BBC - Nuclear subs 'collide in ocean'

Skybird · 02-17-09, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digital_Trucker

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

The hypothesis that two SSBNs collide with each other in the middle of the ocean at great depth and just by chance, includes a little bit too much of random chance indeed, for my taste.

But eventually they heared each other, and manouvered to avoid or to identify the other. Just that they ran into each other blind and deaf and not knowing that something was out there - this I have a hard time to believe.

Almost as hard to believe as two satellites in orbit around the Earth running into each other, eh?

If you think nobody on earth noted that they were approaching each other, you probably are wrong. My theory would be that each side tried to figure what the other would do, and decisions and/or manouvers were ordered that unfortunately neutralised each other.

Earth controls tracks every object of at least 10 cm in diameter. Currently there are around 600.000 such objects in orbits around earth, most of them debris and dead satellites, some active satellities. with an unquantified numbers of even smaller objects, the likelihood for space collisions is not as small as the wide public prematurely may assume. If it were like that, there would be no need to keep all those many objects ander tight tracking control. And the ISS already has repeatedly manouvered to avoid collisions until today. Same probably is true for the majority of active satellites as well.