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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.'"
We could send up a group of octogenarian actors in a shuttle... whadya mean it's already been done!
Host a tournament based on Missile Commando or any game similar to that.
:)
The Winner gets to choose when and where to shoot the missle
Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
Military: Sir, there is a satellite and it's slowly falling to earth
Bush: 'kay
Military: It poses no real threat, it will probably burn up on reentry...
Bush:'Kay
Military: It was a secret spy satellite...
Bush:What? Spy?
Military:It will look real pretty if we blow it up sir...
Bush: OooOooOoo Pretty... Kay, where do I sign to see the pretty boom boom?!
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
"Rather than let the thing burn up in the atmosphere they have to prove that they are willing and able to blow stuff up and leave earth orbit even more polluted."
Wonder how long till Al Gore's next book?
You know, if the pentagon REALLY wanted to come across as bad ass, they wouldn't have told anyone it was a bad satellite. Then we could show the world we'll shoot down our own satellites just cause we can. Like a diplomatic "Don't you know i'm locco, esse?"
THL phish sticks
It's already coming down, isn't it? Wouldn';t they be shooting it UP?
That makes a better headline anyway, "US To Shoot Up".
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Well, that's all well and good, but YOU read the fucking ARTICLE.
This space available.
Yes sir, can you try typing Ctrl-Alt-Delete? Oh, that didn't work? Hmmmm, can you try turning the power off and back on again? No? Well, I'm afraid we are just going to (trouble)shoot it remotely from one of our Tech Support Cruisers.... The NEW world of Tech Support
Don't fear the penguins
I must be missing something. The satellite is FALLING. We're going to shoot it DOWN?!?!
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
I've often wondered what aliens might think if they were to visit earth and see us shooting missles at our own satellites as means of getting them down. On one side of the coin, we might look really badass.
Great idea. Then the smart ass 12 year old Polish kid's going to use a TV remote to blow it up. Aside from the added weight and technical complexity that this would add to the satellite, if those codes get hacked it's millions if not billions of dollars down the toilet. Maybe more, if they detonated the satellites at a strategically advantageous time.
Ohhhh, they could launch it from a hollowed out volcano and it could capture space capsules too and hold the astronauts hostage.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
I say we launch it into orbit, and nuke it from the surface. It's the only way to be sure.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Give me a break - the US doesn't give a damn about human rights. Witness our (in)action in Sudan, Rwanda, etc.
Human rights are just a justification for doing what we want to do for other reasons. If Sudan or Rwanda had significant oil, you'd see a different level of attention paid - unless of course the goverment perpetrating these atrocities was friendly with us, in which case you'd never hear about it at all.
Just to be a smartass, I have to point out that the volume of a circle is zero, not pi*r^2.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I would say it is a kill two birds with one stone.
A..
B..
C..
uh, I think that's three birds.