Waiting for Kosmos 482
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 8:17 am
My wife and I are sitting side-by-side in our matching recliners. She's scrolling on her phone and I'm watching basketball. We've already talked about how good our breakfast was and how our car insurance is due and how my uncle is having surgery next week. All the things have been talked about and now there's nothing left but to sit silently.
It is late and my body is tired.
I wake up and don't remember dozing off. The basketball game has been replaced by the news. I look over at my wife and she is still scrolling on her phone.
On the news a reporter is talking about Kosmos 482, a Soviet space probe that was launched in 1972. The probe was destined for Venus, but never escaped Earth's gravity. It's been slowly circling the Earth for the past 53 years in an elliptical pattern. It started approximately 75 miles above the Earth but drops roughly 20 feet every day. Small numbers add up. Today, 53 years later, its time is up.
"Where's it going to land?" my wife asks without looking up from her phone.
"Huh?"
"The probe. Where's it going to land?"
"Nobody knows," I say. Approximately 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water so, statistically, most thing that hit our planet end up in an ocean -- that is, if they don't burn up in the atmosphere first. Kosmos 482 was designed to land on Venus, where the average temperature is 867°F. The Kosmos probe was slathered with heat-resistant tiles, like an old woman next to a pool covered in suntan lotion. It is unlikely to burn up reentering Earth's atmosphere.
"I hope it hits our house," my wife says.
This gets my attention. "What?"
My wife, still staring at her phone, motions toward the front room. "Not the living room. Out there, the front room."
The front room of our house serves no real purpose. It would have made a perfect home office, but the builders didn't wall it off. It's probably supposed to be a formal dining room, but the location makes no sense. Besides, we ain't that formal. Now it's a room full of furniture no one has ever sat on because there's no reason to.
"We could rope it off," she suggests. "Charge people money to come look at it."
"I don't think you get to keep a Russian space probe if it crashes into your house," I say.
"It's not Russuan. It's Soviet," she counters. "The Soviet Union is gone. Who would come and get it?"
It's a valid point. The probe outlived the country that launched it. Maybe that's what the Space Force does.
"Plus, if a meteorite lands on your property, you own it. Remember the one we saw in that museum?"
The Benld Meteorite is on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. In the 1930s it fell to Earth, smashed through the roof of Ed McCain's garage and into the back seat of Ed's car where it bounced around a few times before burning a hole in his rear seat. (The car's, not Ed's.) It has been determined by courts that if a meteorite lands on your property, you own it.
"It probably doesn't apply to spacecraft," I mutter.
The news is over and it's time for bed. My wife turns off the lights and leaves. After she's gone, I stare at the front room.
And then I go out there.
I don't remember where all of this furniture came from. I think two of the chairs were purchased on sale for a kid to take when they moved out and then when they moved out, they left them. There's a chaise lounge chair that we bought from a friend of a friend because we loved it, not because we needed it. Next to the window sits a chair and a telescope, neither of which has ever been used.
I sit down on the chaise lounge in the dark. I imagine what it would be like for Kosmos 482 to crash into this room. In my mind's eye the room is ablaze, although I'm unsure what started it. Would the probe remain in one piece, I wonder? Surely something designed to land on the surface of Venus would survive crashing through the roof of my suburban home.
And then I think, maybe I'll just sit here and wait for it. Maybe my name will end up in Ripley's Believe it or Not or as part of a Jeopardy clue. "This person died after the abandoned Soviet probe Kosmos 482 crashed through his roof, obliterating both him and his chaise lounge."
Maybe I'll spend the dark hours of the night dragging everything I own into this room. All the toys, the anniversary cards I've saved and the pictures from the fireplace mantle. I'll bring it all in here and pile it in the center of the room and then I'll climb on top of it and wait for Kosmos 482 to arrive. And when it does, when it smashes into this room nobody ever uses while traveling a couple hundred miles per hour, it'll leave this giant impact crater in the middle of the room -- a weird art project of sorts, kind of a 3D mural of everything I owned surrounding a few charred bones.
Maybe people will buy tickets to see that.
And so I sit, in the dark, waiting for Kosmos 482 to arrive. I think about about my life, everything I've done that I'm proud of and everything I'm ashamed of. I think about dying, how I don't want to die before my wife does and I don't want her to die before I do. I wonder what my funeral will be like, and if my wife will remember where I stored all my passwords. I wonder if anyone who follows me on Twitter will realize I stopped tweeting. I wonder if anyone will want any of the things I collected my whole life or if it will all go to Goodwill tomorrow. I wonder how long people will remember me.
Around 2:30AM, Kosmos 482 splashed down somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Kosmos 482 is not coming tonight. But there's always tomorrow.
It is late and my body is tired.
I wake up and don't remember dozing off. The basketball game has been replaced by the news. I look over at my wife and she is still scrolling on her phone.
On the news a reporter is talking about Kosmos 482, a Soviet space probe that was launched in 1972. The probe was destined for Venus, but never escaped Earth's gravity. It's been slowly circling the Earth for the past 53 years in an elliptical pattern. It started approximately 75 miles above the Earth but drops roughly 20 feet every day. Small numbers add up. Today, 53 years later, its time is up.
"Where's it going to land?" my wife asks without looking up from her phone.
"Huh?"
"The probe. Where's it going to land?"
"Nobody knows," I say. Approximately 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water so, statistically, most thing that hit our planet end up in an ocean -- that is, if they don't burn up in the atmosphere first. Kosmos 482 was designed to land on Venus, where the average temperature is 867°F. The Kosmos probe was slathered with heat-resistant tiles, like an old woman next to a pool covered in suntan lotion. It is unlikely to burn up reentering Earth's atmosphere.
"I hope it hits our house," my wife says.
This gets my attention. "What?"
My wife, still staring at her phone, motions toward the front room. "Not the living room. Out there, the front room."
The front room of our house serves no real purpose. It would have made a perfect home office, but the builders didn't wall it off. It's probably supposed to be a formal dining room, but the location makes no sense. Besides, we ain't that formal. Now it's a room full of furniture no one has ever sat on because there's no reason to.
"We could rope it off," she suggests. "Charge people money to come look at it."
"I don't think you get to keep a Russian space probe if it crashes into your house," I say.
"It's not Russuan. It's Soviet," she counters. "The Soviet Union is gone. Who would come and get it?"
It's a valid point. The probe outlived the country that launched it. Maybe that's what the Space Force does.
"Plus, if a meteorite lands on your property, you own it. Remember the one we saw in that museum?"
The Benld Meteorite is on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. In the 1930s it fell to Earth, smashed through the roof of Ed McCain's garage and into the back seat of Ed's car where it bounced around a few times before burning a hole in his rear seat. (The car's, not Ed's.) It has been determined by courts that if a meteorite lands on your property, you own it.
"It probably doesn't apply to spacecraft," I mutter.
The news is over and it's time for bed. My wife turns off the lights and leaves. After she's gone, I stare at the front room.
And then I go out there.
I don't remember where all of this furniture came from. I think two of the chairs were purchased on sale for a kid to take when they moved out and then when they moved out, they left them. There's a chaise lounge chair that we bought from a friend of a friend because we loved it, not because we needed it. Next to the window sits a chair and a telescope, neither of which has ever been used.
I sit down on the chaise lounge in the dark. I imagine what it would be like for Kosmos 482 to crash into this room. In my mind's eye the room is ablaze, although I'm unsure what started it. Would the probe remain in one piece, I wonder? Surely something designed to land on the surface of Venus would survive crashing through the roof of my suburban home.
And then I think, maybe I'll just sit here and wait for it. Maybe my name will end up in Ripley's Believe it or Not or as part of a Jeopardy clue. "This person died after the abandoned Soviet probe Kosmos 482 crashed through his roof, obliterating both him and his chaise lounge."
Maybe I'll spend the dark hours of the night dragging everything I own into this room. All the toys, the anniversary cards I've saved and the pictures from the fireplace mantle. I'll bring it all in here and pile it in the center of the room and then I'll climb on top of it and wait for Kosmos 482 to arrive. And when it does, when it smashes into this room nobody ever uses while traveling a couple hundred miles per hour, it'll leave this giant impact crater in the middle of the room -- a weird art project of sorts, kind of a 3D mural of everything I owned surrounding a few charred bones.
Maybe people will buy tickets to see that.
And so I sit, in the dark, waiting for Kosmos 482 to arrive. I think about about my life, everything I've done that I'm proud of and everything I'm ashamed of. I think about dying, how I don't want to die before my wife does and I don't want her to die before I do. I wonder what my funeral will be like, and if my wife will remember where I stored all my passwords. I wonder if anyone who follows me on Twitter will realize I stopped tweeting. I wonder if anyone will want any of the things I collected my whole life or if it will all go to Goodwill tomorrow. I wonder how long people will remember me.
Around 2:30AM, Kosmos 482 splashed down somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Kosmos 482 is not coming tonight. But there's always tomorrow.