intial reports

http://www.cnn.com/

More

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331591,00.html

Reagan's SDI (Star Wars) finally realized...24 years gone by.

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/road.pdf

Thats pretty cool Gdog thanks.

Great, we can shoot down satellites. I wonder how long before other, less than friendly, countries can do it also? Think comm sats, those neat ones that make our GPS's work, etc...

Those Satellites make their GPS's work too.

China did it last year. BTW thats why I carry a compass.

LOL.

Fairly recently the Chinese shot one of their satellites. And a mighty gasp was heard within the US about how the Chinese were going to stage a 'Pearl Harbor on the Hight Frontier'. What got missed was the many developments and tests the US had been doing along the same lines.

The unwritten logic was: US developments are 'good' and in the service of peace' but the Chinese efforts are a 'threat to world peace and US security'. Silly.

Now this administration has, at considerable cost (one estimate was $1 Billion), deigned to shoot at one of our satellites. The experts on such things pointed out that the whole 'hydrazine risk' story was canard. The odds of a hydrazine tank surviving reentry are slim to none. Assuming it made it down at least partly intact the risk was minimal, contamination of an estimated two football fields.

Which means that for purely symbolic reasons, demonstrating we can, we have spent most of a Billion dollars for no practical effect.

Maybe it is just me but this smacks of the psychology of insecure adolescent boys. A need to 'prove themselves' and an immature inability to restrain themselves that drives them to do outlandish inappropriate acts simply because 'they can'. Regardless of the consequences.

Again, maybe it is just me but I keep getting the feeling this administration needs adult supervision.

Yup, that pretty much describes me

GPS Sats are out 24,000 miles (I think) and would be a lot harder to hit then one that’s only 100-miles away.


I would guess we shot it down for a few reasons. Yes it may have been a danger, but I would also guess we were sending a message to China and other countries (China said they want to go to the Moon) that if they pick up any of our moon junk we can keep you from bringing it back.