Satellite

Parent Cafe
21

<p>Z-mom: My comment wasn’t supposed to be political at all. I agree with you that it was an amazing accomplishment. (Although, let me insert two caveats: First, assuming it really happened. The military has been known to shade the truth a lot when talking about how effective its weapons are. Second, it’s a far cry from shooting something that’s been going around and around on a predictable path for years, and that wasn’t designed to evade being shot, to shooting something that you didn’t predict and must react to within minutes, and that may have been designed to evade you. Twenty years plus after SDI, we’re still in SDI preschool.)</p>

<p>Also, I have no problem whatsoever with trying to keep our spy technology secret, with making our enemies believe our technology is great even if it isn’t that great, or even with telling baldface lies for national security purposes. I’m glad someone’s on the job to do it. My only real criticism is that maybe the lies were a little TOO baldfaced; they probably could have done a slightly better job. And I sure hope, if they’re lying about effectiveness, they’re not lying about it to Congress and the President just to keep the money spigots open,</p>

22

<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>Garland, here is the entire post to which I referred. I was asking JHS, in a casual way, what was meant. JHS chose to elaborate in post 21 in a clear, pleasant, informative and non-offended way. There was no mischaracterization and I take exception to your use of the term.</p>

23

<p>kbaloney, the figure I have read is $60 million. Don’t know how accurate that is.</p>

24

<p>ZM–I misinterpreted your question of why that is bad, to think you meant he’d said it was bad. Sorry!</p>

25

<p>“ZM–I misinterpreted your question of why that is bad, to think you meant he’d said it was bad. Sorry!”</p>

<p>No problem. I have a habit of being extremely conversational in my posts, which sometimes causes confusion. I’m sorry about that, but I really do post here for the “chat” value, so I am who I am!</p>

26

<p>I don’t know, call me odd, but it doesn’t impress me, because I can’t take the reason out of the context of the action…and I just don’t believe the “fuel” thing after hearing so many reports saying that reason didn’t make sense…so what was the real purpose of shooting off a rocket</p>

27

<p>The real reason was to keep possible technology secrets out of the hands of our enemies, and to do a bit of swaggering, as has already been said numerous times here. </p>

<p>Only a dufus would really buy the poison gas explanation. I hate when government insults our intelligence.:rolleyes:</p>

<p>…not calling you a dufus, by the way, CGM:)</p>

28

<p>Well, the Wikipedia writeup on hydrazine already contains the following:</p>

<p>“On February 21, 2008, the United States government destroyed a malfunctioning spy satellite with a sea-launched missile, which was needed due to the danger of a hydrazine leak into the atmosphere from its fuel cell.”</p>

<p>Wow that was fast! So if Wikipedia says it’s so, then it must be so. But wait, who contributed that line to Wikipedia, a Pentagon official? Smells like a coverup.</p>

<p>And another conspiracy theory: that the satellite was put up in the first place just so we could shoot it down (i.e. test our missiles). After we made such a fuss when China shot down a satellite last year, it would have been politically impossible for us to just perform an anti-satellite test. But saving the earth from a hydrazine spill, that’s an entirely different matter.</p>

<p>[Nation</a> & World | Could U.S. satellite strike boost arms race in space? | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004194813_sat22.html]Nation”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004194813_sat22.html)</p>

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<p>Good point, yayverily! So, in light of the fact that China shot down its own satellite last year, why do they have their knickers in a twist about us doing the same?:rolleyes:</p>

<p>Is this the beginning of a new Cold War—only with China this time?</p>

30

<p>we don’t even know what they REALLY shot down, do we? we don’t even know what is up there…</p>

31

<p>I believe the Chinese shot their satellite while it was still in orbit, and the blast littered the space with chunks of metal posing danger to all spacecraft. That was truly a moronic thing to do! Our guys did the right thing: the satellite was destroyed while it was entering the downward spiral, and all debris buned upon re-entry. Nicely done (if it was true story :))! As far as hydrazine story goes, yeah, it is a nasty chemical, but it is also a very flammable chemical… Do you think a tank of gasoline would have made it through the re-entry inferno?</p>

32

<p>Not that I want to interrupt your conspiracy theories (I do get a good laugh out of them), but please allow me to interject some actuallity to the thread.</p>

<p>One of the positions I am currently qualified for in the AF is Accident Safety Board President. When an AF jet is involved in a Class “A” accident (either loss of life or more than $1 Million in damages), a Safety Board is convened to investigate the accident and determine what went wrong. Our primary purpose is not to assign blame, but to detemine if this can be prevented in the future. </p>

<p>Now, what does this mean in this thread? First, let’s look at the hydrazine issue. VERY nasty stuff, and yes, it is flammable. But I can tell you that certain aircraft in our inventory do carry this chemical on board, nd if there is a crash involving one of these aircraft, the area is IMMEDIATELY locked down to everyone until the HAZMAT crews have a chance to determine the extent of the danger and isolate it (makes the investigation all that more difficult). Does the hydrazine burn up in the crash? Maybe, but maybe not all of it. Do you really want to chance having people come in contat with any amounts left behind?</p>

<p>Now, do I believe their are a multitude of reasons why we shot this satellite down. (Of course I do, I’m not a “dufus”.) It was an excellent opportunity to test and prove our latest technology. We destroyed classified technology before any one else has a chance to get their hands on it, proved to the enemy that we have the capability (which is why China shot down one of their own last year), and shows our own taxpayers that the money spent on this program wasn’t for nothing. But ultimately, it prevents us from the embarrassment of having to explain to some other country why we let hazardous material fall on them. (Our bad! We’ll get right over there, Australia, and clean up our mess!). We have signed treaties on this, which dictates that as a country with objects in space, we are responsible for them and any damage they may cause on re-entry.</p>

<p>But to get back to the OP, this is an AMAZING display of technology. For all those not impressed (we tracked this satellite and knew the trajectory for months, it wasn’t “reacting” (I got a belly laugh out of that one, as I have yet to see any satellite or ballistic missile equipped with the capability to manuever like a race car at Le Mans)), I have a “little experiment” for you. Go out to the side of the highway, study the traffic for a few hours to get a “feel” of timing, pick an 18-wheeler coming your way, and as it’s going by throw an egg at it and try to to hit the front tire. OK, a little illegal and a little dangerous (for the truck driver, and for you as the driver may decide to stop and ask you bluntly “What the hey!”), but just a little tough to do, don’t you think? Now, mulitple the speeds by 100. Impressed yet? Like it was said before, this was an AMAZING display of technology, and proof against the nay-sayers who loudly and longly proclaimed it couldn’t be done.</p>

33

<p>“we don’t even know what they REALLY shot down, do we? we don’t even know what is up there…”</p>

<p>Here’s the thing: there are now magnetic particles that have sprayed right over San Francisco. If you put your tinfoil hat on , they will deliver messages to you and all will be revealed.</p>

34

<p>yep, along with the chem trails we see monthly</p>

<p>ah, it so cute how people believe everything their government tells them…</p>

<p>so, lets buy lots of them their rockets instead of fixing our highways and schools…why fund the CDC as much…we gotta get more dem der rocket thingys</p>

35

<p>As the old bumper sticker says, “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”</p>

36

<p>So here’s the deal. Some of the stuff I work on (as an engineer) goes into space, and there is a lot of redundancy, enormous care, etc. that goes into every satellite. </p>

<p>My first impression is that it would be unlikely to have a satellite go up and stop working altogether so soon after launch, that some of the systems should have still been working and the satellite have some value.</p>

<p>But then I remember the sorts of mistakes that have been made in the recent past. There was the Mars orbiter that was lost due to the careless metric/English units error (kids, pay attention in school, units DO matter).</p>

<p>[CNN</a> - NASA’s metric confusion caused Mars orbiter loss - September 30, 1999](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/]CNN”>http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/)</p>

<p>and then there was that satellite that tipped over because someone borrowed some of the bolts from the “turn-over cart” and forgot to tell anyone:</p>

<p>[Earth</a> Science Missions Anomaly Report: GOES/POES Program/POES Project: 6 Sep 2003 | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens](<a href=“http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10299]Earth”>http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10299)</p>

<p>So yeah, I do believe this satellite really was DOA (and that someone somewhere is updating his/her resume as a result). And I also believe the hydrazine is being used as a convenient excuse, but the more important reason was to make sure no-one else gets their hands on the classified hardware.</p>

37

<p>the more important reason was to make sure no-one else gets their hands on the classified hardware</p>

<p>What I don’t get is why Bush/Pentagon don’t give this as a reason. Spy satellites should have secret hardware. So why don’t they seem to care if it falls into the wrong hands?</p>

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<p>LOL. They do. They just don’t want to talk about it, apparently.</p>

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<p>I guess they think we’re too stupid to figure it out for ourselves.</p>

40

<p>Bullet, thanks for the detailed explanation! Of course, I’d rather be extra cautious than have any chance of contamination with whatever it was that powered this satellite. Any chance it had RTGs?</p>

<p><a href=“Cassini-Huygens - NASA Science”>Cassini-Huygens - NASA Science;