Posted on 02/20/2008 9:07:08 AM PST by maquiladora
Red Moon Rising.
Target practice? No way. They want ALL the technology in that bird in pieces that could benefit no enemy of the USA. Would not surprise me to catch Bill and Hillary out there with a giant net on the water —— heck, those pieces could fetch a big bunch of campaign dollars in Commie China —— where is Johnny Chung when they need him?
Fair winds and following seas, sailors.
“The regret factor of not acting clearly outweighed the regret factor of acting,” he said.
Plus it scares the crap out of the russkies and chi-coms he later added.
Might shoot or might not depending on weather.
Track the current position and travel direction of USA 193 on this web site.
please don't tell our enemies
From Seattle Times:
The government issued notices to aviators and mariners to remain clear of a section of the Pacific just west of Hawaii beginning at 7:30 p.m. PST, indicating the first opportunity to launch an SM-3 missile from a Navy cruiser, the USS Lake Erie, in an effort to hit the wayward satellite.
I would be shocked if reentry and impact did not completely destroy anything of worth. I don't think surveillance satellites are hardened against reentry. So I think the hydrazine is a blind too. How can a fuel tank survive reentry when it's not designed for that?
Pure speculation; but if there were nuclear materials on board, they would survive reentry and would be detected by the folks in the neighborhood where it landed.
Otherwise, this is just an opportunity to test ASAT capabilities against LEO satellites. And we're taking it.
We tell them what we want them to ‘know’. Sometimes what we want them to know just isn’t true...
High seas? Bah! Shoot already.
please don't tell our enemies
This is a totally different situation than an enemy attack. Since there will be multiple opportunities to make the shot, there's no reason to fire under marginal conditions. If there were only one chance to take the satellite out, I'm quite sure that they'd take the shot even in marginal weather conditions.
This is just what you want to hear that we need to wait for good weather in order to shoot. I hope our enemies choose to shoot at us on a bright sunny day so AEGIS can do its job without any distractions.
My thought exactly. Sheesh, do they think we are so stupid that we think some bobbing of the boat isn’t accounted for in the targeting ?
Yep.
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