Gulf Oil Slick Looks 'Very Scary' From Space, Cosmonaut Says

The dramatic flood of oil in the Gulf of Mexico is an alarming sight from space, cosmonauts and astronauts on the International Space Station said Tuesday.

The huge oil slick off the Louisiana began April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig operated by British Petroleum exploded and later sank. The devastating oil flow has caused untold damage to the environment and wildlife, and it is still leaking.

It is a heartbreaking sight from space, station astronauts said.

"Just 30 minutes ago we passed over the Mexican Gulf and we took a lot of pictures of this oil spot," space station commander Oleg Kotov, a Russian cosmonaut, told reporters on Earth via a video link.

"It looks very scary," Kotov said. "It's not good. I really feel ... not good about that."

"These things aren't good," he said of the oil slick. "When you fly around the planet you get to see the thumbprint of man all over the place."



http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/gulf-oil-slick-scary-from-space-100518.html

7 Strange and Sad Facts About the Gulf Oil Spill

1. Engineers contemplated stuffing the leak with golf balls and old tires.

2. Human and animal hair stuffed into nylon stockings can contain and soak up the oil spill.

3. Unlike the oil gusher, any lawsuits against BP would be capped.
The 1990 Oil Pollution Act ensures that a civil suit cannot find BP liable formore than $75 million, excluding the cost of the cleanup. However, on May 5, Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that would raise the maximum penalty for an oil spill to $10 billion. As of now, the bill remains in committee.

4. Insurance industry will ultimately pay the price.
BP, and Transocean, which owned the downed oil rig, possessed insurance that largely protects them from any losses resulting from the spill, the Associated Press and Reuters reported. That payout will negatively affect the insurance industry, though, which may face record losses as a result of the spill, Bloomberg News reported.

5. The containment dome failed because it floated.

6. Natural gas is also spilling out of the pipe, along with the oil.

7. Cleaning up is dangerous work.

Even though the oil itself is harmless to humans, the work is risky, Gerald Graham, president of World Ocean Consulting, a marine oil spill prevention and response planning firm based in British Columbia, said in a telephone interview.The danger comes from a variety of heavy equipment used in the cleanup, the ability of the oil fumes to knock someone unconscious and the general risk of performing complex operations at sea, Graham said.