<A study of the Iridium satellite reentries, Johnson said, show they are within a NASA and U.S. government standard of acceptable risk. That is, there is a one in 10,000 chance of anybody being hurt on the ground by a falling Iridium spacecraft, he said.>
I think "being hurt" means being killed. Well, with a bit of luck, it might be a leg impact or injury from flying debris, but let's go with 'killed'.
That means somebody is going to be killed by this particular Iridium satellite. If one person gets killed, that means it could get several. Or even 100,000 if it lands in the middle of a Chernobyl reactor.
As people who have suffered the consequences of ridiculously low probabilities know, the world is made up of probabilities of 0 or 1. Yes, I know the quantum mechanics theorists think there is randomness in vibrating strings, jiggling away flat out, a petatrillion random variations a 'second' with all states existing simultaneously, but I'm with Einstein 'God doesn't play dice'. I like to write 'petatrillions' and I think it's okay here.
Somebody is going to be crashed in the head, or they are not.
People think 1:10,000 is not at all likely. They used to say the probability of a nuclear reactor killing people was 1:10,000 years, which seemed absurd because wars have been known to happen more often than that and power stations are often targets in such conflicts. I cannot imagine any nuclear power reactor going 10,000 years without being broken, deliberately attacked or otherwise having a Chernobyl effect. That shows that trusting 'experts' who are caring about us is stupid.
Check out Mad Cow disease, now rampant in Europe. "Don't worry your pretty heads" was the soothing comment from those on high. Any person on high saying "Don't panic" or "Stay Calm" or "There's nothing to worry about" should be taken as ringing a great big air-raid warning. I'd like to see them with a dose of Chernobylidium, with CJD dissolving their brain when an Iridium satellite arrives through the roof.
Every second of every day, we experience absurd improbabilities. Imagine the improbability of our own DNA strands making it through the last million years and ending up looking at these words. Boo! How can your DNA know that it sees "Boo!" anyway? It's quite smart. That DNA had a probability of 1, despite the vast odds against it and the proof is that there it is, saying "I am!"
It would be ironical if the Iridium satellite crashed into the Globalstar GOCC or killed Bernie Schwartz. Or me [I will duck and cover so it will not get me unless it is very cunning].
space.com
< Lessons learned
The Iridium story is one of good news and bad, said Carissa Bryce Christensen, space industry consultant, currently working with Futron Corporation in Bethesda, Maryland.
"Iridium achieved some remarkable things. It’s easy to forget that in light of what’s going on now," Christensen said.
The aerospace consultant said that the raising of billions of dollars, the technical know-how in building and operating the Iridium constellation, was extraordinary.
"What they didn’t do was to focus on, analyze and pay attention to the market they could serve," Christensen said. "Iridium had a series of major accomplishments along with some extraordinary failures. Why they failed is baffling," she said.>
What is baffling is that Globalstar boasted about how they would learn from Iridium. Then totally failed to demonstrate that they learned anything at all. They are to this day charging people $3 a minute and heaps for the phones, monthly bills, signing up fees, add-ons, car kits, roaming fees, long-distance, random exchange rate additions and extra for above and beyond service. They seem to be puzzled as to why they are failing.
Anyway, I do not like bad luck. It is not a random event. Globalstar is making their own bad luck and using Iridium as a model for how to do it. It is hard to believe how long it has taken them to figure out what the main problem is. They should have started cheap and worked their way up. If they had done that, there would now be 500,000 phones in service.
Actually, I got sidetracked.
I'll reply in the next post.
Mqurice |
