Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
U.S. Navy To shoot Down Malfunctioning Satellite. What could possibly go wrong?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
So the U.S. military hopes to smash that spy satellite, plumeting towards earth, with a single missile. The missile will be fired from a Navy cruiser. The missile needs to hit the out of control satellite before it enters the earths atmosphere.
The Pentagon revealed the spy satellite is loaded with toxic fuel. The fuel, hydrazine is listed at the ATSDR, Agency For Toxic Substances and Disease Registryas colorless liquids that are used in rocket fuels. After a review of “hydrazine” it seems to be actually the very least of the threat this falling satellite the size of a school bus presents. On January 29th the AP reported Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who heads the U.S. Northern Command dismissed the likelyhood of a toxic threat posed by the satellite when he said, “they [small engines] are not large booster engines with substantial amounts of fuel.”
Was Renuart wrong, or was attempting to downplay the threat from the falling satellite?
As ‘luck’ would have it, U.S. defensive missiles and supporting radar were already being modified and tested to shoot down enemy warheads. Now these defensive missile’s software is being reprogrammed to home in on the signatures of a large satellite instead of ballistic missiles.
The U.S. opposes a treaty limiting antisatellite and other weapons in space. The U.S. says it will comply with other treaties that require notification to other nations before launching a missile aimmed at the out of control satellite. The United States criticized China last year when it tested an antisatellite system on an out of commission weather satellite. the Bush administration called the Chinese test “a destabilizing development.”
NASA administrator, Michael Griffin says, “We looked very carefully at increased risks to shuttle and [space] station, and broadly speaking, they are negligible.” Broadly speaking seems to be the best way to speak. Why get hung up in the details and facts of all the possiblities and ramifications of launching missiles into space to bring down a deadly spy satellite?
Broadly speaking this satellite has lost 50% of it’s weight also. U.S. officials were saying the weight of the satellite was 10,000 pounds, small by fallen skylab’s weight, now weight estimates are 5,000 pounds. Even Jenny Craig would envy that kind of weight loss in only one month.
This from the defenselink.mil: Hydrazine is similar to chlorine or ammonia in that it affects lung tissue. People inhaling it would feel a burning sensation. “If you stay close to it and inhale a lot of it, it could be deadly,” Cartwright said.
If the military did not shoot down the satellite, the hydrazine would disperse over an area roughly the size of two football fields, the general said. Those who breathed it would need medical attention.
“As we reviewed the data, if we fire at the satellite, the worst that could happen is that we miss,” Cartwright said. “Then we have a known situation, which is where we are today.”
General Cartwright serves as the eighth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Photo: Michael Griffin (right), administrator of the National Areonautics and Space Administration, comments on a proposed attempt to destroy an unresponsive U.S. reconnaissance satelite just as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, during a news briefing at the Pentagon, Feb. 14, 2008. Griffin, joined Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright (center), vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor, is discussing details of the planned operation. Photo by R. D. Ward
Labels: Satellite falling, U.S. Spy Satellite, US Navy
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
U.S. Navy To shoot Down Malfunctioning Satellite. What could possibly go wrong?
