated that the possibility of debris from the «Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite» (UARS) actually landing on someone’s head is 1 in 3200…

And we’re only talking about 544 kilos of incandescent hurtling metal anyway, as again according to NASA calculations, a good part of the 5.9-ton satellite should simply disintegrate as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.

Space scientists makes light of the potential problem saying we’ve had a lot more fall from above before – there was the 123-ton Russian space lab. «Mir», that careered into the ocean in 2001, and the 91-ton «Skylab», that dive-bombed to Earth in 1979.

In neither case were there any complaints. But if, by any chance, any of our readers should come upon a piece of UARS debris, NASA says they shouldn’t touch it. Best advice: call the Albufeira GNR – they’re used to dealing with bizarre incidents ... that is if any of them are still around.

In contact with a number of municipalities and official entities throughout the region on this subject, we learnt that almost all of them would be receptive to UARS fallout in the Algarve – as they could then set it up as another tourist attraction, by, for example, including it on the calendar of contemporary art exhibits in the next «Allgarve» programme.

As far as we could gather, the satellite would be welcomed in any regional town – as long as it didn’t destroy any buildings or golf courses as it came down.

Among suggestions for its possible use was as decoration for a future roundabout on the upgraded EN 125 (the only problem is that thieves would probably strip all the salvageable copper…)

Another idea could be to convert the satellite into a temporary seaside disco for the jet-set during the 2012 summer season.

Or there was the idea of sinking it off Portimão, along with all the other defunct naval vessels, to give a “spacial” touch to the town’s underwater museum…

But some people we spoke to told us they’d far prefer it if UARS fell, with a great deal of force, further north - on a certain building in the Portuguese capital!