Re: End of Iridium-NY Times

From: Tony Beresford (starman@camtech.net.au)
Date: Wed Apr 12 2000 - 20:53:06 PDT

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    At 00:16 12/04/00 , Tom Kreyche wrote:
    >Iridium's fate is featured on the front of the NY Times business section
    >today. You can view the story online but have to register (free) on the
    
    >NY Times, April 11, 2000
    >
    >Iridium, Bankrupt, Is Planning a Fiery Ending for Its 88 Satellites
    >By DAVID BARBOZA
    >
    >CHICAGO -- The jokes about the government using the satellites for "Star
    >Wars" target practice don't seem so funny anymore.
    >
    >In the coming months, Iridium LLC, the bankrupt global satellite telephone
    >company, will begin sending 88 giant satellites spiraling toward Earth,
    >where they will burn up in a fitting and fiery end to one of the colossal
    >corporate failures in recent memory.
    This story is the cause of the "lost glove" thread. It only reinforces
    my earlier point that the US media need to use aerospace reporters on the Iridium
    story not business reporters.  
    Such a reporter wouldnt have allowed some of
    the errors to get into the story. For example , their are 88 Iridium satellites
    At least 8 are not under control, and will have to deorbit naturally
    in some 25-50 years. They could have filtered the out of date information
    from the USAF press officers  who just parrot (out of date) information from the press releases of their predecessors! Another thing is that it repeats earlier
    descriptions of the satellites as "giant".  MIR , ISS, HST are definitely
    "gient", and Milstar and TRUMPET are probably "giant", but the iridium
    satellite are rather average, how else could you launch 5 at a time?
    Tony Beresford
    34.9638S, 138.633E
    
    
    
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