Re: Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July with Deep Space Fireworks

<spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> It is neither sane nor reasonable for you to keep making
>> crazy assertions about effects you are afraid of happening,
>> after everyone else here has repeatedly told you that you
>> don't understand what's going on and don't know how to
>> assess real risks.
>
>The problem here is that you define "sanity" and "reasonability" as the
>randomly gerrymandered views which define mine as out of the loop.

Your beliefs about the risk structure associated with an
Earth impact of debris from the Deep Impact probe makes
as much technical sense as an inquiry as to the rate at which
jet airliners commit statutory rape.

The question is technically a nonsequiteur.
The math involved in whether Deep Impact posed
a threat to Earth is simple and conclusive: there is
an answer, it's no.

It's not stupid or insane to ask the question.
It's stupid *and* insane to insist, after it's
been answered, that NASA safety culture issues
somehow modify the risk that orbital mechanics
will suddenly fail and rain comets on us.

The impact effects of Deep Impact are easily
calculable by anyone with the proper training
and math skills. Things don't "fall down" out
of orbits. There are certain drag effects
near planets, and orbital modification due to
close encounters with planets, but those are
all easily calculatable.

When the physics and math are simple, and the
answer is no, the answer is no. You don't
have to go off into statistical analysis or
cultural review of the vehicle operators to
determine that Deep Impact posed no risk.
Those are irrelevant questions to the orbital
mechanics issues.

For purposes of the question you posed originally,
NASA could equally be perfect engineering saints,
or deviant genocidal maniacs, and the orbital
mechanics physics and math remain the same.


-george william herbert
gherbert@xxxxxxxxx / gherbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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