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U.S. Wants South Africa to Return Debris from 1996 Delta 2 Launch
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 04:24 pm ET
03 June 2001
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debris_south_africa_010603 The United States Department of Defense has asked South Africa to return three pieces of space debris currently on display at a Cape Town museum, it was reported Sunday. The three pieces -- a propellant tank weighing more than 440 pounds. (200 kilograms), part of an exhaust nozzle and a pressurization sphere -- are from a U.S. Air Force Delta 2 rocket launched back in 1996. The debris is pitted and scarred by micrometeorites. "The onus is on South Africa to arrange to return it," U.S. official Ken Hodgkins told the Sunday Times in Johannesburg. He added that the U.S. would cover the cost of returning the wreckage. However, South African astronomers want to keep the junk that crashed on a farm in the Boland, in the western Cape more than a year ago. At present the debris is the centerpiece of an exhibition on space and the universe at Cape Town's MTN Science Center. Professor Mike Bruton, the head of the center, told the Sunday Times that the space junk provides an excellent lesson on outer space. "It fascinates kids," Dr David Laney, an astronomer with the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town told the Times. "What the kid sees will stimulate interest in rockets and space. Without thinking, this kid will learn how the universe works and learn that things get extremely hot on reentry." Laney believes South Africa should fight to keep the space junk. "It landed in South Africa, it was salvaged by us, and getting to keep it ought to be our reward," he said. "It is one of few traditional objects from outer space which serves to strengthen the educational experience of astronomy and space science," Bruton said. "People young and old are fascinated, and use magnifying glasses to see the micrometeorite pits."
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