The dead satellite, that is:

Missle takes out satellite

OK, so was it really a risk, or did George just wanna show off and light off some fireworks?

Pretty impressive, but actually at only 150 miles up not nearly as difficult as hitting a satellite in a normal, functional (higher/faster) orbit.
Still, hitting a car or bus size object 150 miles away that was probably traveling thousands of MPH is pretty impressive!

Note: this was posted when initial reports came in. Let's see if the story gets retracted and they actually missed - lol.

There was a risk. It was a spy satellite with state of the art imaging equipment and who knows what else installed.

There definitely was a possible risk that some of that equipment or technology could have survived the descent to earth and fallen into the hands of another country such as China or Russia.

at least they didn't try and catch it this time with two helicopters and a big net.

That's fn funny. That was a joke of a scheme.

I think the risk was substantial to human life, our security, etc. Believe what you will. It also demonstrates that we aren't that far behind if need be and will prepare ourselves regardless of the hampering by the Left or what the World Opinion may be.

Congrats to those bright minds that made this all possible.

Is that based on something real?
Was that ever tried, or was it something from a movie?

Bah...the Chinese hit one of their satellites at about 5 times the distance of this satellite over two years ago...not really much of an accomplishment at all (comparatively). It would be a MUCH bigger deal if they had missed...the Chinese and the rest of the world would be laughing their asses off...

http://www.rotor.com/membership/rotor/rotorpdf/2004fall34.pdf

It was real, I can't remember the name of it, but it was the deal where they collected the cosmic dust from a comet and figured they'd catch it on the way down, instead it buried itself in the desert. I guess they still got some uncontaminated samples, however it will be years before any study is released on it. Like most scientific discovery, it has to go through peer review and with less than ideal amounts of samples, it will take more time. Unlike Global Warming where if you don't believe in it, you killed the Jews in the Holocaust. :rolleyes: No peer review. IT'S THE SUN! NOT MANKIND!

That was an expensive little activity.

The exercise to shoot it down cost about $74 million and while classified, it's estimated the cost of the satellite was over $1 billion.

The satellite was orbiting the earth once every 90 minutes at a speed of something like 24,000 mph. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Seems to have worked out okay. What if the missile hit brought the thing down on downtown Kansas City?

Uh, the concern was the fuel tank. Had it crashed in a populated area, the gas could have killed or sickened people for a few hundred yard radius.

Well Brent, that's what the news told you anyways.

Yep, that's what we're supposed to believe. Of course, nobody except top government officials will know the real reason it was shot down.

Why is google earth not working OOOHHHHHH wrong satellite ooops.lol

Hydrazine has been used as a rocket fuel and propellant for satellite thrusters for many years.

You really believe the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a top secret spy satellite and when it malfunctioned their only worry was the hydrazine fuel?

Don't take too many wooden nickels.

I thought the real reason for even launching the defective thing and shooting it down was to just say:

"Neeener Neener Neener - we can do it too" to the Chinese!

Although they blasted theirs at like 300+ miles up and it now litters the cosmos with small annoying pieces of Chinese crap, which probably have high lead content.

Not necessarily true. The closer the orbit is, the faster they move. This as hard as what China did. The missiles have plenty of range. it's a question of being able to hit an object moving at 7.5 miles per second...

"Not necessarily true. The closer the orbit is, the faster they move."

If I remember my high school physics correctly, mass of the object, as well as distance from earth will determine velocity.
Unless the satellite is on a treadmill. If they put the satellite on a treadmill it's orbit won't decay because there will be no friction. Problem solved.

Not a high school physics problem. But if you did remember, you would know that the earth weighs 6 x 10^27 kg making the space vehicle's gravitational pull insignificant. That means any (man-made satellite) orbit is calculable without knowing the weight of a satellite.

I still say it probably wasn't even a real satellite in the first place and it was all a big show of force to the Chinese. Probably a Nissan Xterra with some Solar Panels on it. All planned from the get go as a weapons test.

I guess we will never know. Although a slightly charred Nissan badge landed in my back yard yesterday!

Don't want to add to the controversy here, but I would like to point out that American satellite-killing technology was first demonstrated in the mid-1980's using a missile system launched from an F-15 at 80,000 feet. While that system was supposedly never deployed,, it was successful.

The missle was fired from a treadmill

It was called "Genesis"

We did what they did back in 1963 (Ground launched, geostationary satellite).... with a Nike Hercules missile. So the Chinese are only 45 years behind.

In 1985, this was done by an F15 in flight. Yes, they shot down a geostationary satellite from a plane.

Notice these are all geoSTATIONARY satellites. You know exactly where they are.

Now, 2008, the US shoots down a moving object in Low Eart Orbit, from a ship, with a standard missile that is already in inventory.

Tell me that's a Bah, The US just proved that any object in space is at the mercy of the US Navy which can be anywhere at any time.

We do know. The launch and failure of the satellite was covered in the news. Believe it or not, other countries have surveillance technology. If you claim you blew something up, expect it to be verified...