<p>This is just amazing to me: [Pentagon</a> confident satellite’s toxic fuel destroyed - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/21/satellite.shootdown/index.html]Pentagon”>Pentagon confident satellite's toxic fuel destroyed - CNN.com)</p>
<p>D2 and I had a good laugh at today’s newspaper story. Obviously written before the pentagon released the footage, but the story said the navy “apparently” shot down the satellite, and even if the toxic fuel tank had remained intact till it reached the earth’s atmosphere, it “probably” would have not been harmful. hmmm. OK.</p>
<p>H was convinced that this really wasn’t necessary–all the talking up about it being harmful when it came in, was really a ploy to show everyone how macho America still is. That and/or the fact that it was a spy satellite and we didn’t want to take a chance that any of its “parts” might be found by someone of questionable intentions…</p>
<p>It’s a parts issue. It’s kinda hard to believe they would be concerned that much about a toxic substance in the mix. Like they haven’t checked a local river lately?</p>
<p>Astromom-we thought the same–either hiding the secret spyware, or showing off (“look what we can do, don’t mess with us”), or both.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who finds the whole thing just amazing? The ability to do this, I mean. Maybe I need to get out more.</p>
<p>zoosermom - I find it interesting as well - shooting a rocket from the surface to over a hundred miles away in the sky and being able to hit a satellite traveling at 22K mph. Pretty amazing.</p>
<p>After spending billions of dollars on the technology, I’d be pretty amazed if we couldn’t do it. Now, can we shoot one down that we don’t have plenty of time to track and analyze and track and analyze? That might amaze me.</p>
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<p>I not only find it amazing, I also think it’s extremely cool. To fire a rocket from a moving ship and hit a small target 133 miles away that is traveling 4 or 5 times faster than the rocket is just incredible.</p>
<p>okay, if these things are so dangerous, and such a security risk, why don’t they have some sort of “self” distruct mode…and yep, they told us they hit it…</p>
<p>also, seems there is this talk about having to “defend” the satellites, with lots of rockets and such…this wasn’t really necessary, it was a way of selling hardware and perhaps hiding what that satellite was really for</p>
<p>haven’t other satellites fallen and eh, no drama</p>
<p>"WASHINGTON – Giant chunks of man-made space junk – like the dead satellite the U.S. government is planning to shoot down – regularly fall to Earth.</p>
<p>Yet no one has ever been reported hurt by them.</p>
<p>Chunks of debris weighing two tonnes or more from satellites and rocket parts fall uncontrolled every three weeks or so, according to an analysis by a Harvard University astronomer who tracks satellites and space debris.</p>
<p>And that’s just based on the last three years.</p>
<p>Experts in the field say that in the past 40 years, about 5.5 million kilos of man-made space junk has survived re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, according to the orbital debris centre. "</p>
<p>[edmontonsun.com</a> - World- The sky is falling – but chill](<a href=“http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/02/21/4864203-sun.html]edmontonsun.com”>http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/02/21/4864203-sun.html)</p>
<p>There was a news story on TV last night about a reserve unit here that’s on call to go anywhere in the world to recover “dangerous” debris from this satellite if any falls to earth.</p>
<p>So . . . I concluded a while ago that this was a “parts” issue, with a side of macho. The “toxic rocket fuel” line is barely credible. (“Hey! Great idea! We’ll say we’re blasting it out of the sky because we’re GREEN!”) Something’s on there that we don’t want being found by others.</p>
<p>" Something’s on there that we don’t want being found by others."</p>
<p>And that would be bad because . . . ?</p>
<p>ZM, for the same reason we were trying to retrive the spy plane that made emergency landing in China a few years ago: we do not want our military technology secrets to fall into the wrong hands.</p>
<p>“ZM, for the same reason we were trying to retrive the spy plane that made emergency landing in China a few years ago: we do not want our military technology secrets to fall into the wrong hands.”</p>
<p>Right, but why is that a bad thing? I was quoting the prior post and asking JHS why that would mitigate the amazingness of the whole accomplishment.</p>
<p>After reading House of War by James Carroll I am skeptical toward anything and everything that emanates from The Pentagon.</p>
<p>ZM–I thought it was pretty self-evident that the point that JHS and others, including myself, were making was that the Pentagon was being rather disengenuous in proclaiming it’s reasons for the targeting. Discussing the value of the underlying reason is a different subject. You’re welcome to raise it, but no one was questioning it.</p>
<p>“ZM–I thought it was pretty self-evident that the point that JHS and others, including myself, were making was that the Pentagon was being rather disengenuous in proclaiming it’s reasons for the targeting.”</p>
<p>The thread, which I started, was about the wonder of the ability to do something remarkable, not a political thread.</p>
<p>Boys and their toys.</p>
<p>“Boys and their toys.”</p>
<p>I want one.</p>
<p>“The thread, which I started, was about the wonder of the ability to do something remarkable, not a political thread.”</p>
<p>Yes, I get that. What I’m saying is that the comments which it elicited were not questioning your opinion, but commenting on another aspect of the story. On the other hand, your question of JHS implied that the point of his post was to say that a security issue was “bad” when in fact no where had he done so.</p>
<p>Thread topics change all the time, but the changes shouldn’t turn on a mischaracterization of another poster’s post.</p>