Posted on 01/22/2007 8:53:03 AM PST by NonZeroSum
Something disturbing happened five hundred miles above China on January 11th.
An old Chinese weather satellite was in orbit, and then, quite abruptly, it wasn't. Or, rather, if it was, it was no longer in one piece, and if it had been in any way operational before, it certainly wasn't afterward. United States Air Force tracking radars will now have a more challenging job, to track all of the debris that's large enough to track.
American intelligence agencies believe that it was destroyed by a weapon fired from Xichang, a major launch facility in Sichuan, China. While details remain classified, it seems to have been taken out with a "kinetic-kill" (a weapon that works simply by crashing into the target at high velocity) payload delivered on a medium-range ballistic missile. In this case, "crashing into the target" is a slight mischaracterization. In actuality, the target likely crashed into the interceptor, which was probably simply flung up into space into its path, at which point the satellite hit it at orbital velocity. This didn't require an orbital launch vehicle, because there was no need to match velocities (and in fact the greater the difference in velocities the better), so it didn't have to attain orbital speeds. But it doesn't matter which vehicle hit which, any more than your body-shop bill is any less when you hit a deer that jumps in front of your car on the road rather than it chasing you down from behind...
(Excerpt) Read more at tcsdaily.com ...
Washington is probably more worried about the economic implication of China than it is about China's clear intent at world domination. Even the ChiComs say so.
I know that there is an SR-71 minus its engines sitting outside a few miles from Destin Fla. Saw it there a year and a half ago. Maybe we ought to rethink their retirement.
Caution: heavy sarcasm used!
When we do it, it is impractical; when they do it, it is an astonishing feat.
Ah the Black Bird. Best we ever had.
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