My understanding is that insurance is largely for launch failures and that literally no one expected two intact satellites to just plow into each other on day.
As of May 2006 there were only just over 800 active satellites in orbit: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/space_weapons/technical_issues/satellites-types-orbits.html Here are the estimates of orbital debris: * Estimates of Orbital Debris* *Average Size* 1 mm - 1 cm 1 cm - 10 cm > 10 cm *Pieces of LEO debris* 140,000,000 180,000 9,700 *Total pieces of debris* 330,000,000 560,000 18,000 So just imagine, you have 800 cars and you spread them out all over the world and have them drive around the planet (if they could) in straight lines. You also have a few hundred old cars whizzing around. Again, the scale is the entire planet (and consider that in orbit we are talking about 3 dimensional space and a much larger diameter than the Earth itself. What are the odds of any of these things hitting each other? On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Casey Dougall < [email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Robert Munn <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:288288 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
