Posts tagged ‘NASA’

September 22, 2011

Stuff That Falls From The Sky

by pastortimfowler

On the news for the last week I have been hearing about a satellite that will fall out of its orbit and hit earth in the next couple of days. It is said to be about the size of a school bus and weighs 6.5 tons. NASA says that they are not sure where it will hit, but are pretty sure that it won’t hit you. I feel better now that I know my tax dollars are being used well.
They say it will break up in the atmosphere and that there will be only about 26 large pieces that make it to earth. They do not say what constitutes a large piece, but I feel good knowing that a scientist can be at least as specific as this. There is a 1 in 3200 chance of a person getting hit by some of this debris. That sounds high, but you have worse odds of getting struck by lightning, bit by a shark, and winning the lottery. I don’t know about you but I fell much better now.
When I was in the Navy, we had a message that came through and it was a bit strange at first and due to many of the unknowns it had been classified secret. It said that a Japanese fisherman had been killed by an object that fell from the sky while his boat was about 200 miles out in the Sea of Japan. As the day went by and the messages kept coming in, it got weird. Next it said that a fisherman was killed by a cow while his boat was about 200 miles out in the Sea of Japan. A few days went by and we got the summary of what had happened. A Soviet cargo plane was flying back from an undisclosed destination and one of the crew had purchased a cow and they brought it on board the plane. The cow apparently experienced some sort of panic or discomfort at 15000 feet and began to thrash around and broke its restraints so the crew lowered the loading ramp and pushed the cow from the plane. The cow fell, hit and killed a Japanese fisherman on his boat about 200 miles out in the Sea of Japan.
Once I was camping in my back yard under a tree and I had a pecan fall and hit me in the head and it woke me up, but that is the closest thing I have to a story that is personal when it comes to stuff falling from the sky.
About now I am thinking that I need to stay inside for the next day or two, or maybe do a lot of driving on curvy roads. If one of the large pieces falls and hits the building I am in, I am not sure that it will help me, but the insurance will at least pay for the building to be fixed and if it just happens to be my house, we need a new roof. If I am driving on a curvy roads it will be like running away from someone who is trying to shoot you. They say you should zig-zag as you run and it reduces the chance of getting hit.
I just had this funny thought of cops pulling all these cars over for the next few days thinking that they are all drunk drivers, but everyone telling the cop that the are reducing their chances of getting hit by something that falls from the sky.
I am not worried about this satellite or even a cow hitting me as it falls from the sky. I do still hate it when pecans hit my head as they fall from the tree. We have a pecan tree in our yard now that has really large pecans and they do hurt if they are falling from the top few limbs. But I don’t think they will kill me and if so, someone else will have to promise me that they will do a follow-up blog to this one and tell the world of my freakish death.
I was reading in the Old Testament book of Job this morning and this is what it says: Job 14:5 If the number of his days and the number of his months are determined by you (God), and you set his limit, then he cannot go past it. That means when it is our time, God will take us home. Nothing can change it and we should not live our lives as if we have forever. We should live for God and for His purpose that He has set for our lives. Live it fully and not worry about tomorrow because we are not promised tomorrow. God has great things for each of us to do and for some He has spectacular endings in store for us! You just never know what God has in store for the stuff that falls from the sky.