Posted on 01/26/2008 1:03:46 PM PST by HAL9000
See post #’s 38, 39, and 49...
Oh come on, WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!
secret is very low. TSCW IS high
You, you, you beat me to it!
One of the shows on space junk featured a French spy satellite that lasted about a month before it went spinning out of control, as suggested by the erratic transmissions.
The French finally asked the British equivalent of NORAD if they could tell them anything. Looking at known orbits of stuff, they told the French that it was most likely hit by the remnant of an earlier Ariane booster rocket for another French satellite.
But hey, didn't somebody find Apollo program junk in an extremely high orbit?
That's news to me. I have always heard that the upper reaches of the atmosphere are more like (changeable) mountain ranges than plains. That being the case, it is impossible to say when - which particular orbit - it will begin to impact atmosphere, how much (or how little) it will hit, etc. until it is beginning to significantly slow and de-orbit.
NASA and others that watch orbital and sub-orbital objects can predict re-entry points for things like the shuttle or ballistic missiles with more accuracy because they are coming down at higher angles than something nominally still in orbit, just brushing the atmosphere. In the case of a dead satellite, I'll bet they can't even say with certainty which orbit it'll start hitting air on, let alone which part, how much, etc. If it were really important to them, they'd save a little maneuvering fuel and at a good time, nudge it down to give it a predictable re-entry - one steep enough to guarantee burn-up, or splash down in an uninhabited place (eg. ocean) where any parts couldn't be recovered.
Any chance it will land on Hillary!?
I’ll settle for Bill...
“NASA and others that watch orbital and sub-orbital objects”
Just to clarify, NASA doesn’t watch anything. They just throw stuff into space. The Air Force’s Space Command watches all the junk up there.
Can't tell ya that ... its a secret. Otherwise I could tell ya, but then I'd have to kill you ....
Waterboard the reporters. Get the perps name(s). Put both in a bad prison for a long time and this nonsense will stop immediately. Not holding my breath though. Did I mention exiling the American Communist Lawyers Union members?
“The shuttle, for instance, only slows down a couple or three hundred mph from its orbital speed to begin its descent. That’s what, 1 or 2 percent of its velocity?”
300 mph from 17500 Mph
Does this mean we don’t have to worry about the recession, global warming, and plastic bags?
Not true. They know the current orbit and they can propagate it using one of various orbital decay models. But the predictions do get more accurate as more data is acquired. NORAD tracks everything in orbit (including the debris cloud caused by the Chinese ASAT test). They can use this data to refine their predictions.
“secret is very low. TSCW IS high”
(2) “Secret” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.
Seems like its important enough to throw someone in jail.
drop it on China.
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