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I'm curious what the level of risk actually is. The earth is struck by many small meteorites every day. We don't know how many, but based on how many are observ
by jetrink 6y ago
I'm curious what the level of risk actually is. The earth is struck by many small meteorites every day. We don't know how many, but based on how many are observed, it's probably on the order of 10/day. The last person struck by a meteorite was Ann Hodges in 1954. She was only bruised, since, like most people at any given time, she was protected by a roof. A woman named Lottie Williams was struck by part of a Delta rocket in 1997 and was also uninjured. The chance of hitting someone is tiny and even then, it's not necessarily fatal or even serious. And wouldn't SpaceX be able to de-orbit the satellites over unpopulated areas, except in rare cases where there was some sort of loss of command?
Maybe living in a world where a trip to the grocery store can have fatal consequences has warped mysense of risk, but this doesn't seem worth worrying about.
- rkangel 6y agoIt's about risk tradeoffs. Slight risk of fatal debris collision vs benefit of Starlink? Probably worth the risk. Slight risk vs cost of having Starlink design into more burnable bits? Probably worth having them redesign.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoSomewhere in the FCC filings there's a NASA ODAR report on Starlink. The typical standard used is that the odds of death or injury when something reenters stay below 1 in 10,000. However I wouldn't be surprised if that gets adjusted in the future. Within a few years we will see constellations that are so large that statistically speaking they would be allowed to kill a few people