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A comment on New Long March 5B Uncontrolled Reentry Tracked by Aerospace's Experts. Parent comment

Re:New Long March 5B Uncontrolled Reentry Tracked by Aerospa... by gerad on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:15AM (#33492850)
That’s not how the stats work. There’s a 71% chance it lands in water this time (and every time). If you flip heads 3 times in a row, it doesn’t mean you’re more likely to flip tails next time.
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Re:New Long March 5B Uncontrolled Reentry Tracked by Aerospa... by anomaloustho on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:47AM (#33493146)
My understanding is that this is more of the equivalent of making sure you land on heads all 3 times. In that case it’s a 1/8th on 3 coin flips, no?
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Re:New Long March 5B Uncontrolled Reentry Tracked by Aerospa... by jsjohnst on Monday November 07, 2022 @06:01PM (#33513774)
> My understanding is that this is more of the equivalent of making sure you land on heads all 3 times

Yep!

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Re:New Long March 5B Uncontrolled Reentry Tracked by Aerospa... by tehbeard on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:04AM (#33493336)
That's a five year-olds uninformed take because you assume it could land anywhere on earth, hence 71% water....

Orbital mechanics does not work that way (except for a polar orbit). It's covering a particular band of the surface that it could land on if uncontrolled.

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