Well, as per the big oil thing... I have only heard a bunch of paranoid questions which bear no proof or even a direct accusation. It's just "Oh they would totally do XXX, 'cause they're evil." I'm not convinced. If someone wants to accuse them of a specific act, then I will gladly hear the evidence of that act. Otherwise, it's just hippy-styled fear mongering.

The meteor thing is harder to answer, because I'm assuming that the object falling is roughly spherical... which is close enough for any blunt re-entry vehicle, but if you really want to damage the ground, then a thin cylinder is probably the best shape. I mean... rockets are that shape because once you've moved the air out of your way, it's best to keep as much of your vehicle behind that front portion so you don't have to move any more air out of your way. The same would hold on your way down, it's just that we are usually interested in maximizing deceleration for as cheap as possible on the way down. Hence the Apollo manned landing modules were largest at the front and tapered behind that, instead of a cylinder with nose cone.

If your entry vehicle wants to have as much kinetic energy as possible when impacting the ground, then a cylinder w/ nose cone would be better than a blunt shape. This would mean less atmospheric heating, less plasma, less brightness of the meteor streak it leaves as it falls.

Bear in mind that whatever falls to the ground is going to be there to be found at the center of the crater. Maybe buried by a few feet of debris, but it'll def. be there. If 2 tons of Tungsten fell onto a spot, there will be a significant Tungsten deposit (I suspect with evidence of recent exposure to the vacuum and radiation environment conditions of space).


A shooting star is def. covered with heavy metals which fracture and fly away (ablate) as it falls. The meteorite is generally quite cold upon impact with the ground, because the heated material has been stripped away from the inner, colder material. This is exactly what inspired the Apollo missions to create ablative heat shields.