Just kidding. :o)
Posted on 02/14/2008 9:07:45 AM PST by montag813
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials say the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March.
This is the U.S. military will use a missile to destroy a satellite in space, NBC News reports.
The spy satellite has lost all power and is expected to crash back on earth in early March, spreading debris and potentially hazardous fuel over several hundred miles.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I was thinking of the last one — Executive Action or Dragon and Bear or somesuch — there was a part of the book when President Ryan is sitting on an Aegis Cruiser in Chesepeake Bay that fires several missiles to “shoot down” an incoming nuke warhead.
Normally, they fire their engines to put them on a re-entry trajectory that assures a shallow path, plenty of time to burn up, with the remaining pieces landing in the south Pacific. This time, the central computer failed and its trajectory can't be controlled.
The beauty of this little event is that it shows that we already have an operational ASAT capability. A little message to the Chinese: "Hey, guys.... wanna see how it's really done?"
Ambassador James Jeffries, assistant to the President and deputy national security advisor; Gen. James Cartwright, Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman; and Michael Griffin, NASA administrator, will conduct a press briefing in the DoD Briefing Room at 2:30 p.m. EST, Feb. 14, Pentagon Room 2E579 to discuss reentry of a U.S. satellite.
http://www.defenselink.mil/advisories/advisory.aspx?advisoryid=2952
Watch it here: http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/
It's in such a low orbit that all of the pieces will enter within a month or so. They'll come down faster than the satellite would have.
Huh ... were you over on Quix's ridiculous "Reagan and the Space Aliens" thread or something?
Yeah, it’s not like when Clinton destroyed their embassy...
There won’t be any space junk, this satellite is in decaying orbit, when destroyed its parts will continue to decay. The problem is this one is so big, if nothing is done it will not burn up on reentry, and on its current path its going to come down over land. So, they are going to blow it up, and theory being no part left after the explosion will be large enough to survive reentry and be a threat to people.
15 probably. More power. A Pegasus can be launched from the F-15 and hit a satilite. The only reason they claim not to have this as off the shelf technology is political.
This will make us no better than the Chinese.
“Except that in Red Storm Rising, it was a modified air intercept missile fired from a fighter, an F18, IIRC.”
Actually in the book it was labeled as an ASAT missile, and was fired from an F-15
IIRC, the pilot’s nickname in the book was “Buns” or something like that.
Just kidding. :o)
“Yeah, it’s not like when Clinton destroyed their embassy...”
He made up for it by ensuring that they got the wreckage of the F-117 that was shot down, as well as a dud JDAM.
Not to mention the unrestricted access to Sandia and Los Alamos National Labratories.
For all those who said Reagan’s “star wars” couldn’t possibly work.
I think you’re exactly right. There are better ways of dealing with a satellite. This is a message.
LOL
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