Bye beer

What goes up must come down, as the saying goes. This holds true for many earth-orbiting satellites that eventually return home by crashing into the ocean, if not burning up in the atmosphere.

On 10 May, the Kosmos 482, a spacecraft launched in 1972 by the then Soviet Union to probe the planet Venus, fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Space.com reports.

Kosmos 482’s rocket malfunctioned and it was unable to reach Venus’s orbit. Instead, it had circled the earth since then.

Meanwhile, lawmakers also have their last day on the job when their terms expire or when they are not reelected.

For an outgoing Western Australia (WA) state Member of Parliament (MP), leaving his colleagues and returning to life as a private citizen was sentimental and deserved a celebratory farewell.

WA Labor MP Kyle McGinn delivered a valedictory speech from his seat at Parliament House in Perth on 21 May.

McGinn thanked his fellow MPs in the Upper House and his constituents across WA for the eight-year term. He then shocked and amused them by pouring a can of beer into one of his shoes and drinking it, local media reported.

The MP first performed the celebratory “shoey” back in 2021 when his Conservative Party won the Kalgoorlie seat for the first time in more 25 years, only to find that every time he went into a pub in the Goldfields city, a patron wanted to do the stunt with him, Sky News reports.