Science and Society

What if they miss?

Anyone think this is a waste of money.... ????

Everything the government does is a waste of money. Why should this be any different?

I'm betting one of these missiles end up on Iranian soil.. OOPS! Did we do thaaaat??

Given that this satellite cost hundreds of millions to put in space and was 'officially' never used for anything...yeah...it's a waste of money.

Why not open bids? Maybe China can do it cheaper?

Johnathan Karl who says something like this has never been done before? Did you forget china did shoot a satellite down a few months ago?

Ok, anyone that thinks this is being done to prevent ‘fuel’ from reaching earth [NY Times, 2/15/08] is either delirious or so completely ignorant of space propulsion systems as to be a complete idiot.
Here’s the deal.
1.More than 100 metric tons of man-made objects reenter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled fashion each year .
2.We have NEVER needed to ‘shoot’ any of it down.
3.Fuel tanks are NOT designed to withstand reentry. Ever. They will burn up in the atmosphere along with any unspent fuel.

No, there can only be one of several reasons this satellite poses a danger. The more plausible reasons the US would spent $70million to take this thing down is that this Spy satellite has ‘something’ aboard that is sensitive. I could believe that:
a.It has a ‘hard drive’ containing intelligence data - or other type of memory or equipment; pictures, etc. - that could survive and fall in the wrong hands;
b.It uses an advanced nuclear power source – Isn’t that prohibited by international treaty or something?
c.It has a defunct defensive weapon system on board – also, I believe, prohibited by international treaty.
d.It has a defunct offensive weapon system on board – I KNOW that is prohibited by international treaty.

But don’t think for a minute that it is a ‘fuel hazard'.

Seems too expensive to fire a single missile. But hey, I am sure there is a no-bid contract to buy another solid gold missile.

And no price is too high to keep the public from finding out the real details of the spying. And that's what the real motivation is. they are worried the electronics will survive re-entry and someone will determine the extent of thier spying. They dont care about your safety.

Ken: I would not suggest that they don’t care about our safety. I have worked on many government and military programs. There are many good citizens and genuine patriots in our government.
I'm just saying I don’t think that they would spend $70mil to cover a 1% probability of danger given the amount of space junk that enters the atmosphere every year unnoticed.

As there is no homing beacon on it, I would give long odds that they miss.

All of their other "hits" required a beacon.

No one has brought up the fact that they may just want to play with expensive toys.

It is a shot in the dark but for that kind of money and the salvage value of the satellite, why doesn't NASA send the shuttle to retrieve it?

Why not ask the Chinese to do it? Afterall, they have the capability and experience.

Senator Spector wants the Patriots spy satilight removed so they can't continue taping signals.

Give me a break! How much money do these fools waste every single minute of every single day? They could care less if it killed anyone - other than themselves. Probably has a nuke on it or something; I don't believe anything they say.

That satallite was sent up in Dec. 2006, I would think that these scientist would of put a self–truction mechanism on all satallites sent up. It would of cost a couple of dollars compared to this.

to JWB:

You said: "3.Fuel tanks are NOT designed to withstand reentry. Ever. They will burn up in the atmosphere along with any unspent fuel."

There are LOTS of debris that has survived reentry including FUEL TANKS.

Delta Stage 2 563lb stainless steel tank

Delta fuel tank

Pressure sphere

Orbital Debris Recovered Objects

Why doesn't it get picked up by Atlantis to be returned in its cargo bay?

stan , if you were the astrounut would you want to carry that thing in re-entry

Didn't have to worry about shooting Skylab down, now did we?

This all seems a little Armagedon to me. So let's say they spend $70 mil, they miss the satellite all three times. Then what? Oh, that's right, we're out 70 million dollars and the satellite still makes it to Earth.

It's great real practice for us. The Chineese have proven they can hit a satellite, we haven't. WW3 will happen quickly and one of the first targets will be military satellites, we need to be sure we can get theirs before they get ours. Nothing is better than the real deal for practice, we would be foolish to not take advantage of the opportunity. If we miss then it will be an eye opener than the Chineese are ahead of us in this area.

crow, I think JWB means that the fuel tanks are not designed to survive re-entry WITH the fuel intact. This is what they are trying to tell us is the main danger - fuel. Can you imagine fuel surviving the intense heat of re-entry? Look at the photos you linked to. Does anyone think the fuel within could have made it to Earth?

Lock and Load!!!

It's obviously Karl Rove's weather machine and they are removing it before the Dems get into office so they can't use it to fight against Global Warming. Bwahahahaha!!!1

Good thoughts! Maybe that's the reason for using Hawaii. If we miss, they plan to have it land in China, North Korea, or Iran. Or, maybe they aren't really using missiles to "miss" with. They are just launching a new spy satelite under the pretense of destroying the first one.

We should just let it come down and take our chances. Use the $74 Million to improve technology education in the US so the next generation of engineers will be smart enough to design satellites which do not endanger us.

Last I heard the Chinese didn't so much 'shoot down' their sattelite as turn it in to so much ortibal, shuttle-shredding debris. Pretty soon we'll be isolated on earth as anything we put up there will get swiss-cheesed.

why doesn't a satellite that has such sensitive and dangerous material on board have a self destruct mechanism that can be activated from here?

Hey- the shuttle is up there- why don't they just grab this thing as it goes by!?

ejp: because if they had a mechanisim like that, they couldnt spend 74 million dollars of money we dont have to shoot down a missle they may or may not succeed in shooting down! lol

You all make it sound like they the to go
and get this $74M from the bank. All the equipment and manpower is already in place.
Its like going to the frig. and getting a glass of milk from the bottle, not like going out to the store and 1 glass at a time when you need it. Oh by the way they are doing the right thing.

More misleading statistics from the news media.

If the missles cost 10 mil apiece and we already own the military and the people that plot the missile course, why is it a projected 44 million management overhead to shoot those missiles?

I mean we aren't hiring haliburton to do this right?

This is just to show the Chinese that we too can shot down satellites. The Chinese think they have some upper hand due to the fact that they can shot down a satellite and they need to be put in their place.

To Crow
You should eat crow because the fuel that they are saying is the problem would not be contained in those tanks you sent via links. If a tank has a hole in it there is no way the fuel can stay in there. Wake up and stop beliving everything our WONDERFULL?? goverment tries to tell us.
HJJ

I thought we were told that all equipment being sent into space had self destruct built into them in case they had to be destroyed during lift off. This included all rockets and payloads. Guess they forgot about this one.

For everyone saying for the shuttle to go get it, not possible.

First, the shuttle is more then likely in a higher or lower altitude orbit then the satellite. Before the shuttle even goes up, the amount of fuel put in the shuttle is determined for the orbit. As it is right now, the amount of fuel in the shuttle is really only enough for small maneuvers and getting back to earth.

Then even if they were to get it, they would never be able to bring it back as the increased weight would prevent it from landing from the increased momentum that isn't even calculated for.

bruce willis is the captain of the ship so fear not we will destroy the object before it get iran. lol

The shuttle cannot reach the stricken satellite because it is not in the same orbit and the shuttle does not carry nowhere near the amount of fuel to make the necessary orbit changes once it is in orbit. Also the satellite does not have any attachment points where the robotic arm can grab onto the satellite. Finally the shuttle does not have the proper latches in the cargo bay to secure the satellite.

if you can not trust our goverment move

This entire ordeal is growing increasingly surreal. The U.S. obviously does not want this craft falling into the wrong back yard. I can't imagine a scenario in which the fuel would not burn up on re-entry, but hey, little about this story is plausible.

The Bush adminstration is probably the most secretive one in American history. Why? Because they don't want anyone to know what they are doing and if someone actually finds out, Bush is more than ready to come forth with a presidential pardon. Who says no one can be above the law?

$74 million is cheap compared to what it will cost if it lands in a populated area and the trial lawyers get going.

It's as big as a bus, probably has a camera the size of a ford f150, If it doesn't burn up someone will grab it and disect it. Now we can't have that can we?

Why can't we just lock a laser beam on the satellite and vaporize it? Or do we have any lasers that powerful yet? Vaporizing it would eliminate the worry of falling debris and anyone recovering data from it.

Ulterior motives no doubt. Yup.
Why don't they just admit that its just a weather ballon, opps, I mean swamp gas, err or was it the planet bush.

To; Joe, You must be in a coma, or living in 1940. Our government has shown over and over that it's NOT to be trusted! I didn't do it, THEY did! Nobody should move, instead they change the government. If you trust the government, I feel very sorry for you...

Skeptical posters like JWB would love to gamble with people's lives, but the more responsible folks at NRO just aren't willing to do that.

And while I love the blogging mob's cheery confidence and sense of certainty about these uncertain factors, we don't see too many rocket scientists here, do we?

Yes, fuel tanks do make it intact back to earth. If they're empty, it's because they already expended their fuel on the way up, or expended it via remote order from ground control.

Ignoring the possibility of 1,000 lbs of hydrazine -- or even a portion of that quantity -- vaporizing into a toxic cloud in a populated area is simply not a responsible option.

Why would we even want to chance it, if we had a reasonable alternative of deorbiting the sat where we wanted to, at a low enough altitude that the debris would soon drop harmlessly into the ocean? Not to try, no matter how much it costs, would be reckless.

Google "hydrazine MSDS" and figure the ground effects out for yourself. If you're still cavalier, you can sign up for the cleanup team. Or better yet, be on the notification team dealing with someone's family. Or, like me, be part of the team that's supposed to handle all the press howling about why we "didn't DO something!" when we had a viable option.

Saying that $74 million was too much to pay would not be an acceptable excuse if people were killed or injured.

I now leave you to your conspiracy-theorizing...

Isn't the real reason they want to go to such lengths to destroy this satellite the fact that it has a camera onboard that they would much prefer not fall into anyone else's hands?

This is just grand-standing: trying to show the world that we can destroy a satellite too, like China did. The toxic hydrazine fuel would doubtless vent during reentry, and dissipate sufficiently that it would not cause a problem. Although it is toxic, this is a chemical that is widely used in the chemical industry, and which does escape at times. Given what happened to Columbia when it reentered, it is very unlikely that this wholly-unprotected satellite's hydrazine tanks would survive to the ground.

That is, unless there is something much more hazardous than hydrazine that the DoD does not want to admit to. In the latter case, hitting the satellite will not destroy the toxin, but will merely disperse it over a much larger portion of the fragile upper atmosphere, where it can tear apart ozone and such, perhaps. But I think the big idea is simply swagger.

Rome burns while the polar bears melt!

Hydrazine burns at roughly 37.78 C or 100F, temperatures on re-entry are above 1000F so the amount of Hydrazine is not the issue as it should burn off. It is the standard 'public safety' story. The satellite does however contain a certain amount of shielded Plutonium onboard, a main ingredient in nuclear weapons (Nagasaki) and sufficient enough for a *irty *omb were it a civilian satellite with just < 3Grams, even as 238 not 239. The true number of RHU on board with Plutonium isnt public. On a side note, these types of satellites are secondary weapons capable thereotically of a nuclear payload. Thats speculative but what isnt is the plutonium on board.

Why the US government wants to shoot down a 20K lb satellite when MIR 1 was over 12 times that weight and size and burned up is about the shielded plutonium I suspect. However blowing it up in low earth orbit will cause a side effect, namely EMP from the scattered and ionized Plutonium isotopes and hydrazine vaporizing. We get an EMP burst over the US in this time and everything airborne that isnt EMP shielded (ie, civilian aircraft) is coming out of the sky and everything connected to a power source is dead. Welcome to the stone age America. Convenient economic timing.

So, there are multiple ships, multiple missles a piece, presidential approval and a nervous military running an end game. I just hope the Russians arent patrolling the Pacific at this time but something tells me they will be. Or you can continue to believe that Hydrazine is the chief concern.

Did I mention the sky was falling?

Didn't you hear, there is a self destruct button
for this satellite...trouble is they lost the remote when they were watching the Superbowl!

Matbe it will miss and hit a russian spy satellite.

All,
The shuttle can't "grab" this large of an object. The hydrazine they are worried about is in a very protected container and could possibly survive the reentry. I have been working with this stuff for 25 years and continue to this day. No hard drive would survive reentry, so this is not being done for secrets. I retired with the USAF and the only reason it appears we are going to shoot this down is to show China we can too! Also, the F-15 once hit a satellite with a missile after it fired one at max altitude. We have never done it with the Navy.
Ciao.

It's a military test. This stuff falls out of orbit all of the time...usually harmless.
They are testing a new type of missile.....easy to see, no?

Do it right, and it will be priceless!

Do it wrong and it will be priceless... lol!

I DO AGREE WITH RUSKIN POSTED NOTE:
HELLO EVERBUDY
FIRST ITS THE GOV. FIRST TEST TO SEE AND TRY THERE MISSILE DEFENCE. IF THEY MISS AND ALL FAILS OUR EMENYS WILL LOVE THIS. SECONED ITS A MORE GETTING IN THE WRONG HANDS OF THE INTELLINENTS ON BOARD OF THIS SALITTE.
Ok, anyone that thinks this is being done to prevent ‘fuel’ from reaching earth [NY Times, 2/15/08] is either delirious or so completely ignorant of space propulsion systems as to be a complete idiot.
Here’s the deal.
1.More than 100 metric tons of man-made objects reenter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled fashion each year .
2.We have NEVER needed to ‘shoot’ any of it down.
3.Fuel tanks are NOT designed to withstand reentry. Ever. They will burn up in the atmosphere along with any unspent fuel.

No, there can only be one of several reasons this satellite poses a danger. The more plausible reasons the US would spent $70million to take this thing down is that this Spy satellite has ‘something’ aboard that is sensitive. I could believe that:
a.It has a ‘hard drive’ containing intelligence data - or other type of memory or equipment; pictures, etc. - that could survive and fall in the wrong hands;
b.It uses an advanced nuclear power source – Isn’t that prohibited by international treaty or something?
c.It has a defunct defensive weapon system on board – also, I believe, prohibited by international treaty.
d.It has a defunct offensive weapon system on board – I KNOW that is prohibited by international treaty.

But don’t think for a minute that it is a ‘fuel hazard'.

I LIKE TO SEE IF THIS STUFF PIECES FALL AND HIT HOUSES IN THE U.S. HELLO
OUR GOV. BETTER BE READY FOR LAW SUITS FOR DAMAGE DONE TO HOMES OR LIFE. THIS WILL NOT AND IS NOT A ACT OF GOD, BUT A MAN MADE SATILLTE AND MAN WILL PAY FOR THIS IF IT HAPPENS. BEWARE!!!!!

hmmmm. at first i read that this effort would cost "up to $60 million." now the magic number is $74 million.

gads! come-on! the possibilities:
-serious threat (what are the odds an outerspace bus hits your house-neighborhood-town vs katrina?);
-a show-off test to shoot down some outerspace bus ( better not miss or leave chunk-debris); or
-front-yard lawn-chair bucket-o-popcorn hoohah (w's hope for something fun and memorable).

frankly i would prefer groover mctoober's dream of projecting "laurel & hardy" movies on the face of the moon. (of course the popcorn would taste better).

Let the Russians and Chinese get an eyefull of this sure-fire direct hit. Money well spent if they then decide to follow suit. Theirs won't work and the money will be gone. Anybody notice the Russian "front line bomber" has PROPELLERS??

74 M. You know that the government tells us it cost 74M and they just spend it other places like restricted bases that don't exist and other pork fat programs.

If the thing is loaded with 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a rocket fuel, it must also contain an oxidizer. Looks like they could fire the rocket and exhaust the hydrazine.

Either they could fire it to move forward, which would elevate the satellite and extend its orbit, or fire it to move backward or down, and make the entry point predictable.

If it won't fire, they shoud be able to dump the hydrazine in space.

Short of that, they ought to put a suicide device in all satellites. At the right time, they should be able to fire a rocket to go straight down, or just blow it up by remote control. They could make the large parts of magnesium, so that when they hit the atmosphere, they would burn up in the air.

As it is, we have about a 50-50 chance of hitting the thing, and if we miss, we give comfort to our potential enemies.

At the time we had our astronaut program preparing to go to the moon, we had a secret astronaut program, for the purpose of spying on the ground.

The Soviets saw what we were doing, and created an identical program of their own. Fearing that we would put up a killer satellite, they armed it with a cannon.

They didn't actually know if it would work, so they fired the cannon by remote control after the station was abandoned. They were pleased to know that the station survived the vibration from the recoil.

i read many comments once again, making fun of the government, however, if the satellite was to fall on or near your home, it wouldnt be a waste of money would it? 74 million dollars is not pocket change, but, if it may save the lives of many people, or even just one person, then i think its worth it.

Come on how many of you yanks have a brain only a small amount know the right answer but most of yous should just shut up and get a life or get the hell out of the second greatest country in the world Scotland being first and bugger off to Iran or Russia you twats

My dear departed father was an electrical engineer for several space shuttle launches. The last one he worked on was connected with President Reagan's "Star War's Initiative." When the Soviet Union fell it was about the cost of staying up with US financial power. Space and modern war machinery is expen$ive...very. Demonstrating an accurate shoot down with a long range rocket is but another chapter in the "ended" cold war. About the fuel...if that chemical is toxic, burning it during re-entry won't be enough. We have enough junk in the atmosphere now. The number of people dying from cancer was up in 2007. That is today's news. The health of all humanity is worth some millions. Better a missle of prevention than a Big Pharma cure. Anyway let them test their missle on a chemical. Even save the blue toed sloth greens should let that one slide.

My dear departed father was an electrical engineer for several space shuttle launches. The last one he worked on was connected with President Reagan's "Star War's Initiative." When the Soviet Union fell it was about the cost of staying up with US financial power. Space and modern war machinery is expen$ive...very. Demonstrating an accurate shoot down with a long range rocket is but another chapter in the "ended" cold war. About the fuel...if that chemical is toxic, burning it during re-entry won't be enough. We have enough junk in the atmosphere now. The number of people dying from cancer was up in 2007. That is today's news. The health of all humanity is worth some millions. Better a missle of prevention than a Big Pharma cure. Anyway let them test their missle on a chemical. Even save the blue toed sloth greens should let that one slide.

What i don't understand, is why they are wasting time,money and effort on this missile. All people in the military should know that all Satellite's have a remote firing device built into them for this exact reason.

It is assuring to know our nation is not leary on secrecy and is willing to keep our scientific world well informed of important events. There could have been a cheaper avenue by plotting the trajectory and then deploying a net in the path of this disabled reconnaissance satellite which would then detonate on que instead of launching three SM-3 missiles if a miss occurs on attempts. Seeing that this is a fact finding mission as well as a good practice would make it the best option as doing more trajectory plotting for another launch to meet orbit and stablize a space flyby could become tedious, shooting down the satellite is a real pleasure for the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System of the Navy. Since our gov. has been making an effort to these ends for a long while and spending time to understand the possibilities it is best to agree with the findings than to argue a different method outside this management domain, I agree with the US Navy and NASA on this effort.

ok what if the misles miss and it hits where i live??? YIKES!!!!

If the fuel is so toxic we must spend $74 million to make sure it dosent reach the atmosphere, what happens in a launch pad accident?

I think you all need to be reminded that the reason this satellite needs to be shot down is that it has malfunctioned and is not able to be controlled. How can you press a button to blow something up if it is no longer under remote control? How can the fuel be dumped if the unit is no longer under remote control? Columbia burned up on re-entry because it's re-entry slope is very steep which creates a very high speed and heat. This low earth orbit slow decay is a much lower speed. Plus, the government wants to show off that we can shoot a satellite down with our 10 million dollar missle.

First of all, the missle was bought and paid for years ago.
Second, If the hydrazine does reach earth, the bar association will be jumping for joy at all the $ they are going to suck out of our wallets in the form of tax money.
three, The navy got it on the first shot bringing the real cost down to around 3 million. Not a bad price to screw the bar association if you ask me, better than court costs.

Actually, it didn't cost anything.

They didn't go out and buy anything for this and everyone involved was already on the payroll.

Why do they always make it sound like military activities cost?? Like they went out and hired these guys the day before.....

Believe nothing you hear, half of what you see. Write every thing in pencil, because it will change.