Opinion: Happy 100th, Tunguska event

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My old pal Ron Bailey notes that today is the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, which flattened hundreds of miles in Siberia, and which remains unexplained. The smart money says the explosion was caused by a space rock about 120 feet in diameter, though you can never count out the thunder god Ogdy, and there are strange, and even stranger, countertheories.

A hundred years later, we’re still vulnerable to near-Earth objects, and only Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is willing to do anything about it.

My question: If the rock never hit the ground, why don’t we have mini-Tunguska events every time the Space Shuttle re-enters? That is, was it the explosion of the rock or the friction of the entry that caused the detonation?

Update: I spoke too soon. This morning the Kulaks of California got a 100th-anniversary fireball of their very own.