{"id":187,"date":"2026-06-21T17:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/?page_id=187"},"modified":"2026-06-21T17:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:03:13","slug":"when-you-wish-upon-a-falling-satellite","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/when-you-wish-upon-a-falling-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Wish Upon a Falling Satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Indianapolis Star 3\/8\/08<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, why are we staring up at the sky?\u201d

My six-year old son Riley popped the question as we cuddled on our back porch for our nightly ritual. Our eyes fixed overhead, we dodged a few flaky snow flurries.

\u201cRiley, we\u2019re protecting Charlie from falling satellite debris,\u201d I explained.

Each night since late February when the U.S. destroyed a failing spy satellite, Riley and I shiver in the winter wind chill, waiting to see if a portion of the school bus-sized satellite USA193, soars across the sky and strikes our dog Charlie, a 10-pound schnoodle currently circling the backyard for a place to poop.

\u201cDad, what\u2019s a satellite?\u201d

\u201cIt\u2019s a piece of equipment that orbits the earth. It bounces communication signals down to us. Like television shows and long distance phone calls.\u201d

\u201cWhat\u2019s orbit?\u201d

\u201cGoing around and around in a circle, like Charlie.\u201d

\u201cDad, why would a satellite fall from the sky?\u201d

\u201cIt was broken. So we sent a rocket up into the sky to blow it up.\u201d

\u201cWhy?\u201d

\u201cIt has to do with hydrazine fuel tanks re-entering the atmosphere in tact as opposed to\u2026.\u201d

Riley interrupted my broken science explanation.

\u201cSo what happened to the TV shows it bounced to earth? Did they get blown up to?\u201d

\u201cActually it was a satellite that spies on people. It didn\u2019t carry any TV shows.\u201d

\u201cI think they should send a rocket and blow up the America\u2019s Next Top Model satellite. That\u2019s a boring show.\u201d

\u201cWell, it doesn\u2019t really work that way Riley.\u201d

\u201cWould Tyra Banks fall out of the sky and crash into our roof?\u201d

\u201cUh\u2026maybe.\u201d

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t want Tyra Banks crushing me.\u201d

As I sat there pondering the possibility of Tyra Banks orbiting 150 miles into the atmosphere, being struck by a missile fired from a U.S. warship, hurling toward the earth, and flattening my son, I thought, \u201cHey, maybe Riley is on to something.\u201d

Maybe we should shoot down more satellites. The ones that transmit odorous garbage into our daily lives. Like the WhiteBronco32 satellite, launched in 1994, that carries signals from all local TV news choppers as they pursue ambulances, police cars, and runaway ex-football stars. It\u2019s a satellite in decay. We should shoot it down.

Or the Polly Ad satellite, transmitting \u201cI approve this message\u201d ads from political consultants to ad agencies to TV stations during election years. We could all benefit from an accurate missile launch targeting that one.

Or even the RingCell 2000 satellite, sending insidious ring tones to trendy cell phone owners worldwide. Unnecessary and annoying.

\u201cDad!\u201d Riley woke me from my utopian dream.

\u201cDad, why do satellites spy on people?\u201d

\u201cWell, satellites don\u2019t spy on people. They just help us keep track of people who might hurt us. If we know where the bad guys are, we can protect ourselves better.\u201d

\u201cHow?\u201d

\u201cWell, some satellites have big cameras on them that take pictures. Some satellites can track tiny chips placed in devices like cars, so we can always tell where the car is. That\u2019s called a Global Positioning..\u201d

Riley interrupted my impromptu technology lecture. \u201cHow do we know who the bad guys are?\u201d

\u201cSometimes we don\u2019t know.\u201d

\u201cDad, that guy who killed those students at that college with a gun. He was a bad guy.\u201d

\u201cHe did a very bad thing.\u201d

\u201cThen why didn\u2019t we spy on him with a satellite?\u201d

\u201cBecause we didn\u2019t know he was going to…\u201d

\u201cBut he had a bunch of guns. And he walked into that school and killed all those kids. That\u2019s a bad guy Dad. What if he came to my school Dad? Couldn\u2019t we see him with the satellite?\u201d

Riley\u2019s suddenly panicked voice left me silent. My eyes stopped searching for USA193 streaking across the sky, and shifted toward the dilated pupils of my six-year old.

\u201cDad, answer me. Can\u2019t we put potato chips inside guns so if I\u2019m at school and a bad guy comes, we can stop him?\u201d

\u201cComputer chips.\u201d

\u201cDad, if they can put chips in cars, why not guns?\u201d

Riley reached over, gave me a hug, and held on tight.

I stared up at the stars, now hoping one might be falling, and made a wish.

\u201cMaybe someday Riley. Maybe someday.\u201d

Ted Mandell teaches in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. <\/em>

Copyright 2008 Ted Mandell<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indianapolis Star 3\/8\/08 \u201cDad, why are we staring up at the sky?\u201d My six-year old son Riley popped the question as we cuddled on our back porch for our nightly ritual. Our eyes fixed overhead, we dodged a few flaky snow flurries. \u201cRiley, we\u2019re protecting Charlie from falling satellite debris,\u201d I explained. Each night since … Continue reading When You Wish Upon a Falling Satellite<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4375,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-187","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ted-mandell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}