where will the spy satellite hit earth?

When skylab came down, it came down over both australia and water. How would something like this be resolved?

if it didn't break up enough to satisfy the last option they would void the question and return all bets. keep in mind that it is alot smaller than skylab was.

Disintegration does not equal blowing up into tiny pieces (a la being shot down with a missile as suggested on various sites as an option available to the US.

Also 70% of the earths surface is water, if it lands in Lake Michigan, would it void the question since it satisfiies both criteria?

It occurs to me that I could vote on a question that is ultimately voided. During that time, I will have lost the opportunity to use my Hubdub dollars to speculate on some other question(s). Wouldn't it be a good idea if Hubdub paid us Hubdub interest on Hubdub dollars that are invested in ultimately voided questions, or on the uninvested balance of our hubdub accounts?

at what interest rate?

10 percent!

You've got the option to pull your dollars out with adjustments to the given percentage whenever, if you feel your H-dollars would be better put elsewhere. You're also betting on whether or not it pays out as well, I guess.

Or possibly create a question like this:

Will the question: "where will the spy satellite hit earth?" be voided?

Would that be a valid question?

I like that question grueller, remember s settlement date.....

you should weigh in on the question @ getsatisfaction by clicking help then the getsatisfaction link the question there is:

"Should Hubdub insiders who settle questions be allowed to make predictions?

To date, Hubdub staff who settle questions have also participated in making predictions on those and other questions. We have strived to be as objective as possible on every settlement and settlements are regularly cross-checked. However some users perceive that this conflict of interest may cause us to incorrectly settle questions for our benefit. We can change the rules to:
(1) No restriction (status quo)
(2) No predicting on questions within their category
(3) No predicting on any questions

Thoughts?

It will be pretty obvious if something bad is going on, since these are news items. The irregularities occur when staff who void questions do so on somewhat questionable bases (such as, "bad initial percentages"). There should be some mathematical way to do this -- maybe have the person writing the question stake the initial investment, also there's no way to track "volume"; that is, you could have zero money behind an initial projection, place a $5000 bet on something at "2%" and win a ton of money that didn't exist before. In theory, you should only be able to win the money that's behind whatever positions exist. Another way to resolve this would be to have a period where oddless "initial stakes" are placed on the question.

Any idea why euroasia with the hugest landmass and thatfor higher likeliness is seen as the most unlikely event ? Well thx, cheap investment :)

Haven't you seen any movies? It is bound to hit New York. I'll put H$1k on the Statue of Liberty having it's head taken off.

The US Air Force has predicted a high likely hood that it will land in the United States. That's good enough for me, with a 10:1 pay out right now.

sorry grueller, i haven't been paying attention to this Q....what i meant by water was an ocean or gulf or sea, something like that-international water....altho this would be determined by staff now i guess.

If an interest rate is instilled a user could vote solely on questions likely to be voided and be guaranteed a rate of return that could be accelerated by then flagging the questions.

What if it's blown up intentionally by the US Gov't? Will break up into small pieces win?

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/NRO02128.xml&headline=U.S.%20Considering%20Shooting%20Down%20Satellite&channel=defense

what if the small pieces hit the ocean, or kill some people in the US?

I hope if most if not all pieces land in water then the winning prediction is water.
Here is an interesting news item just in-
US: Broken Satellite Will Be Shot Down
By LOLITA C. BALDOR – 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere.

If pieces of the "eye in the Sky" fall into the water and reported/recorded by a major news source, then those who predicted water should win or this question must be void.

the water meaning any water as the grueller suggests "Lake Michigan", that would be cool for me!
but if it hits land then whatever continent it "landed" on that prediction should win.
Lets say it hits Lake Baikal,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal

again, water should win or this Q/prediction has to be void.

If the satalite is shot down with an ASAT then this question should be voided. Blow up into tiny pieces obviously means that the satalite will burn up in the atmosphere not be shot down.

This question should be voided now since pentagon is planning to shoot the satellite down.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1447206620080214

I personally took blown up into tiny pieces as shot down. I dont know how else it would blow up into pieces would mean. First thing i thought about was China and their weather sat.

I agree, this Q/wager needs to be void and full HD$ wager returned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite

there are 2 ways that the satellite could blow up...1) it is assumed that there is still hydrazine, rocket fuel, on board and upon re-entering the atmosphere it is thought that it would heat up enough to blow up the satellite 2) the U.S. government could shoot it down with a missile....however, it is a 5,000 lb piece of equipment and it is estimated that in either case there is a good chance that a section around the size of a ton will still be together...as such, if a fairly large piece lands i would think that blowing up into little pieces would not win...also, the government has never tried anything like this and is converting an anti-missile missile to fire at it, so even if they do shoot at it, there's no guarantee that it'll hit the satellite....again, this will be decided by the team, just something to keep in mind....sorry there's so much controversy, it was one of my first questions. :)

I thought "blow up into tiny pieces" meant disintegrating during reentry, not getting shot down.

this was a great question when it was created, pics4d.I remember first reading it and thought"this is a cool site to wager on stuff like this!
it was one of my original wagers back in january.(water)
looks like it will get void, because of circumstances.
the Q again, is cool, just did not play out like we thought it would and natually re-enter our atmosphere.

I have to believe that most of us took " blow up " as disintegrate or be blown up. I always thought that armed intervention was a possibillity.

I put a wager on "water" and "americas" thinking that "blow up" meant "disintegrate or being blow up", and wagered on a missile miss!

Blow up into tiny pieces obviously means that the satalite will burn up in the atmosphere not be shot down.

Blow up is an active statement. Someone needs to blow it up.

Things re-entering the atmosphere don't "blow up" they disintegrate because of the heat.

I bet on blow up based on the missile option. If this is voided I will be PISSED.

blow up is pretty clear to me - doesn't really matter quite how it happens. READ the question people - its where will the spy sattelite hit earth - if you're not wagering that it will hit a major continent or the ocean then you're wagering none/blow up - pretty simple. I'm with scott - if this is voided I'm going to be pretty hot.

just because the government has a "plan to attempt" a shoot-down of the satellite, does not mean that they will go ahead and shoot it down or that it will actually hit the satellite...they have all kinds of plans i'm sure that never have gotten put into action(i.e. the DOJ drew up a plan to delay the 2004 elections in the case of a terrorist attack, but neither event actually occured)....and as i mentioned above, there is rocket fuel on board and there is a high probability that it will "blow up", just they're not sure how much will be left...while things normally disintegrate upon entering the atmosphere, they do not usually contain rocket fuel which is why they dont blow up....it does look as tho it will be voided however :( i had america and africa/australia since that was the line i heard it was going to take btw

Well they need to make a decision - I have alot of money on this and I would prefer to use it on other questions.

There is no reason to void this question, all of the choices are still valid.

Of course if it's not voided I will bet more on it being blown up.. not hard for a missile to hit something that big.

Given that we haven't caught Bin Laden in over 6 years, I'd say that there is a fair chance of missing

Yeah but if you think about it - they don't get just once chance at blowing it up. They can try anytime... or multiple times if they miss.

In any event I'd prefer a void over a protracted argument about this. Too much cash is tied into the question...

I do not understand the problem. To me, the options are more clearely stated than at least 80% of all games here on hubdub. We have a complete and disjoint enumeration of options - all continents that the satellite can hit in theory (antarctica is out of the way), water, and none. I always took the "blow up" phrase as just a layman's explanation for why the thing might hit "none", but the option really is "none"! No need to discuss the semantics of "blow up" - the option "none" wins if neither of the other options wins! (by the way: to me, lakes Michigan and Baikal are clearly parts of their continents and do first count as continent; "water", to me, obviously means "water outside of continents", i.e. seas.
Why hasn't anybody quarreled with the tiny likelihood that some patch of earth might be hit where it is not clear which continent it belongs to? Saym the Azores, Guam, Easter Island... But I think we can diskuss that possibility after it eventuates.
In case the satellite breaks up and hits more than one option, I think we can all easily agree that the impact site of the largest piece should count, if this is reported at all.

Please unsuspend quickly, I want to put my money on this game!

As long as they consider blow up to mean blown up by a missile then I agree - unsuspend it and let it go. Otherwise void it.

If the US successfully shoots down the spy satellite, this question will be settled as 'blow up into tiny pieces'. Tisha - Category Editor

And what if the satellite disintegrates completely without being blown up? And what if it is hit and blown up by a missle but still kills the Statue of Liberty?
The question is: WHERE will the satellite hit. The options are: continent A, continent B, continent C, water (i.e. anyWHERE on the surface of the earth outside of continents), or none, i.e. noWHERE.-Te last option can logically only mean that it does not reach the surface of the earth - for whatever reason! Blown up on purpose, by its own fuels, by an unkind atmosphere...
The question is not HOW it will come down or WHY or WHAT its fate will be. The question is WHERE - and the possible answers to the question WHERE are "here, there or nowhere". The answer "will be hit by a missle" is not a logically proper answer to a "WHERE"-question.
Don't you people ever THINK?

Anti-Satalite weapons 'kill' the satalite by basicaly ramming the target at incredibly high speed to render it useless. Even if the ASAT hits the target it is very unlikely that the satalite will blow up in any fashion. What is far more likely is that it will be hit by the asat and remain in orbit for some interval before re-entering the atmosphere. Just because the satalite is hit andrendered useless by the ASAT does not mean that it will blow-up into tiny pieces. Again there are no explosives involved with this in any way so the ASAT hit will not 'blow-up' the satalite.

If a missile hits it and it breaks up guess what - tiny pieces wins the day.

What if the missile hits the satellite, but some large pieces still make it to earth? How will the question be settled in this circumstance? What if it is hit by the missile and one large piece lands in the water and another hits Australia (like Skylab in 1979), which wager wins? Not to mention that the missile might launch it into a higher, more stable, orbit.

I'm thinking this belongs in the "Circumstances have changed, question gets voided, category"

What if we wait to see if that happens before we ask those questions?

Well, I have to agree with the do not void people now. perhaps the missile will hit it and recovered pieces will fall into water so that water will win! nice to see such well thought discussion on this Q.

scott, blair21088 has explained what an ASAT does - it renders satellites useless. This is not - repeat: NOT - the same as "blow up into tiny pieces". In fact, you can easily render a satellite useless without breaking it apart at all. I once rendered a car useless by crashing it, and guess what - save for some splinters, it did not break up into tiny pieces! In fact, I woul dsay the most likely result of the satellite being hit by a missile would be for it to break up into one larger, some smaller but significant and then some tiny pieces. The best the military can hope for ist that the largest piece is just small enough to disintegrate enough upon entering the athmosphere to avoid major damage on the ground. In which case we have blow-up, tiny pieces AND some continent.
It would have been much more helpful if the "none" option would have been defined as one that is disjoint from the others - i.e. for it to mean "none" of the pieces make any impact onb the earth - for whatever reason.

Anyway, I put my money on water. They are not gonna hit that thing. Why, the anti-satellite missle might become a hazard in its own right if launched with the same sort of diligence as the satellite itself...

since i'm now totally out of this question(after losing more money than i care to mention) and simply want it to continue to the end, i'm gunna let u all in on a secret and tell you what's going to happen...they're gunna shoot at it and even if it does hit it(which i doubt), it's gunna break up but it's the size of a freaking bus people...there's gunna be big parts raining down and something will hit the earth...imagine shooting an RPG at a car, does it destroy the car completely? no..neither is a missile that does not blow up going to destroy a bus sized object so that it'll disintegrate upon re-entry...if you believe the government, your best options are americas, africa/australia, or water because they've said it could hit america and have warned australia that it could hit them...even if they hit it with the missile, if parts come down, blow up shouldn't win because the question is WHERE will the satellite hit earth...blow up into tiny pieces was simply supposed to be an explanation as to why no pieces would land but all the arguing has changed the question into something totally different-judging by the getsatisfaction section, they are saying that if we hit it with the missile blow up will win even if a 2,000 lb piece lands in the crew's back yard...go figure

the ASAT may not have explosives, but if you hit it and expose the satellite fuel, even a little, it will ignite on re-entry and probably explode at some point.

excellent question

tisha, even if the ASAT does hit, you should wait to settle the question because there still may be a large piece leftover that manages to hit the earth.

Also, just to let you guys know -- the US has successfully deployed an ASAT before -- launched from an F15 in supersonic climb.

pics4d, they have no way to know where the thing will come down with or without ASAT impact. They roughly know the week when the satellite will likely be slowed down enough by the outer athmosphere to come tumbling down. During that frame of time, it will circle the earth many times, and fly over lots of water, australia, the americas but also africa and eurasia. Without ASAT, it will come down at some random location. With missile impact, it, or its pieces, will still come down at some random location(s). Why? Because the ASAT has a lot less mass an probably less speed und thus much less energy and impulse, and when you do your basic physical math, you will find that the impact will not slow the satellite down enough to make it come down immediately. Maybe they will try to hit it above the atlantic ocean and hope it crosses america and plunges into the pacific. but it might just as well get further and make it to africa or back to the atlantic...

If this is not going to be voided than I will join yonemoto in asking the hubdub team to wait and see after the ASAT hit rather than imediatley settle in favor of blow up into tiny pieces.

http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/02/19/018224.shtml

To be fair if the ASAT rends the satellite into small enough pieces, then it will hit "none" as everything gets vaporized.

tisha - Then I wish I never put money on this topic, no matter what a longshot it was. I never would have fathomed that the craft would have hit the earth in any way other than a lot of chunks, that's what an uncontrolled non-heat shielded re-entry does. No matter what kind of of chunks it is in, if these chunks pelt Sydney that should satisfy the terms for Australia, etc. I assumed tiny pieces meant things so small as to be inconsequential like a fine dust. Not locals can pick up souvenirs and sell them on ebay or big enough to kill people sizes.

I'm shingling the igloo today...ttyl

great comment mork, would be a blast to see a shingled igloo. I had a bad case of shingles once, ouch.
wagered water on this one weeks ago, so gotta believe that is where most of it will land.
i hope...

I think its gonna blow up and end up on ebay.
Probably some suckers trying to line himself up with it right now.
friggin storm chasers. (jealous)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite

Quote from above article:

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

"Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days," it said.

So something is going to hit the surface of our planet. Sweet.

So basically debris will scatter over the entire planet over a period of 40 days. This one is going to be hell to resolve. I'm betting it will be voided.

well, most of it will burnup one presumes, with some larger pieces remaining intact.

THE SKY IS FALLING ! ! !

Tourism in Egypt Skyrockets!
"Satellite debris and pyramids go great together!", says Britney Spears.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/euve_falls_020131.html

Are we seriously pontificating this resolution? The question was posted well before there was any serious conversation about firing a missile at it. The question is where will the (whole)spy satellite hit earth? The options were three continents, water or blow up. It was blown up, now we're waiting to see what? If the pieces are tiny?

the question doesn't specify the whole satellite, swilson. The tiny pieces gotta land somewhere.....

Erik, with that logic "none/blow up into tiny pieces" could have never been a valid option.

I believe the potential for several or all of the options to be proven true.
Was it blown up?...Yes.
Did pieces hit the surface of the earth?...I suspect we will find out in the next few days.
In my opinion "none/blow up into tiny pieces" should be the outcome if a reasonable amount of time passes with no reports of contact with earth.

I also believe that "none/blow up into tiny pieces" would have been chosen by persons who expected it to disintegrate upon entering the atmosphere and/or people who expected it to blow up due to military intervention.

If anybody got struck with a piece of this thing we would have a hard time convincing them that the satellite did not hit their continent.
That would also indicate to us that it did actually blow up into tiny pieces.
Unfortunately the hypothetical victim may prove to be a more reliable news source than official press releases from USA in some peoples opinion.

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=7904606&nav=menu227_7

The Pentagon released video footage of the destruction of a dead spy satellite.

http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=17693&z=3

If you watch the video, the satellite blew up into tiny pieces. OK. Let's move on. Of course, if you believe that NASA faked the moon walk then you won't be convinced, but hey I need my Hubdub dollars to play with!

The fact remains: The tiny pieces have not landed anywhere yet. This question should NOT have been settled, yet!

Here is what the pentagon has said at recently held press conference.

""At the end of the day, what's important to us is what debris is out there that could fall, where is it going to fall, and — if it falls in some area that's populated — getting to it and making sure nobody gets hurt," he said.

Debris from the satellite had started re-entry over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and re-entry was expected to continue into Friday, Cartwright said. He gave no further details about where the military had tracked fields of fragments from the satellite, which was described as the size of a school bus and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Amateur observers on Canada's west coast reported see seeing some two dozen trails of debris in the sky within minutes of the missile hit, while they were watching a lunar eclipse late Wednesday."

They haven't seen a lot of big debris yet, but if there is some, and it hits a continent or a body of water, that option would be just as valid, if not more valid than the none/tiny little pieces option.

If it hits something the question should be voided because two options are valid, if it hits nothing the none option should win. But it should not have been settled yet!

nods

wrong mork...i expected the military to blow it up. I wagered that the pieces would hit water because most of the earth's surface is water. Simply playing the odds.

Settled? The thing is going to come crashing down still. All that was done was destruction of the fuel tank. I read today that 15 government agencies on standby to recover the debris when it finally crashes. How can this of possibly been settled as "none" meaning it didn't come down anywhere yet or "blow up into tiny peices" when we don't know how tiny the pieces are yet. They certainly shouldn't be considered tiny if they survive reentry and crash somewhere.

groans

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite
Debris tracking and cataloguing is ongoing," Whitman said. "There is no change to our belief that most of the debris should re-enter within about two weeks."

maybe hubdub knows something the pentagon doesn't.