Monday, 26 September 2011

@NASA and the missing satellite #UARS

I was alarmed to read this tweet from NASA
‘UARS is expected sometime during the afternoon of Sept.23 EDT. It will not be over North America’ via CoTweet 22/09/2011 15:10
Great, your satellite, get your priorities sorted. What about the rest of us?
‘The chances that you (yes, I mean YOU) will be hit by a piece of the #UARS satellite today are one in several trillion. Very unlikely.’
Via CoTweet 23/09/2011 14:21

Feeling better now *buys lottery ticket as my odds have increased since I’m still alive*

And then they lost it.
‘It’s possible the #UARS is down by now. (Everybody OK out there?) We’re waiting for confirmation from US Strategic Command.’
Via CoTweet 24/09/2011 06:33

Wait a minute,

How the hell do you lose a satellite the size of a double decker bus?
I’d be in serious trouble if I lost something that size especially if it was capable of creating untold death and destruction by landing on the earth somewhere.
I was concerned, of course I was, it was orbiting over Australia, Africa and Canada for the last few hours, prior to its decent to earth. NASA had a window of opportunity in which it would land.
I met some lovely people on twitter using the hash tag #USAR including @afrispace (tweeted by Brad) and @DorchWebster (doesn’t tweet much) and we enjoyed (well I did) some good friendly banter to wile the time away until we sort of knew that the satellite wasn’t going to land on us.
Seriously NASA, if you can get something that size up into space, surely you have the technology to track it....there must be an App for that.

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