Then, yeah, they're really amazing, but that's never gonna happen to you. Or two, if you're a Soviet in 1957. Those times are quite dead now and deserve a formal burial. Nowadays, most people don't blindly believe swaggering space propaganda, where the glamour of technical accomplishment is fiercely valued over any hint of earthly practicality. Iridium sacrificed five billion of other people's money, including, not surprisingly, rather a lot of money from gullible, poverty-stricken Russians.
Iridium is the single greatest debacle in communications history.
We really shouldn't paper over a mess of that size. We should watch with care and take note. Watching 'em gleam is nothing compared to watching 'em burn. They're still up there, sixty-six of them, spinning in the pure empyrean to the vivid strains of a Stanley Kubrick Strauss waltz. Unlike NASA and the Soviet Union, Iridium had to work in a market economy, where nobody wants to pay big moolah for fantastic rocket prestige, as opposed to actual phone service.