Sooner or later some space debris will kill a person

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

you know or guess you dont there are companies planning on deploying
vehicles to retrieve and relocate satellites, using a universal grapple or
docking port.


Considering this has been done off and on since Solar MAX, I think we know
that. And it's how most of ISS was assembled. So this is hardly rocket
science.

there are even plans for one that can dock and refuel a sat in orbit that
was never designed to be refueled

interest in ideas like this are higher since satellites have become more
expensive

The interest is in saving on launching a new sat to replace an old one that
is simply low on fuel.

This has nothing to do with saving someone from being killed by orbital
debris.

Vastly different economics.

And I can guarantee that any company doing refueling is going to focus on a
small set of satellites simply because orbital mechanics make anything else
impractical.

This isn't rocket science Bob. It's economics.





--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

On 11/5/2013 8:44 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
You likely don't remember it because it was really, really, really bad.
Even if you saw the show, it's best forgotten. But the Internet has a
really good "memory", so there is still info "out there" about the show.
But to give you an idea how "popular" the show was, the IMDB page for
this show is pretty much a placeholder. It's got a list of the actors,
but that's it. No write-up, no pictures, no real details, other than
"it existed".

Jeff


Ah but I live for "it existed"! Obviously the failure of this show was
the omission of Don Knotts & Jim Neighbors in leading roles...

Wonder if I can stream it via Netflix? (ah no but there is YouTube!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MykpNI8ABU4

My weekend is hereby scheduled...
Still awaiting the production of Season 2 of Earth II....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_2_%28TV_series%29

;-)

Had Salvage 1 made it to Season 3 wonder if they would have replaced
mono-hydrazine with mono-magnetism?

Oh Oh I know! A GOX/GH2 mixture pressurized to 6000 psi!!!! (as followed
on arocket)... Now there's a mono-propellant!

Dave

communication satellites have been getting larger, and more expensive over time.

this encourages the dock and refuel ideas

and is really valuable when a sat gets stuck in a low unusable orbit.....

the fact that something has not occured just means that its at least somewhat more likely in the future..

In article ,
says...

communication satellites have been getting larger, and more expensive over time.

Even if this is true, would it kill you to provide a cite? Without data
to back up your assertions, you're just babbling.

this encourages the dock and refuel ideas

This argument needs to be supported. As communications technology is
rapidly changing, I'm not certain you can easily make this argument, as
satellites which are well past their design lifetime would not be as
technologically advanced as newer satellites. Because of this, the
markets they serve might not be as numerous, or profitable.

The devil is in the details, and you only spew vague, sweeping,
unsupported, generalizations.

and is really valuable when a sat gets stuck in a low unusable orbit.....

Which happens how often? Since launches are insured, this would be a
market for the insurance companies. If they pay off a claim in such a
case, it would be in their best interest to "salvage" the satellite.
Yet, I don't see them actually *paying money* to do this.

the fact that something has not occured just means that its at least somewhat more likely in the future..

But some things are far more likely than others, which you don't seem to
understand. In this world, economics plays a huge part in everything.
So far, outside of a huge government funded mega-program (i.e. the space
shuttle) no one has actually paid for the sort of mission you're
describing.

In the commercial space industry, if you don't make a profit
(eventually), then what's the point? Because of this, you need to
support your assertions with *numbers*, preferably ones with dollar
signs in front of them. Why do you *never* do this?

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

This isn't rocket science Bob. It's economics.

Bob doesn't seem to grasp this. T

he fact that the space shuttle performed the sort of "salvage" missions
Bob is talking about proves such missions are possible. However, Bob
somehow forgot that the shuttle was a huge, government funded, mega-
project that wasn't about economics as much as it was about spending
money in the right congressional districts. Sure, NASA learned a lot
from such missions, which is a good thing.

But, a commercial company that wants to perform similar missions has to
show a *profit* when the mission is over. On top of that, they have to
come up with a business model which will tolerate some mission failures
as well. Missions like Bob is describing aren't likely to succeed the
very first time. There will be failures and a steep learning curve
involved, especially if these missions are "robotic" instead of manned
like the shuttle missions were.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On 6/11/2013 1:04 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
ess says...

On 4/11/2013 6:42 AM, bob haller wrote:
Perhaps many people if a chunk of space debris happens to impact a airliner.

What will be the effects of such a event if its verified space debris has caused the problem?


Is it a plausible event? The small stuff can't descend that low before
it burns up, and the larger stuff is tracked so that we have good idea
of when and where there is an impact risk. That is to say, during the
final day or so during which a piece can come down, we know, for each
place it could hit, fairly accurately when that would be. Aircraft can
just avoid the risk area at those times.

It's hard to predict where something "uncontrolled" will come down,
especially if it's doing a "Skylab style" reentry where you can't quite
predict exactly what part of what (very low) orbit will finally bring it
down due to aerodynamic drag.

It's clear that over the day or so in which it is predicted to come
down, that impact point covers a large area the globe. What I had in
mind is that this is not because it can fall anywhere in that area at
any time, but because there's a much smaller area in which it can fall,
but the area is moving relative to the Earth's surface. By way of
example, in a particular case, it might hit my home town of Sydney,
Australia, or any other place under its orbital plane over a day or so.
But if it is to hit Sydney, it would have to be between 1pm and 1:30pm
on a particular day. So aircraft just avoid Sydney on that day between
1pm and 1:30pm.

However, I don't know whether the risk is even considered large enough
for that step to be taken.

Sylvia.

It's the first re-entry of this kind of an ESA satellite in more than 25 years," Floberghagen said. "The [political] climate now is very different. There's a lot of focus on space debris, not only with cleaning space but also on re-entry and the risks associated with re-entry. We need to be aware of this because, sooner or later, someone is going to be unlucky and the be first one to hit something."

In article ,
says...
It's the first re-entry of this kind of an ESA satellite in more than 25 years,"
Floberghagen said. "The [political] climate now is very different.
There's a lot of focus on space debris, not only with cleaning space
but also on re-entry and the risks associated with re-entry. We need
to be aware of this because, sooner or later, someone is going to be
unlucky and the be first one to hit something."

None of what you "typed" is your own words. So "nice" of you to cut and
paste from an article without giving a link back to the original. I'm
sure Spaceflight Now would be pleased...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1311/08goce/

Why didn't you quote this part of the article:

"The risk to the population on ground will be minute," said Heiner
Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's space debris office
in Darmstadt, Germany. "Statistically speaking, it is 250,000 times
more probable to win the jackpot in the German Lotto than to get
hit by a GOCE fragment. In 56 years of space flight, no man-made
space objects that have re-entered into Earth's atmosphere have
ever caused injury to humans."

In other words, if someone does get hurt or killed, it will obviously be
a financial liability to ESA. But, life will go on and space missions
will go on as well.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1311/08goce/

Why didn't you quote this part of the article:

"The risk to the population on ground will be minute," said Heiner
Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's space debris office
in Darmstadt, Germany. "Statistically speaking, it is 250,000 times
more probable to win the jackpot in the German Lotto than to get
hit by a GOCE fragment. In 56 years of space flight, no man-made
space objects that have re-entered into Earth's atmosphere have
ever caused injury to humans."

In other words, if someone does get hurt or killed, it will obviously be
a financial liability to ESA. But, life will go on and space missions
will go on as well.

Update:

http://spaceref.com/european-space-a...enters-earths-
atmosphere.html

From above:

As expected, the satellite disintegrated in the high atmosphere
and no damage to property has been reported.

Sorry Bob! :-P

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer