Friday, October 14, 2011

1598 Descending Junk

Recently NASA narrowly averted a disaster when a 6-ton satellite dropped from the sky and managed to not hit anything.
In their defense, NASA was warning people for weeks. But the warnings were not that great. Just the satellite was going to fall...but they weren't sure where.
And, oh yeah, it would likely break up into smaller pieces.
Which was actually less than comforting. One six-ton satellite could destroy one house. Think having a bus land on your roof. But six one-ton pieces could destroy six houses. Think flaming Smart Cars raining from the sky.
And you gotta admit, for an organization that put a tiny roving rover on Mars and tracked it all over the surface, it's less than confidence-inspiring that they can't track and predict the trajectory of a flying bus.
Even worse that they lost track of it at the last. When the satellite disappeared off their radar one scientist was quoted as saying, "Wow, did it hit Seattle?" The satellite eventually landed harmlessly in the South Pacific.
Harmless if you're not a unluckily-placed pod of dolphins.
So. There's lots of satellites in sagging and decaying orbits up there. And where there's risk there's, you guessed it, insurance. Are we going to now be offered Descending Junk Insurance?
Could happen. My brother-in-law Paul and I have never been comfortable with the notion of specific insurances anyhow. Flood Insurance. Earthquake insurance. I mean, insurance is supposed to protect you from random stuff that happens. It's a crap shoot. Or a roulette wheel. But with all these special policies, the insurance companies keep insuring the house odds get better.
At least for their house.
For mine, I'll have to insure against descending junk. NASA has certainly shown their radar ain't much better than a roulette wheel.
By the way, I'm sure glad that Reagan era Star Wars defense system worked out so well.
America, ya gotta love it.

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