27 Replies to “It Wasn’t Ottawa”

  1. I’ve been having my kids do Skylab drill for days now. I may just make them keep doing it for fun.

    1. It was remarkable that the live tracking continued to project a “live” path for about an hour and a half after it was down.

  4. Proving that the “Experts” had no idea where it was going to impact.

    Remember that.

    1. Situations like that involve a number of variable quantities which either cannot be measured or accurately estimated.

      The re-entry times and impact sites that had been suggested were determined from the best data that was available and were the most probable values. However, those were revised with time as more accurate information was acquired.

      1. Thud is correct.
        A true expert would say that there is/was insufficient data to make a determination.

        Anyone else is just a clown.

        1. A true expert would say that there is/was insufficient data to make a determination.

          That was implied by announcing a possible time for the re-entry and an associated window, which was an indication of the likely margin of error. I’m sure that the statistical method that was used to determine those parameters was correct, based on available data.

          1. When your “margins for error” are no better than a coin toss, then best to either STFU or just say “we don’t really know”
            https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/chinese-rocket-debris-set-re-entry-by-early-sunday-us-rd-centre-2021-05-08/
            It use to be “trust us, we are from the government” = RUN!!!
            Now it’s “trust us, we are experts” = RUN!!!
            c.f. coof modelling viz. Ferguson’s hoof and mouth modelling that should have ruined his career forever instead of him being used front and centre for coof.
            https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16796055/

            B A, one feels complimented and validated as a scientist when somebody from the press asks you for your expertise on a subject. I know from personal experience. When you give them a statement they do not like, or when you say there is simply not enough information to make any kind of determination, they do not print it. Again personal experience.
            Space experts should have said: “Orbital characteristics and variance of atmospheric density is such that we have not idea where it will land, however, it probably won’t affect your cuppa.” “Do carry on”.

          2. To properly understand what occurred and how the estimates were made, it would be better to have a background in orbital mechanics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, statistics and probability, and numerical modelling.

            Most people want their science and the underlying explanations to be simple and thoroughly described in 25 words or less. If that’s not possible, the response is usually “them book-learning types don’t know what they’re talking about”.

            And, yes, I have a background in the aforementioned subjects.

          3. Let’s say I throw a baseball into the air at a given velocity, and use some approximations to calculate where it will land, like a constant g-field, a constant air resistance, etc. My calculations will give me a fair prediction as to where it will land. Now, say, on one throw, a gust of wind at the peak of its trajectory throws all of my calculations off, and it lands outside of my predicted landing zone. To say that when I throw a baseball, that “I have no idea at all where it will land” not an honest statement, and indeed speaks more to the ignorance of the person uttering the statement than the man making the calculations.

  5. I’ve dodged two Chinese bullets … COVID and their decayed rocket ship

    2. Unfortunately, there’s no dodging the CCP’s takeover of the democrat party, large portions of the military’s top leadership, the media, academia, professional athletics, and thusly the entire country.

  6. And now the people who put it up there and made it come down have been handed a vast array of on-line data from various sources that will enable them to analyze and classify all manner of sources and agencies. All without asking.

    1. And now the people who put it up there and made it come down have been handed a vast array of on-line data from various sources that will enable them to analyze and classify all manner of sources and agencies.

      It’s really no different than going to a university library and conducting a literature search. The equations describing the various phenomena can hardly be considered private and confidential.

  7. The CPP is just toying with us.
    Did it splash down right on top of flight 370?
    Is their need to brag so out of control that they demand recognition?
    “There, Not there” to quote Harvey Birdman.

  8. AWWWW.
    I was hoping for my backyard.
    Want to see it, it will cost you.
    Want to take it, it will cost you more………

  9. to B A Deplorable
    “Most people want their science and the underlying explanations to be simple and thoroughly described in 25 words or less. If that’s not possible, the response is usually “them book-learning types don’t know what they’re talking about”.”

    a. most people have be taught in school that everything can be boiled down to 25 words or less
    b. science is now grant driven (for political agendae) as opposed to seeking truth (climate science best example, epidemiology running a close second).
    c. equating people with MDs as being scientists whereas people with PhDs in relevant fields as knowing nothing about medicine (watch your average state-run CBC news cast).
    d. saying that Economics is a “science”. Best illustrated by the fake Nobel Prize in Economics (no such thing).

    Feguson’s “25 words or less” devastated the British agricultural industry and his modelling will surely be shown to have done worse damage to the UK economy and livelihood and may, in fact, have increased the death toll overall.

    I will not give the orbital physicists and atmospheric physicists a pass on this as they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Knowing that they would be asked this very question, they could have prepared a one hour lecture on how they determine such things, theories involved (in lay language) and how this kind of answer is hard to come by unless more information, and examples of this more information, is available. They could then provide a short and snappy URL to watch the video.

    What would the above accomplish? It would show that sometimes, the scientists DO NOT have the answers, that problems can often not be answered or describe in 25 words, that uncertaintly is the underpinning of science (I too am in the business) and that math is hard.

    Such a move would be banned and banished. Why? Because it would illustrate the fallibility of the Science Priesthood; the new Expert Uberclass that is to run the emerging Technocratic Society. It would show the Tams, the Hinshaws, the Henrys, the James Hansons, the Michael Manns to NOT ALWAYS BE RIGHT because “uncertainty”.

    B A, you and I know that science is full of uncertainty. Imagine today’s narrative if Hinshaw or Henry declared that they are not quite certain, if the media pushed them on proving they are certain or to what degree they are defensibily certain?

    The 25 words or less is purposeful. We cannot allow deep thought and we cannot allow good questions lest it interfere with the narrative designed to direct people to actions and behaviours that favour the Technocratic Class.

    1. What you are describing is politics, not science. Thinking you are gonna get hour-long lectures on orbital mechanics from the MSM is absurd, thinking that you will get anything but a talking head spouting establishment orthodoxy is also absurd. Lumping up folk like Susskind, t’Hooft, etc with folk like Tam and so on is also absurd.

      1. What I am describing is fighting for honesty and integrity in science and it reporting.
        What you are describing is giving up.

        1. If you think the MSM has anything to do with honesty or integrity, you are very poorly informed indeed, and fighting for integrity and honest in the MSM is much the same as fighting for animal rights at a slaughterhouse. Good luck with that.

  11. The “best prediction” would have been earth plus or minus half earth orbit … the latitude constraints were probably more predictable. There have been three fairly significant impacts on land (maybe more) so it was rather overdue by the laws of probability for one to hit an ocean surface.

    If one orbit takes 90 minutes (typical of high orbit satellites) then a 10% error is just 9 minutes, but 36 degrees of longitude (probably more complex than that, but you see how far off a prediction can be even if the timing is fairly well handled). 36 degrees of longitude is exactly my distance from Toronto in southern BC. It’s a start.

  12. Personally my first choice was Toronto but I’m a Westerner so Ottawa was a close second though! 🙂

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