Re: Pentagon to Shoot down Spy Sat

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Sylvia Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:> Sylvia Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:> :
:> :So I'll accept that most of the material won't become a long term :> :threat, but some of it can.
:> :
:> :> Yes, and when you let go of a pencil all the molecules in it might
:> coincidentally be moving in the same direction and it might fall up.
:> :
:I don't think that's possible unless you're thinking in terms of the QM :uncertainty in a pencil's momentum attribute.
:

If they're all heading in random directions, there is some small but
finite possibility that they could all head in the same direction.

:> Pretty unlikely, though...
:
:The probability levels are, to use an Irishism, incomparably different.
:

Not so much, no.

An impact in a higher orbit scatters stuff all over the shop. If there's a mechanism that selectively avoids creating debris with increased momentum roughly in the original direction, it's not at all clear to me what that mechanism would be.

So I disagree that the probabilities are in a similar range.

Sylvia.
.

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