Not sure if the right flair, but when you see a rocket ship take off some of the parts fall off as it goes up. How do those heavy pieces of metal fall back to earth safely without hurting anyone or destroying property?
In: Engineering
Generally speaking, rockets are launched over sparsely populated or uninhabited areas for exactly that reason.
The US, for example, launches mostly from Cape Canaveral, which is on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Rockets generally track east-northeast or east-southeast after launch, depending on the intended orbital inclination. Radio messages are broadcast prior to launch warning ships away from the rocket’s downrange trajectory to reduce the risk of a booster falling on someone’s head. The boosters fall into the ocean.
The Soviet Union launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Rockets again tracked over sparsely inhabited desert (if I’m reading Google Maps correctly).
The Soviet government being as secretive about literally everything as it was, I can only assume that any known inhabitants in harm’s way would have been warned prior to launch–but then again, the Soviet Government’s track record on human rights could charitably be described as “no fucks given,” so who knows?
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