Humor by John Christmann
Satellites Happen
The other day I returned to my car and discovered a rather large dent in the right rear fender. My car was parked in a public lot. Nobody was around.
I was pretty steamed. But not nearly as steamed as I would have been had I been rear-ended by a nuclear submarine.
This really happened. Earlier this month a French submarine and a British submarine collided while conducting routine maneuvers deep in the Atlantic Ocean. According to news reports, the two captains never bothered to stop and exchange information or even file a police report. In fact, they weren’t even aware that they had collided until they returned to their home ports with some large dents in their hulls and some explaining to do.
I can imagine how that conversation went. Honest, Admiral, I just ran into Starbucks for a cup of coffee and when I came back . . .
Fortunately they saved 15% on their submarine insurance by switching to Geico.
I am not really sure how two submarines crash in the middle of the ocean. I suspect that the French captain forgot that the British drive on the left side of the ocean. I was almost run over by a taxi cab in London once because I forgot how they drive. Or maybe the submarines were negotiating the traffic circle around the Gulf Stream. They really should put in a proper traffic light there.
Whatever really happened, it is scary to think that two submarines each capable of carrying 16 ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads might have a fender bender in the middle of the world’s second largest ocean.
As remote as this seems, however, it is not nearly as improbable as having a collision in outer space. This also happened last week. On Tuesday an Iridium satellite was on its way around the North Pole traveling about 17,000 miles per hour when a Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite pulled out in front of it. It happened during rush hour, 490 miles above Siberia.
According to NASA, the Russian satellite was non-operational and did not have a maneuvering system. In layman’s terms, not only did the satellite not have a driver, it did not have a steering wheel. I can only suppose the parking brakes failed.
In hearing this report I was startled to learn that the space junk created by this collision is a very real concern. I was even more startled to learn that NASA has an Office of Orbital Debris to monitor this stuff. I guess they track all of the lost hubcaps, blown tire treads, and slow-moving alien squirrels that are flying aimlessly around in space.
But apparently all of this space junk can cause real damage if it were to strike, say, the windows of the International Space Station. And this is precisely why I tell my kids not to play baseball near the house. I just thought outer space was a little bit bigger than that.
Of course my fear is that all of this space junk will rain down on top of me. After all, if submarines and satellites can collide, then my head is clearly not safe from a speeding lug nut.
You laugh. In 1997 a woman in Turley, Oklahoma was struck by a piece of heavy retardant cloth which flamed off a Delta booster rocket as it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. She was not hurt, but a steel propellant tank from that rocket also fell to earth and landed on an empty car parked outside an insurance claim office in Toledo, Ohio. I don’t know if the driver collected or not.
So maybe I shouldn’t be too upset over being struck in a parking lot by another vehicle. The lot was small; maybe the driver had trouble maneuvering and just didn’t see my car.
And it certainly could have been worse. My car could have been loaded with nuclear warheads, instead of the Cheetos and other hazardous materials my kids leave in the back seat. Or the car that struck mine could have been traveling at 17,000 miles per hour, without a driver and without a steering wheel. My fender could right now be streaking straight toward a million dollar mirror on the Hubble Telescope.
Given the things that can happen, and often do, my dented fender is not much to worry about. Besides, I can always tell my insurance agent that I was hit by a submarine or that a titanium trailer hitch from a Saturn SUV fell out of the sky and struck my fender.
On the other hand, I don’t know what I will tell my wife. The last time this happened I backed into a tree.
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