The word “boffin” always makes me think of an old Jimmy Stewart movie, “No Highway in the Sky,” where JS plays a scientist investigating metal fatigue in airplanes (for a British lab). He and the other “boffins” got called that mostly affectionately.
Of course latitude is only part of the story; longitude is apparently much harder to predict. Statistically, it will probably fall into an ocean.
Unlikely, since the southern border of Oregon is at 42nd parallel north, and therefore just barely inside the projected latitudes for impact.
I knew someone would be able to answer my facetious question :). Thanks!
There’s a good tracker for this here:
http://www.heavens-above.com/GroundTrack.aspx
I think the chances of it coming down anywhere in the US are pretty remote
A more common and simpler way of saying “Its coming!” or even “Its here!” would be “来了!” (Lai le!).
People would say this the moment they were actually witnessing the reentry.
Here’s a simple site to track possible re-entry paths.
The current est. re-entry midpoint is N. of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. That would be an okay splash site.
For the current projection, the orbits going backwards pass W. of N. America twice. The one before those grazes the US SW. The one before that one crosses from about Oregon to Florida.
Later orbits all pass well of the US west coast for a while.
Keep watching the skies. (Wait, we have more than one sky?)
Now it’s predicting smack dab in the middle of Africa
Those are biiiig error bars!
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But they’re getting smaller. The latest one has the center of the zone over central Asia (I think, hard to see when the lines bunch up).
Apparently N. America is pretty much completely outside the current range. Africa and Asia are looking interesting. “I bless the rains down in Africa.” Raining what, exactly?
No flaming streak for me tomorrow night. 
Yeah, it looks like my own chances of seeing splashdown are pretty much nixed too. Sigh I remember going out to see Skylab come down. Didn’t see much then either (at least, not that I can remember now)
I went out last night to try to catch it pass by when the tracker said it should be coming over, but couldn’t see a thing. Is it just too small? Or maybe I should have anticipated the official tracker position by 15 mins or so
I have the exact same memory. My dad managed to scare the hell out of me when explaining the Spacelab news. One of the most memorable nightmares of my life was me seeing it about to land in front of my apartment complex. Goes to show you how little kids can comprehend the size of the world.
One of my earliest memories of world events (maybe the earilest) is the brouhaha over Skylab.
Tiangong is smaller than the first Russian Salyut station. I’m not overly worried about pieces of it surviving reentry intact.
If anyone is interested a model kit is available. I’ve built one.
http://www.amiami.com/top/detail/detail?gcode=TOY-SCL2-14157
“We live in interesting times” What can you boffins do in Oregon about a Chinese space station crashing on your head?
Sweet fuck all.
I asked my native Taiwanese wife the translation for “incoming.” As she’s not particularly a fan of war moving, we agreed to what someone would say in gym class when a ball is about to hit your head.
“Aaaahhh.” I’m not sure which characters are used.
Alas, she was not anymore helpful when attempting to find an equivalent word for “boffin.”
I’m beginning to suspect she really doesn’t speak correct Mandarin.
Wow, they just updated and the new window is down to only 3+ orbits. 00:10 UTC (8:10 EDT) ±2.5 hours tonight. The center of the window is over the Pacific. Africa, Central Asia and a bit of S. America are still under the gun. N. America looks completely clear.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if this was the most elaborate April Fool’s joke ever and they fire the thrusters and send it back into a proper orbit?
We probably need to change the subject of this thread to “What’s Spanish for ‘Incoming!’” She’s into her final orbit, and is predicted to re-enter just off the west coast of South America as the southern-most portion of her orbit. With a long debris trail, some portions of the station might strike land.
Altitude is 149 km. It will fall at what, 100 km?
Just missed South America at 144 km.