If they fall down to earth does that mean they come crashing down on land or sea? And isn’t that dangerous threat to people who may be on ground or maybe a ship like a Cruise ship?
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IT depends on what orbit the spacecraft is left in, and what the rocket does when it finishes.
If the orbit is high, the rocket stage remains in orbit practically forever. After the craft is released, the rocket often does another burn to put it in an orbit that won’t cause a danger to other spacecraft.
If it is lower, then the rocket will eventually return to earth. These days they often do a burn to make sure the rocket does so quickly, changing to rocket’s orbit so that the orbit drops into the thick atmosphere. Other times the orbit is low enough so that it is slowed down passing through the upper atmosphere, which reduces the height of the orbit slowly, until, again, it enters the thick lower atmosphere.
Either way, it runs into the air at 8km/sec or more – which is fast enough that the rocket will always break up. Most of it will vaporise, much of the rest will be shreds of light stuff that float to the ground, and only very small parts are heavy enough to be dangerous to anything. And the planet is very, very big, so the danger of anything hitting anything except empty and and ocean is very small.
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