Did the Soviet rocket hit some space debris?

Another one is coming down!

The Soviets launched a space ship meant to go to a Mars moon, gather some dirt, and send it back to Earth.

It never left orbit. Our orbit. The one around the planet we know as Earth.

As a matter of fact, it will actually be leaving orbit sometime in the next 3 days. It will be crashing back down onto the planet Earth. So once again we go on the "where will it hit?" guessing game. Some reports guess the Atlantic Ocean, others are betting on the Indian Ocean. That sounds familiar. It's good we have so much water here... but the oceans are going to get as polluted with space junk as the space above our heads soon.

So what caused the failure? No one is really sure. Could it be that some of the space junk flying around in orbit hit it? Do people planning to launch space ships have to develop a cushion mechanism for their rockets to get them through the space junk field now? Have we fenced ourselves in?

Update: It hit in the Pacific Ocean, to the west of Chile.

Anyone for a round of catch the elevator?

Typically, when you catch the elevator, it's to get in it and have it take you to another floor.

We have a new game in my condominium apartment building. We catch the elevator and lock it off, so it won't go anywhere.

This is due to the recent fire in our elevator room. See my blog entry on that!

We now have one of two elevators kinda working. It takes pressing many buttons, seemingly almost at random, to summon the elevator, and then there may be floor numbers lit up at random inside the elevator... but it will (likely) get you to the floor you want. And we only have a temporary license to operate it, so we are working on replacing the controls as soon as we can. But it beats using the stairs.

One of the functions of an elevator is to return to the ground floor, open the doors and turn itself off whenever the fire alarm goes off. Our elevator will not do this anymore. The fire department is not happy, but the temporary license lets us still use the elevator, and we have a couple of dozen warning signs telling people not to use the elevator if the alarm sounds.

But we're not relying on people to read signs if the alarm sounds, that's where the "catch the elevator" game starts. Each member of the Strata Council has a key that can be used to turn the elevator off if the alarm sounds. We're all on different floors.

So if the alarm goes off, we all try to summon the elevator to catch it and lock it off!

And then we run downstairs, and the one who caught it gets bragging rights.

Actually, the one who caught it then has to tell everyone, including the arriving firemen, where the elevator is.

It sounds like it could be a fun game, but we all still hope we don't have to play it!