Missile Hits Dying US Spy Satellite

AOL ^ | 2008-02-21 02:31:31 | ROBERT BURNS,AP

[BellStar]

WASHINGTON (AP) - A missile launched from a Navy cruiser soared 130 miles above the Pacific and smashed a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite Wednesday, the Pentagon said. Several defense officials said it apparently achieved the main aim of destroying an onboard tank of toxic fuel.

[BlueNgold]

Go Navy
Beat Air Force

[CalvaryJohn]

OK, I’ve been thoroughly beaten down on this one. But if you heard this guy read the news every day, you’d understand why I thought he was speaking from the wrong orifice. I stand corrected.

[ModelBreaker]

Didn’t mean to pile on. I guess other posters made the same point I did—and probably made it better. As for your newscaster, even broken clocks . . .

[BikerJoe]

There is no mirror on it. It is a radiation bird, so what they want out of your pool is the antennas. p.s. You may notice more that usual amount of dead frogs in your skimmer basket. Keep the dogs and kids out of the pool for the next 400 years. On the plus side, the water should be algae free for the next few months.

...and you don't have to worry about heating the water or using the pool lights, since you'll have that handy blue glow. I guess trying to keep the pool from boiling might be a problem, though...

[wiley]

One of the not so ‘secret’ secrets about Reagonomics was that it was intended to bankrupt and destroy the Soviets. It worked, and it can be done again, and Putin and the Chinese are probably quite aware of that. But it does take a President with guts and therein lies one of the great issues with this next election. Who will be able to stand toe to toe with the traditional adversaries and not blink?

I’ll go with McCain on that one, though he was far from my first choice, but survival has to be at the top of the list of conservative issues.

[Edmund]

Have you heard about the restaurant on the moon? They say the food is good but there’s no atmosphere.

[Marine_Uncle]

Mission successful.

[Sun]

They now know how strong we are.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Amen, Amen, and Amen!

Thank you, Ronald Reagan! Thank you GWB! Thank you US Navy. Thank you to all who have worked on this technology/weapon system.

America thanks you all!

[Grampa Dave]

“Amen, Amen, and Amen!

Thank you, Ronald Reagan! Thank you GWB! Thank you US Navy. Thank you to all who have worked on this technology/weapon system.

America thanks you all!”

I can visualize GW, like that cell phone commercial talking to Putie, the ChiComs and Iran, saying “Can You Hear Me Now!
“

[Calvin Locke]

One of the benefits of global warming is that the atmosphere expands, increasing the drag on LEO stuff, so the junk will slow down and fall sooner.

Of course, the useful stuff is also affected.

BTW, what's an "excursion"? From the graph, I take it that only 20% (blue line) of the Chinese junk will have fallen out of orbit?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

BTW, what's an "excursion"? From the graph, I take it that only 20% (blue line) of the Chinese junk will have fallen out of orbit?

You take it correctly. The source isn't perfectly clear where they went on that excursion. An excursion is produced by varying model parameters to account for uncertainty. In this case they varied the atmospheric drag, the "size" of the atmosphere. It isn't clear if the excursion was one sigma (one standard deviation), or some percentile confidence level. (They also assumed that all the objects had the same size and drag coefficients, they are only differentiated by their measured trajectories.) It is probably a good ball park guess of what the future holds for that debris cloud.

I'm waiting to see what happens to USA-193 debris.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Yes indeed, The Gipper speaks today - and those Chicoms and Russkies certainly heard this “shot heard round the world” this week!