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Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

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Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#31

Post by BobaFloutist »

010101010101 wrote: post #17
pxeger1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot I'm more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery, sure. But it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week. Edit: my point about independence of events still stands, but it turns out people get struck by light…

> it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week No it isn’t? Not only are the individual odds of winning the lottery lower than the individual odds of being struck by lightning, but far more people are exposed to lightning on a weekly basis than participate in any given lottery.

You can buy more than one lottery ticket. You can't buy more than one per-person chance of getting struck by lightning over a period.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#32

Post by Rebelgecko »

imglorp wrote: post #4
dflock wrote: post #3

Interesting! There are ~2 starlink satellites re-entering the atmosphere _every day_ now - and this is only set to increase. I wonder if this was caused by starlink debris?

The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. They do this pretty often. But there's plenty of other space junk that's not designed to burn up and should have shown up on radar.

I haven't read the latest version of their ODAR (orbital debris assessment), but earlier versions of the satellites had a couple pounds of material that wasn't expected to burn up

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#33

Post by 010101010101 »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #31
010101010101 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week No it isn’t? Not only are the individual odds of winning the lottery lower than the individual odds of being struck by lightning, but far more people are exposed to lightning on a weekly basis than participate in any given lottery.

You can buy more than one lottery ticket. You can't buy more than one per-person chance of getting struck by lightning over a period.

You can buy thousands of lottery tickets and it won't meaningfully impact your odds of winning though. You can also go stand outside in a field with a metal rod in your hand during a thunderstorm. "You" isn't really the point, it's the cumulative probabilities that matter. For lotteries this is easy to calculate, for lightning strikes the best you can do is probably looking at past statistics.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#34

Post by notacoward »

imglorp wrote: post #4
dflock wrote: post #3

Interesting! There are ~2 starlink satellites re-entering the atmosphere _every day_ now - and this is only set to increase. I wonder if this was caused by starlink debris?

The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. They do this pretty often. But there's plenty of other space junk that's not designed to burn up and should have shown up on radar.

> The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere.

How high in the atmosphere, though? They're not likely to hit the ground, sure, but 36,000 feet isn't the ground. Second, designs fail. 432 Park was designed not to have cracking and spalling concrete, yet NYT has a story today about exactly those things. Third, people lie about designs and capabilities. Pretty sure anyone who has ever worked in computing (especially with VC involved) has seen that. Who made that claim, and did they ever back it up?

I'm not saying that Starlink is the culprit here. The evidence is thin. OTOH the possibility can't just be dismissed because of a claim about a design to prevent a similar (but not identical) thing.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#35

Post by virgildotcodes »

QuiEgo wrote: post #30
SwiftyBug wrote: post #18

I have a paralyzing phobia of flying. I do, but It's always many hours of sheer terror. In my paranoia, I recently unlocked a new concern about air travel: what if a meteorite hits the plane? That would certainly be catastrophic. And now I've acquired a new one, space debris! Nice.

You could get hit by a meteorite walking down the street, taking a train, or driving a car too. There's some degree of things we just can't do anything about. We just have to accept it and move on. There's something about the human condition that makes it easy to say, and hard to do, and harder for some people than others - wishing you luck on your journey. Focus on what you can control (exercise is a miracle drug th…

I know you're trying to help, but genuine phobias don't typically yield to rational deconstruction.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#36

Post by BobaFloutist »

010101010101 wrote: post #33
BobaFloutist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy more than one lottery ticket. You can't buy more than one per-person chance of getting struck by lightning over a period.

You can buy thousands of lottery tickets and it won't meaningfully impact your odds of winning though. You can also go stand outside in a field with a metal rod in your hand during a thunderstorm. "You" isn't really the point, it's the cumulative probabilities that matter. For lotteries this is easy to calculate, for lightning strikes the best you can do is probably looking at past statistics.

Right, but the population of people who buy lottery tickets often do buy more than one lottery ticket, so even if the number of people buying lottery tickets divided by the per ticket chance to win is smaller than the number of people divided by the chance of being hit by lightning, the overall chance of anyone winning the lottery can be higher than the overall chance of anyone getting hit by lightning for the same period.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#37

Post by tgv »

SwiftyBug wrote: post #18

I have a paralyzing phobia of flying. I do, but It's always many hours of sheer terror. In my paranoia, I recently unlocked a new concern about air travel: what if a meteorite hits the plane? That would certainly be catastrophic. And now I've acquired a new one, space debris! Nice.

I think this shows a hit by a small meteorite or space shrapnel is well survivable. It might even be a thought that can help you cope.

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#39

Post by altairprime »

010101010101 wrote: post #33
BobaFloutist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy more than one lottery ticket. You can't buy more than one per-person chance of getting struck by lightning over a period.

You can buy thousands of lottery tickets and it won't meaningfully impact your odds of winning though. You can also go stand outside in a field with a metal rod in your hand during a thunderstorm. "You" isn't really the point, it's the cumulative probabilities that matter. For lotteries this is easy to calculate, for lightning strikes the best you can do is probably looking at past statistics.

(This is why golf courses have storm sirens, incidentally.)

Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?

#40

Post by imglorp »

RomanAlexander wrote: post #16
darthnebula wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy, you just really wish you could blame this on Starlink.

cool yeah neat but you can contend with the reality that it does happen right? https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-actually-dying-starlink-sa...

I was excited to see some evidence, but if you actually read the article they're talking about flakes of silicon with less than one joule of energy reaching the surface. To break an airliner windscreen, you need an energy more like a big hammer.
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