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Re: (meteorobs) OT---Thoughts on Iridiums



At 10:24 PM 1999-07-15 -0400, you wrote:
>Just a thought for all of us here. What if, as seems rather likely, the 
>Iridium Consortium goes bankrupt and no longer has the money to control 
>their satellites. While there may be some benefit for radio atronomy, can 
>you imagine the horror for visual satronomy with over 200 uncontolled 
>mirrors capable of reflecting -8 magnitude flashes anywhere in the sky for 
>several millenia (I don't know for sure what the deorbit time for 
>satellites in that high an orbit is, but I'm sure it's QUITE long). Once 
>they are not predictable, and no longer do any orbit keeping, they could 
>ruin astronomy forever (ay least as far as my lifetime is concerned.
>	Now that they are up there, at some time in the future, this scenario will 
>likely come to pass.

I wonder. Perhaps the US Space Command would, indeed, just leave any such
uncontrolled satellites alone. But I would think they would be very
concerned about them being "uncontrolled". Perhaps they would somehow
obtain the facilities to control the birds just to keep them "in line" and
not a danger to others until some other commercial enterprise can take
over. In the best case, Space Command could make a strong case for
reestablishing the cancelled satellite-killer program(s) and put any such
uncontrolled bird out of our misery....

SteveH
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