Comments on: Decaying spy sat shoot-down may coincide with Wednesday’s lunar eclipse

By: Stan Needham

Stan Needham — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:02:26 +0000

They are going to blow up a satellite full of fuel! Is it gonna blow up big enough we could see it?

They did, and we could. And it didn’t even interfere with a spectacular lunar eclipse — a threefer.

By: Burch Seymour

Burch Seymour — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:41:45 +0000

Jim B – I see a Mythbusters special episode – Can we shoot down a satellite with a civil-war-era rocket powered by diet Coke and Mentos…. Or perhaps burn it out of orbit by focusing the suns rays using a big-a$$ mirror constructed from AOL software CDs pinched from the local Wal-Mart….

Whaddaya think?

By: Jim B

Jim B — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:06:19 +0000

Has anyone even thought about the coolness factor? Come on! They are going to blow up a satellite full of fuel! Is it gonna blow up big enough we could see it? I hope they attach a frag cam to the nose and put it up on youtube.

Nasa wants in the next generation to care about what they’re doing, start blowing more things up.

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:16:34 +0000

Didn’t skylab scag a cow?

By: Burch Seymour

Burch Seymour — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:03:03 +0000

I’m LONG out of that world, but did work on a 80′s era StarWars project and we called things like this ‘TOOs’ – Targets of Oppotunity. It costs big bucks to put a target into orbit, so if something presents itself…. Of course the thing I was working on didn’t destroy anything, just lit it up with a low power laser to test aquisition and tracking.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:49:21 +0000

OK, they probably aren’t shooting it down because of the hydrazine.

But just imagine the embarassment for the U.S. if that hydrazine landed in the middle of a big city in a different country, and made loads of people ill. I agree with what the military said: ‘the regret for not shooting it down could potentially be much greater than the regret for shooting it down.’

Anyway, it should still be cool to watch, if anyone can get some pics. :)

CNN’s done a good interactive explainer at:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/18/satellite.intercept/index.html

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:30:43 +0000

Now, now. We must maintain our implausible deniability.

By: Jeff C.

Jeff C. — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:01:37 +0000

Another motive for the the shoot down might be the opportunity to perform a live test of our ASAT capabilities. The hydazine story just doesn’t ring true to me.