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Does anyone believe that this was the only anti-satellite trick up Uncle Sam's heavily armored sleeve?
By Andrew Pollack on 02/21/2008 at 11:27 AM ESTIf you haven't seen the news yet, the U.S. Navy used a "standard" missile launched off a navy cruiser with a special 3rd stage which is effectively a self-guided hunk of mass (a big rock) designed to home in on the target in an airless environment and simply slam into it using the differential in speeds between an orbiting body and the missile itself as the kinetic energy to cause the destruction.
Does anyone believe that plans for this sort of thing haven't been in place for quite a while, and that the bigger difficulty here wasn't taking out the satellite but rather taking it out without showing off too much technology in the process? We know China has developed anti-satellite technology, as they tested it recently out in the open. Nothing upsets the U.S. armed forces so much as a destructive capability that someone else has and they don't. So, why no "crash program" to catch up with the Chinese? Simple. It wasn't needed. The capability has likely been in place using not just this method but probably a few more impressive ones for some time. You don't just "throw together" some stuff and "hook it on" to a missile in place of its warheard with a couple of months notice for the special purpose of taking out a broken satellite so that it doesn't have a 1% chance of hurting a few dozen people when it crashes. If you have the stuff on the shelf, that's another matter.
I say bravo to the U.S. Navy for hitting the target. I also say bravo to the U.S. Government for not pretending they had no way to do this, and just crossing its fingers and hoping the thing didn't land on someone's head. Let's just not pretend there is a miracle at work here.
the head with that thing. That probability is probably negligible. I think they
were worried that too much of the thing might actually survive re-entry.
Remember, this was a spy-in-the-sky, so there might be some interesting
technology on board.
re-entry, hydrazine is nasty stuff (although I personally doubt that the tank
or its contents would have survived)
And come on, you know that the military never admits anything until they have
to, I don't think they admitted the existed U2 until Gary Powers was shot down,
and I know they didn't admit to the Stealth fighter until the first Gulf War.
sure. (where we destroyed a satellite with a missile launched from a fighter
jet. feel free to google it.)
years. that stuff is real.
too valuable to allow to land just anywhere. Then all of sudden the story
changed and it was all about the dangerous chemicals.
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And I can remember a buddy of mine telling me a story that involved the branch
of the armed forces securing a one-door silo with "BFRs".
When he asked, he was told that "Well, see that earth-mover of there? We simply
'strategically place' a BFR in front of the door...".
Figured as long as we were talking about rocks.... ;-)