# US and Russian Satellites Collide **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 12, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472 "2009-02-12T02:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/1 "2009-02-12T02:43:56Z")
[Hubble potentially at risk.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29147679/) > [@](#): > > Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Houston space center, said the risk of damage from Tuesday’s collision is greater for the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites, which are in higher orbit and nearer the debris field. It was a dead Russian bird and one owned by Iridium. Iridium says the loss won’t affect their service, the Russian sat’s been dead for years, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/2 "2009-02-12T02:57:08Z")
I blame Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/3 "2009-02-12T03:59:33Z")
It was bound to happen sooner or later. The collision, and blaming Bush for same, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/4 "2009-02-12T04:03:34Z")
Clearly, Obama is at fault here, and should be impeached forthwith. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/5 "2009-02-12T04:03:44Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > I blame Bush. Shouldn’t you blame Obama? After all he is a [del]Democrat[/del] [del]Socialist[/del] **COMMUNIST**. And therefore working with the COMMIE Russians to sabotage our satellites so his MUSLIM SLEEPER CELL TERRORISTS can take over America and send Apple Pie to the moon before us. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/6 "2009-02-12T04:05:21Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > I blame Bush. This is like the 17th thousand repetition of this joke I’ve seen. I chuckled maybe the first three times. Might be time to retire it, I don’t think the guy is even president anymore.. Also I thought Iridium had gone belly-up like 10 years ago after it turned out it was a lot cheaper to put up celphone towers then launch a satellite. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/7 "2009-02-12T08:07:15Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > This is like the 17th thousand repetition of this joke I’ve seen. I chuckled maybe the first three times. Might be time to retire it, I don’t think the guy is even president anymore.. > Also I thought Iridium had gone belly-up like 10 years ago after it turned out it was a lot cheaper to put up celphone towers then launch a satellite. Iridium got bought up by some company for $25 million IIRC for a satellite system that cost $1 billion to deploy. I think it is a or the major player in satellite phone technology. Bummer though, I thought that the tracking system was pretty well established for orbital garbage, especially with large items like intact satellites. I hope this isn’t some harbinger of future orbital collisions. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/8 "2009-02-12T09:23:29Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > Iridium got bought up by some company for $25 million IIRC for a satellite system that cost $1 billion to deploy. I think it is a or the major player in satellite phone technology. They’re a big player. They were saved because right before the judge ordered the birds de-orbited, some of the former executives got the military to buy $25 million worth of airtime. The judge agreed to wipe out the company’s debt and give Iridium to the former execs on “national security” grounds. (The case is slightly more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it.) The phones were paperweights for about a year, with everything being turned back on it April of 2001. They might have struggled along for a good while, but people suddenly took an interest in them after 9/11. > [@](#): > > Bummer though, I thought that the tracking system was pretty well established for orbital garbage, especially with large items like intact satellites. I hope this isn’t some harbinger of future orbital collisions. NASA’s able to pick up relatively small objects, but I don’t think there’s _exact_ precision, and there might not have been anything Iridium could do about it. The bird they lost might not have had enough reaction mass to be able to move out of the way of the Russian sat, or the Russian sat might have been so erratic in its movements, there was no way to predict how close it would pass to the Iridium sat. If the Russian bird was tumbling in its orbit, it would probably be difficult, if not impossible, to know where it was going to be when it came close to the other bird. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/9 "2009-02-12T09:39:36Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Also I thought Iridium had gone belly-up like 10 years ago after it turned out it was a lot cheaper to put up celphone towers then launch a satellite. You can’t put a cellphone tower up in the middle of the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/10 "2009-02-12T12:48:54Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:9, topic:485472”] You can’t put a cellphone tower up in the middle of the ocean. [/QUOTE] Yea, but the percentage of customers that spend a lot of time floating in the middle of the pacific or hanging out at the N. pole is pretty small, and the cost of a satellite network is gignormous. Which I presume is why they went bankrupt and were able to be bought out as **daryl** and **tuckerfan** describe. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/11 "2009-02-12T13:12:22Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:9, topic:485472”] You can’t put a cellphone tower up in the middle of the ocean. [/QUOTE] Actually, you probably could - if there was any good reason to do so. A solar-powered tethered buoy ought to do the job. ([Weather buoys](http://www.weather.gov.hk/aviat/stn_e/buoy_homepage.htm), in reasonably wide use, provide examples.) Of course, such a “tower” would be expensive to build and maintain, and would serve an area that typically has few to no humans in it. ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/12 "2009-02-12T13:17:34Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Actually, you probably could - if there was any good reason to do so. A solar-powered tethered buoy ought to do the job. ([Weather buoys](http://www.weather.gov.hk/aviat/stn_e/buoy_homepage.htm), in reasonably wide use, provide examples.) > > Of course, such a “tower” would be expensive to build and maintain, and would serve an area that typically has few to no humans in it. Tethered to what? It might work in shallow water, but there’s a lot of ocean out there that would be too deep for that. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/13 "2009-02-12T14:52:46Z")
> [@WVmom](#): > > Tethered to what? It might work in shallow water, but there’s a lot of ocean out there that would be too deep for that. Sea turtles, mate. ---
**Author:** ![Borborygmi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/borborygmi/32/217_2.png) [@Borborygmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borborygmi)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/14 "2009-02-12T15:00:52Z")
I blame **Simplicio**. (Gotta keep these things fresh.) ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/15 "2009-02-12T16:12:41Z")
What are the limitations of a Sat-Phone? Can you really call anywhere in the world? Could Tom Hanks on his little island call for rescue? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/16 "2009-02-12T17:42:48Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > What are the limitations of a Sat-Phone? Can you really call anywhere in the world? Could Tom Hanks on his little island call for rescue? Yes. In fact, I believe one of the easter eggs in the DVD revealed one of his long-unopened packages to be a solar powered GPS sat-phone. Cruel director jokes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/17 "2009-02-12T17:59:35Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Yea, but the percentage of customers that spend a lot of time floating in the middle of the pacific or hanging out at the N. pole is pretty small, and the cost of a satellite network is gignormous. Which I presume is why they went bankrupt and were able to be bought out as **daryl** and **tuckerfan** describe. They were also idiots when they started the company up. There wasn’t any kind of logical pricing for what a phone call would cost you. The cost of a call varied not only depending upon what country you were calling from, but also what country you were calling to. Calling an Iridium from a landline is also problemmatic. Rather than issuing you a number based on what country you lived it, you got a number which considered your phone to be its own country. (The country code for Iridiums, IIRC, is 8816.) Only a handful of terrestrial phone companies _recognized_ that as an actual number, and if you were unfortunate enough to have a phone company which _did_ recognize the number, it’d cost you around $12/min. to call an Iridium phone from a landline. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/18 "2009-02-12T18:02:13Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > What are the limitations of a Sat-Phone? Can you really call anywhere in the world? Could Tom Hanks on his little island call for rescue? The only real problem I know of with sat phones is the expense. There are (or at least, used to be) some units with both cell and sat receivers, so that the more expensive satellite minutes could be saved for when they’re truly needed without carrying two phones. Prices have probably come down, but I recall seeing a list of available plans a few years ago where the cheapest plan was $100/mo for 30 minutes of airtime. ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/19 "2009-02-12T18:08:41Z")
What’s the chance of parts hitting other sats. Causeing a cascade of broken sats. Cutting off space to mankind untill orbital decay of all that trash. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472/20 "2009-02-12T18:14:31Z")
> [@WVmom](#): > > It might work in shallow water, but there’s a lot of ocean out there that would be too deep for that. Some Googling suggests that tethers are used in water depths as great as 1500m (around 5000ft). That would allow for good coverage over much of the world. (Again, provided this made economic sense - which it doesn’t.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-and-russian-satellites-collide/485472.md?page=2)