The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled 5,000-pound spy satellite within the next two weeks, before it tumbles from orbit, because the rocket fuel it carries could be a danger to people, officials said Thursday. The operation will be carried out from a navy ship that will fire a missile modified for the task at the 2,200 kilogram satellite, which will resemble hitting a ballistic missile warhead as it begins to re-enter the atmosphere. The ramifications of the operation are diplomatic as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing used a defunct weather satellite as a target in a test of an antisatellite system. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/14/america/spy.php Your tax dollars at work right here. And supposedly this thing has the best of everything in it, but for some reason the guidance on it is punched... Conspiracy? Have other government gained access to the controls of the satellite and have overridden U.S. command of it?
I believe it's the USA not wanted the technology to fall into the hands of our enemies, but it must not be all that great if it cant even fly up there..... I expect to be getting a rebate for this piece of crap needing to be shot down, since we all paid for it, and i'm sure it was worth more than a pretty penny...
This isn't a movie. You can't just "hijack" a satellite. The guidance systems just fried. I think it's a good idea. They fuel those things with some nasty stuff... I think this is a better definition of homeland security than most others.
Those things are fueled with Hydrazine, and the hijack thing was speculation not really a serious thought. But the precision that's needed to take that thing down with a missile is incredible, and knowing the U.S. Military, they'll have some other extremely advanced guidance system for the missile.
This was probably a 2-birds 1 stone type of thing, where the government could simultaneously test their abilities to take down a satellite and get rid of confidential information that could fall into the wrong hands.
It has some of the worlds most advanced technology, and not to mention it's one of their brand new spy satellites, oh and if you live in the United States you funded that thing being built, and it malfunctioned, and now you will be paying to take it down.
the way i see it: it broke. there's nothing we can do about that. I'm sure they built the thing up to standards. something just went wrong. ---- happens, you know? i mean, you wanna talk waste of tax payer dolllars, let's talk about the war... there are so many things our government could do with our money that would be better for us...
The thing is, that when they launched it, it never went up right in the first place. It has just been a matter of time. <_<
I completely agree with you on that. The U.S. is paying a ridiculous amount of money to keep the troops over there, and just going further and further into debt.
