US To Shoot Down Dying Satellite

A user writes "US officials say that the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March. We discussed the device's decaying orbit late last month. The Associated Press has learned that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere. 'A key concern ... was the debris created by Chinese satellite's destruction -- and that will also be a focus now, as the U.S. determines exactly when and under what circumstances to shoot down its errant satellite. The military will have to choose a time and a location that will avoid to the greatest degree any damage to other satellites in the sky. Also, there is the possibility that large pieces could remain, and either stay in orbit where they can collide with other satellites or possibly fall to Earth.'"

Comments

Re:Still dangerous

[DerekLyons]

I don't buy the can't be shot down point. It it were to be hit (hard) from the front relative to it velocity vector there would be enough loss of momentum to cause it to come down.

Other than the fact that delivering that amount of energy in that small an area is roughly equivalent to a small nuclear weapon.... that's an excellent plan.
 
Hint: This is what we call sarcasm. Your plan sucks and is based on utter and complete ignorance of science. You don't even have any common sense - you seem to not noticed that it takes a huge honkin' rocket to get it up there, which implies it takes a huge honkin' amount of energy to reverse that situation. You aren't even smart enough to know that you don't know - you state your ignorant opinion as though it was fact.