Jake Young is a 
Well, that's good.
The military successfully shot down a satellite whose decaying orbit brought up concerns that it might crash into...you know...something besides water. It had about a half ton of a compound called hydrazine that is explosive and toxic. While it is pretty unlikely that anything that explosive would survive a tumble through the upper atmosphere, the Pentagon thought it was better to be safe than sorry:
The Pentagon announced Monday that the mission to launch a Navy missile-interceptor at a dead spy satellite appears to have succeeded in destroying a tank filled with toxic rocket fuel.
The military had better practice. What if aliens invade and we have no experience shooting down crap in space? Then we'll where will be? Screwed, that's where.
By a show of hands, how many people think they shot this satellite down because it was really necessary and how many because they have some toys lying around that they were just itching to try? Hmmm...it looks like the toy itch people have it.
Physical Science
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It was the toys. And a complete disregard for the consequences of space debris.
I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians believe our official reason, though.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | February 25, 2008 4:28 PM
Consider what happened to Colombia thanks to a relatively small hole in its heat shielding as it made re-entry at over Mach 25. What would happen to an unshielded unaerodynamic spacecraft with a ton of hydrazine in a fuel tank coming in at the same speed?
Old Soviet satellites had nuclear reactors and nobody worried about their re-entries.
This had to be some proof of concept so that some huge contract can be awarded -- another bazillion dollar giveaway boondoggle.
Posted by: CRM-114 | February 25, 2008 5:09 PM
The button people have had the itch for years... as long as they've been sending objects into space the defense contractors have wanted to send their own "science" with...
this, however, is a clear cut case of opportunity knocking. The chinese have a success rate on record of taking out satellites, now we can tick one in that column too.. officially that is. ;)
Posted by: Matt | February 25, 2008 5:10 PM
Well, this is certainly a disturbingly evidence-free discussion. The missile used to shoot down the satellite had to be extensively modified for the job, and those modifications were all done in quite an unanticipated rush _after_ the satellite went out of control. Further, the missile used simply doesn't have the range to knock down satellites way up in useful orbits - it can only reach already-doomed satellites just about to re-enter. None of these facts - a rush-job modification of a missile with totally useless range for real anti-satellite warfare - fits well with it being a "toy lying around" or a "proof of concept."
Also, it is simply not factually correct that survival of the hydrazine tank was "pretty unlikely." Those tanks are very, very tough, and the hydrazine was _frozen_ due to the satellite being kaput. And why theorize when we have evidence - hydrazine tanks _have survived re-entry before_. That's why NASA warned the public not to handle debris from the Space Shuttle accident. (And people _did_ worry about the nuclear reactors on Soviet spy satellites, especially after a Cosmos spysat's reactor contaminated parts of Canada after re-entering.)
Note also that the space debris problem from this strike is far, far less than from the irresponsible Chinese test, due to the very low orbit.
Please keep in mind that I am hardly a shill for the Pentagon. I'll eagerly tell you that huge amounts have been wasted obscenely on things like Reagan's Star Wars missile defense. Also, I find it plausible that destroying the hydrazine tank was not the sole motivation for the missile shot. I'm sure some folks at the Pentagon enjoyed giving the finger to the Chinese, and some no doubt liked further reducing the already low odds of the technology being recovered by an unfriendly government.
But - wow - all I'm seeing here is people venting corrosive cynicism like hydrazine venting from a breached tank, rather than seeing nuanced, fact-based discussion.
Posted by: Emory K. | February 25, 2008 6:16 PM
An important point lost in all the media coverage: the missile used to attack the de-orbiting satellite was not an anti-sat missile, it was an anti-ballistic missile missile (say that one five times fast). Exactly as Emory points out, it is designed to attack objects on a low trajectory, close to reentering the atmosphere, not only that, but since late 2002, not only could the kkv be aimed at a very fast target, it could be aimed at a specific part of the target (in this case the tank). Scud attacks on Israel during Desert Storm showed what happened when you destroy a ballistic missile in flight, but leave the warhead intact. So. All that said, that had some fancy toys sitting around, why not use one? The benefits outweighed the prohibitions.
Posted by: Skeptard | February 25, 2008 7:01 PM
Can I suggest a third option?
Due to the satellite not responding there was no option of planning a burn up trajectory. This would leave the possibility of all the interesting technology being dropped in for example China. So better blow it to bits.
Posted by: Who Cares | February 26, 2008 3:06 AM
As a former Navy Officer, I'll vote for the "men and toys" hypothesis. Our ship got so excited whenever we got to shoot at anything.
Posted by: MemeGene | February 26, 2008 11:40 AM
As a former Navy Officer, I'll vote for the "men and toys" hypothesis. Our ship got so excited whenever we got to shoot at anything.
Posted by: MemeGene | February 26, 2008 11:40 AM
LOL! I bet it's true! Having all those pretty rockets around and never getting to see the pretty fire shooting out the back of them would be a bummer!
Dave Briggs :~)
Posted by: Dave Briggs | February 27, 2008 11:03 AM