"During the dangerous 40 minutes, you had better stay home," National Public Safety Commission Chairman Bunmei Ibuki said, explaining that the danger would arise if Mir's final thrust to bring it down in the sea, failed.

"Mir will come down plus or minus two days around March 21," Ibuki told a news conference.

"There are two dangers regarding the disposal of Mir. One is Mir might leave its orbit and fall, another is its braking thrust might fail," to put it into its final braking orbit Ibuki said.

"If Mir fails its final thrust, there will be a 40-minute timeframe of danger," he added.

Ibuki reiterated the government's stance that the probability of space station debris falling on Japan is "one in 100 million."

But "we will consolidate preparations for a dangerous situation so the government can contact municipalities in time," Ibuki said.

The Cabinet Office's information collection centre and another section in charge of anti-disaster countermeasures would be on stand-by over the five-day period, Ibuki said.

"If large pieces of debris fall, you are safer indoors than outside as there are roofs above you, preventing them from falling directly on you," a Cabinet Office official said.

The science and technology ministry explained in a statement that it would be able to give people a better idea of when the critical 40-minute period would be nearer the time.

"The date of fall can be forecast three days before. One day before, the time of the fall can be forecast with a five hour margin of error...the area possible for the natural fall can be narrowed to about 14 percent of the target area.

"Four hours prior to the fall, the time can be forecast with about 45 minutes of error...and the area can be narrowed to about 2.0 percent," the ministry said.

Russia announced Thursday its most precise estimated timing yet for its destruction of Mir, saying debris from the 15-year-old orbiter would splash down into the Pacific Ocean "around 0800 GMT" on March 22.

Russian mission control would direct a rocket engine to fire three short bursts overnight on March 21, causing the station to tilt and re-enter the atmosphere, the Russian mission control centre (TsUP) said.

Mir would then burn up and debris would rain down on the South Pacific sea in a target area 200 kilometres (120 miles) wide, and 6,000 kilometres long, between New Zealand and Chile.

Around 20-25 tonnes of the platform's 137-tonne mass are expected to survive the burn-up, with 1,500 pieces of debris, mostly very small but a few of them weighing around 700kg and as large as a small car, falling to Earth.

Experts have warned of the operation's immense complexity -- no object the size of Mir has ever been brought back to Earth before -- and governments on five continents have expressed concern at the possibility of debris crashing into their backyards.

Russian officials are stressing that the chances of debris falling on inhabited areas are minimal.

However, the Russian space centre has taken out insurance for 200 million dollars to cover possible damage.

All rights reserved. � 2000
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Now how silly can this be? Really. You'd think Godzilla was attacking the way the Japanese gov't is dealing with this.

*whistles at the FB*

I wonder, though, would one of those large chunks have enough momentum to breach the walls of a nuclear reactor? Or "government stockpile" of eh, erm, bananas.

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At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.

"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"

But, I live on the other side of the world, so the only thing I can do is hope for some floating webcams tracking the thing from the moment it can be seen

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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
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Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.