[amsat-bb] Re: Odd Question

[Bryce Salmi]

This is actually a great question. I've even asked it myself to some
coworkers (in the Guidance, Navigation, and Control department). When it
comes down to it, the space above Earth where satellites orbit is actually
vast. There's a heck of a lot more space than most images showing space
debris will elude to. This is largely because most of those images showing
space junk use dots to represent the pieces we know about. The problem is
that given the scale of the Earth in these images, that tiny dot is
actually MASSIVE compared to the realistic size of even a large satellite.
The truth is that while there's a large amount debris, the chance of
actually hitting anything is pretty small due to the sheer amount of space
the debris is distributed in. The images showing space debris as dots or
other icons are actually pretty poor representations of the space debris
problem (they look cool though). A probability distribution or similar is
what I would imagine as being more useful.

Bryce
KB1LQC


On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 9:22 PM, MICHAEL <mikef1234 at live.com> wrote:

> For the longest time I have been wondering how a satellite is placed in
> orbit without hitting anything else? I have seen pictures of all the stuff
> circling the Earth and it just baffles me how anyone can get anything in
> orbit  without hitting anything. Can anyone explain this?
>
> Mike/N8GBU
>
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