Well... that's a relief, then...
Sep. 22nd, 2011 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteAs you may have heard, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is due to come crashing back to Earth some time in the indefinite but near future; the bookies are betting on 24 September 2011, but that's really what we in the profession refer to as a SWAG ("scientific wild-ass guess"). The re-entry windows I've seen depicted basically cover all of Earth from the Arctic Circle in the north to the limits of how far penguins can swim north from Antarctica. Scientific precision? More of an oxymoron than you might have thought.
The U.S. space agency, in an attempt to be reassuring, reports that the risk of the satellite striking anyone when it crashes to Earth is 1 in 3200. That's uncomfortably larger than the 1 in 10 000 risk NASA supposedly aims for.
Well... that's a relief, then... After all, the annual risk of dying in a car accident is a reassuring 1 in 6500 according to the U.S. National Safety Council, and the risk of dying in a tsunami if you live near a coastline is around 1 in 50 000 according to one estimate (by Michael Paine, an Australian member of the Planetary Society). Yet everyone knows at least one person within or not more than a couple degrees of separation removed from their immediate circle who died in a car crash, and how many tsunami deaths have been reported in the past decade? Statistics should reassure us, but most of us don't think mathematically, so they don't. It's long past time scientists should have figured this out. Perhaps they should learn not to speak to the public until they do, since they usually do more harm than good with such lame attempts to reassure.
The BBC goes on to report that "scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide." That pattern is actually a pretty good analogy for what you'd see if you pointed a shotgun at a globe on your desk from arm's length, spun the globe slowly, and then pulled the trigger. (To be clear: I exaggerate for the sake of illustration. Please don't write in to correct my ballistics.) You'd think the rocket scientists, formerly a term used to express the concept of "really smart guys", would plan for what even the most ancient of scientists referred to as the "what goes up must come down" principle and plan right from the start how to decommission a satellite safely and reliably. But apparently, multi-million dollar budgets only go so far, and the really important thing is to get it up in the first place (something we could tentatively name "the Viagra principle"). What happens later? Someone else's problem.
Realistically, the odds of the satellite fragments coming down anywhere that would cause serious damage are much slimmer than the scary 1 in 3200 figure suggests. Earth is awfully big, and human-populated areas are awfully small. Yet I can't help hoping that the satellite manages to find its way home and land smack dab atop the Kennedy Space Center. (The human cost should be negligible; they'll have at least 2 hours to plot the trajectory after the satellite descends far enough to pose a threat, leaving plenty of time to evacuate the Center.) Maybe visiting the smoking ruins of the U.S. space program would get scientists talking about taking responsibility for their work and, in particular, would get space scientists talking about the consequences of their work.
Could happen, right? After all, they're rocket scientists, and by reputation, pretty smart people.
The U.S. space agency, in an attempt to be reassuring, reports that the risk of the satellite striking anyone when it crashes to Earth is 1 in 3200. That's uncomfortably larger than the 1 in 10 000 risk NASA supposedly aims for.
Well... that's a relief, then... After all, the annual risk of dying in a car accident is a reassuring 1 in 6500 according to the U.S. National Safety Council, and the risk of dying in a tsunami if you live near a coastline is around 1 in 50 000 according to one estimate (by Michael Paine, an Australian member of the Planetary Society). Yet everyone knows at least one person within or not more than a couple degrees of separation removed from their immediate circle who died in a car crash, and how many tsunami deaths have been reported in the past decade? Statistics should reassure us, but most of us don't think mathematically, so they don't. It's long past time scientists should have figured this out. Perhaps they should learn not to speak to the public until they do, since they usually do more harm than good with such lame attempts to reassure.
The BBC goes on to report that "scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide." That pattern is actually a pretty good analogy for what you'd see if you pointed a shotgun at a globe on your desk from arm's length, spun the globe slowly, and then pulled the trigger. (To be clear: I exaggerate for the sake of illustration. Please don't write in to correct my ballistics.) You'd think the rocket scientists, formerly a term used to express the concept of "really smart guys", would plan for what even the most ancient of scientists referred to as the "what goes up must come down" principle and plan right from the start how to decommission a satellite safely and reliably. But apparently, multi-million dollar budgets only go so far, and the really important thing is to get it up in the first place (something we could tentatively name "the Viagra principle"). What happens later? Someone else's problem.
Realistically, the odds of the satellite fragments coming down anywhere that would cause serious damage are much slimmer than the scary 1 in 3200 figure suggests. Earth is awfully big, and human-populated areas are awfully small. Yet I can't help hoping that the satellite manages to find its way home and land smack dab atop the Kennedy Space Center. (The human cost should be negligible; they'll have at least 2 hours to plot the trajectory after the satellite descends far enough to pose a threat, leaving plenty of time to evacuate the Center.) Maybe visiting the smoking ruins of the U.S. space program would get scientists talking about taking responsibility for their work and, in particular, would get space scientists talking about the consequences of their work.
Could happen, right? After all, they're rocket scientists, and by reputation, pretty smart people.
If you want to track it...
Date: 2011-09-22 07:12 pm (UTC)Might give you time to duck should that prove necessary.