Hello, hello, hello, so it is day five and the last day of week one of our

advent calendar and the last day of Space Week. So we started out in

interstellar space with rocks flying between stars and breaking up in our atmosphere.

We heard about the Tinguska event, one of the most mysterious impact sites of all time.

The tale of Miss Baker, First Lady of Space, one of the first animals ever launched up in a rocket who actually returned and became a celebrity.

And also my conversation with author Mary Roach about, well mainly about how you poop in space, but there was other good stuff in there too.

Today, on our last day of Space Week, what goes up must come down. Some of it it at least. We've been launching stuff into space for 70

years now and lots of it has already crashed back to Earth. Just last year we launched

over 2,400 satellites.

What do you do with all this stuff?

You need to bring it back down to Earth.

How do you land something the size of a car

flying at 17,000 miles per hour heated to 2,000 degrees.

Today we join producer Abbey Perult to visit the spacecraft cemetery, the place where space junk goes to die.

And come back next week for week two of our advent calendar,

where we finally arrive on Earth. Quick reminder, we would love to hear from you about your best summer travel stories.

Give us a call and tell us about the places you went, the people that you have met, the things

that you learned while traveling. you can record a voice memo and email it to us at

Hello at Atlasobscura.com, or call us and leave a message at 315992, 792.

Looking forward to hearing from you. The life of a spacecraft begins with a goodbye.

Shortly after midnight, Moscow time, the big Soviet rocket lifted in orbit.

It catches just a glimpse of Earth before blasting into the sky.

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