Thanks to the President making this decision, I have no doubt we are totally safe. Remember that satellite that was falling out of the sky that I had mentioned earlier? Well, they are going to try to shoot it down.
"The option of striking the satellite with a missile launched from an Aegis cruiser was decided upon by President Bush after consultation with several government and military officials and aerospace experts, said Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey."
Hail our Commander-in-Chief.
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8 comments:
I am thick sometimes. Why are you against that decision?
I was just making fun of the fact that the president was the one that made the decision because he's such an idiot. He probably doesn't even know what a satellite is. I'm sure he was advised by qualified experts but you know that when he gets an idea into his head he loves to stick to the course no matter what. I haven't read Dead Certain yet, but I heard an interview with Robert Draper, the author, and he discussed how Bush will often go with his gut despite advice to the contrary. I can imagine him getting all excited about shooting down a satellite and making the decision before it was discussed.
You know what concerns me, actually? China destroyed a satellite with a missile last year just to show the world they could. At the time, the US and other countries, rightfully, protested because it created a bunch of debris that put other satellites at risk. Now the US show the same capability, but with the perfect excuse: an intelligence satellite with a classified payload that "failed" before it even got to orbit. Can anyone say drone?
I did hear that China's destroyed satellite created about 40% of the debris that is floating out there right now. Hmmm, you may be right. Most scientists are not concerned about the small toxic cloud that might be created if the satellite actually falls on land so the default reasoning is that they don't want the technology to get into the wrong hands (whatever is left of it). But the drone idea actually sounds more plausible.
The satellite is supposed to be L-21, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRO_L-21, from what I've read. The L series are supposedly a network of naval monitoring satellites though you can never be sure. Whatever it is, it was launched before China blew up Fengyun; I bet good money there is no drone conspiracy. They want to destroy it to avoid technology transfer. Don't believe the hydrazine argument! ;)
We've had the capability for over 20 years....
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f15_16.html
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off from a ship launched missile though. The
$40m price tag for the "test" is nothing compared to the damage that could be caused by a ICBM that we failed to intercept. Hopefully they'll get some good data regardless of the result. And if it does fall into enemy hands, they can just send Demi Moore and a team of Rangers to go get it.
-jw
I still like the conspiracy theory the best. While this may not be too predictable, I do think a significant part of the satellite would burn on re-entry and the technology wouldn't be stolen. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I think the lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening is a diversion from the attempt to take down the satellite.
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