Kiwis react after Chinese rocket misses New Zealand

In this April 29, 2021, file photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a Long March 5B rocket carrying a module for a Chinese space station lifts off. Photo / AP

As 2021 lurches on with rising property prices, pay freezes and vaccine woes, many Kiwis waited for the uncontrolled entry of China's Long March 5B with a perverse sense of anticipation.

Just our luck that it missed us then.

Like Covid and touring rock stars, the rocket decided to give New Zealand a miss, plunging into the Indian Ocean yesterday.

But we were ready for it, a nation primed by years of disaster to receive the flaming debris with ... big hands?

please catch the rocket big hand pic.twitter.com/O2MK3QC4Lu

— Brendan Kelly (@brendankellol) May 9, 2021

In Hamilton, the city of the future, they watched the skies.

#LongMarch5B
Can't see anything in Hamilton, NZ. pic.twitter.com/c87Lc9xBUx

— Jerry Jackson (@DarkFalcon) May 9, 2021

But alas, it was not to be. The rocket landed in the Indian Ocean instead.

Is it weird that I'm dissapointed that #LongMarch5B didn't land closer to New Zealand? https://t.co/LM7ZgdzJBB

— Heather Christensen (@HeatherInNZ) May 9, 2021

"Rockets can't afford to land in Wellington," said one wit online, while others decried the lost opportunity to ask the astral visitor what it thought of New Zealand.

Have we been denied the opportunity to ask rocket debris what it thinks of New Zealand?

— Ella Reilly (@ella_reilly7) May 9, 2021

The uncontrolled re-entry wasn't popular with many in the space community.

Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracked the tumbling rocket part, said on Twitter, "An ocean reentry was always statistically the most likely. It appears China won its gamble ... But it was still reckless."

But don't despair, because China isn't done yet.

This morning, astronomer Duncan Steel told RNZ that this rocket is just the first in a round of uncontrolled re-entries as China moves to build a permanent space station.

Catch you next time rocket friend!