48 Hours Left!

I’m a little concerned over the news that NASA has been reporting that a now defunct satellite should crash to earth sometime in the next 48 hours.  The news is reporting that this some 3,000 pound satellite, about the size of a small bus, is tumbling out of orbit and should make impact in the next two days.  They are telling us that they expect much of the satellite to burn up during re-entry to our atmosphere.  They can even tell us that they expect about 26 pieces, the largest of which could weigh upwards of 250 pounds.  They are telling us not to worry, even though they essentially have no idea where its going to land, that we have approximately a 1 in 3,000 chance of getting hit by debris.

This is making me quite uneasy for a few reasons.  First off, a 1 in 3,000 chance?  I think we only have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting bit by a shark.  Our chances of getting hit by lightning, a car and avarious other ways to die are smaller than getting hit by this satellite?  Either the NASA engineers math skills have seriously declined since the end of the shuttle program, or they are expecting some potentially populated areas to get nailed!  I mean, by their numbers i have a 1,000 times greater chance of getting hit by flying debris than I do of hitting the Lotto tonight?  wow!  I hear FEMA is ready with a plan.  Oh good…FEMA to the rescue, we have nothing to worry about now.

Also, our Defense Department has software that is ‘tracking’ the satellite, and apprantly within 15 minutes of re-entry, they still can’t tell us where it’s going to land.  OMG!  Do we need to tell the Russians, Chinese, N. Koreans and Iranians that we can’t track something…oh say the size of a missile entering our airspace?  Holy Crap people!  Who the heck is running these….an incompetent 1 term senator with no real leadership or business experience?  Come on!

I’m not worried personally about getting injured from debris.  I’m just worried that apparantly we don’t have our act together enough to at least know when something as large as a bus is entering our airspace.  Call me crazy, but that’s a problem!