Cosmic Ball-Swinging

[NASA]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_193

Is no one else outraged at this tit-for-tat, needless act of destruction? Not to mention the multi-leveled hypocrisy of the incident but to patronize with claims of "a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth" takes the fucking piss. There better be uproar about this...or...or...or I'm just going sit in my airmchair and shake my fist harder!

[munchingfoo]

If you have evidence to suggest that they're lying, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise sitting in your chair is probably for the best.

Whilst I'm not entirely convinced they are telling the truth surely, having offered a reasonable excuse, the ball is on the court of others to prove they are lying.

Being outraged without proof is for Jeremy Kyle, and Stop The War campaigners.

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Euro]

It's not exactly big news, it sorta reached headlines but then when people realised this wasn't some sort of nuclear missile world war 3 starting device noone cared anymore. Been done before by China and Russia.

[Power Metal Dom]

Quoting munchingfoo from 20:59, 21st Feb 2008
Being outraged without proof is for Jeremy Kyle, and Stop The War campaigners.

Mmm the ironing is delicious

Quoting Euro from 21:39, 21st Feb 2008
Been done before by China and Russia.

I think that was the point of the post, that it was a pissing contest-esque response to China's machoness.

[hr]

Like flames on fuel...upon metal I drool

[munchingfoo]

Quoting Power_Metal_Dom from 23:57, 21st Feb 2008

Quoting munchingfoo from 20:59, 21st Feb 2008
Being outraged without proof is for Jeremy Kyle, and Stop The War campaigners.

Mmm the ironing is delicious

Now, I'm no English student, but I can't see where the irony is in this. Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Irish Frank]

There's actually a big political discussion about USA 193 that hasn't really been touched on in the media - the chances of the satellite hurting anybody if it was allowed to hit Earth was less than 1 in 1000. I think the missile strike was to demonstrate to China that the US could also knock out satellites by military means, after China destroyed one of its own satellites at a much higher altitude in Jan 2007. Both actions seem to point toward the weaponisation of space, one of the most significant challenges of our generation.

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1796/dont-do-it

[munchingfoo]

1:1000 is hardly the kind of odds you want to play with peoples lives over when there is a solution that virtualy negates the risk of the on board fuel.

Whilst I agree that you're probably correct, my point was simply that the original poster had no cause to be "outraged".

Did we get the same level of outrage from "NASA" (the user, not the agency) when China admitted blowing up on of theirs?

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Power Metal Dom]

Quoting munchingfoo from 08:30, 22nd Feb 2008

Quoting Power_Metal_Dom from 23:57, 21st Feb 2008

Quoting munchingfoo from 20:59, 21st Feb 2008
Being outraged without proof is for Jeremy Kyle, and Stop The War campaigners.

Mmm the ironing is delicious

Now, I'm no English student, but I can't see where the irony is in this. Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

Oh you know, STW campaigners not backing up their arguments and posters on the Sinner not doing the same coming from a poster on the Sinner. No? Maybe I need to brush up on my English studies

[hr]

Like flames on fuel...upon metal I drool

[munchingfoo]

I'm afraid not.

My comment was directed at one poster in particular, not the sinner in general.

You might have a case for irony if I had shown my "outrage" for stop the war dudes, without giving evidence.

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Irish Frank]

As the article (and the more recent article on the site) points out, the hydrazine fuel's chance of surviving re-entry was virtually zero. Even if the satellite posed a significant risk to people, there are alternate solutions than an ostentatious missile launch - evacuating the predicted target area prior to government cleanup, for example.

The missile itself posed major risks of malfunctioning - it was the first test of an ad-hoc modification of a missile designed against military aircraft, and the chances of the missile actually hitting the satellite were not great. This uncertainty is shown in the preference that space shuttle Atlantis land before the missile was launched, and in having a total of three destroyers in on the operation with two backup missiles. Even now, no-one is sure that the missile actually destroyed the hydrazine. However, if it did and the satellite was destroyed, we now have a plethora of football-sized satellite fragments heading towards earth - more difficult to manage and enough to do sizeable damage if they don't burn up in the atmosphere.

I don't believe public safety was the principal reason for the missile intercept - sending a signal to China in terms of American military capabilities was the main motivation.

Obviously, I can't "prove" that the Pentagon is lying in its justification for the missile strike - I just wish to point out there are more motivations for the missile option than the Pentagon publicly admits, and several of them are not related to public safety concerns.

[munchingfoo]

Quoting Irish Frank from 10:26, 22nd Feb 2008
As the article (and the more recent article on the site) points out, the hydrazine fuel's chance of surviving re-entry was virtually zero. Even if the satellite posed a significant risk to people, there are alternate solutions than an ostentatious missile launch - evacuating the predicted target area prior to government cleanup, for example.

The first article does nothing of the sort. If anything it backs the U.S. point of view, in as much as a supposed unbias viewpoint wiki can take sides.

The second link is more damning, but again it mentions nowhere that the "hydrazine fuel's chance of surviving re-entry was virtually zero". Perhaps we are reading a different report, or perhaps I am going blind.

Would you mind quoting the paragraph in that document that you think says this?

Quoting Irish Frank from 10:26, 22nd Feb 2008
The missile itself posed major risks of malfunctioning - it was the first test of an ad-hoc modification of a missile designed against military aircraft, and the chances of the missile actually hitting the satellite were not great. This uncertainty is shown in the preference that space shuttle Atlantis land before the missile was launched, and in having a total of three destroyers in on the operation with two backup missiles.

Atlantis could have been asked to land because the space debris poses a much more significant risk to those in space than it does to those on earth. However, unlike with the chinese missile strike, the debris will only orbit for between 1 to 4 weeks, and upon re-entry approx. 75% of the debris will be destroyed. The figure for the satelite's debris upon re-entry pre-explosion was approx. 50%. (Sources in first document).

The missile was fired from a cruiser, the destroyers were her escorts. This is standard small fleet make up all over the world.

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Freaker]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-021508-na-satellite-g,0,5824898.graphic talks of three ships?

[hr]

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

[munchingfoo]

Payload Ship.

USS Lake Erie (CG-70) - Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser

Escort 1.

USS Decatur (DDG-73) - Arleigh Burke class destroyer

Escort 2.

USS Russell (DDG-59) - Arleigh Burke-class destroyer

One cruiser, 2 destroyers. Yes, the all have SM-3's on them but I would find it stranger if the Cruiser was in the middle of the pacific without destroyer cover.

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Humphrey]

If you were the United States and you were going to conduct an outer space missile test it generally wouldn't be a sound idea to send an expensive satellite spiralling out of control towards the North American continent which has a 1 in a 1000 chance of hitting someone. It would be a dumb as flying airliners into the heart of your biggest cities commerical centre and causing a massive dent in your economy just as an excuse to start a war in Asia....oh wait.

I trust the original poster just was as outraged when the Chinese conducted their anti satellite weapon test and violated the international consensus, or does his vitriol only point west?.

EDIT : Apologies to Munchingfoo who I notice made the same point

[hr]

http://humphreyclarke.blogspot.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[munchingfoo]

Also of interest to the conspiracy guys should be the fact that this isn't the first anti-satellite missile to be deployed against a satellite by the U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT

13 September 1985 Missile successfully destroys the satellite P78-1 Solwind



This kind flies in the face of reports that the U.S. need to prove to China and Russia that they can destroy satellites with missiles. They did it 22 years ago for goodness sake.

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Humphrey]

If the U.S was trying to impress the Chinese they would have failed miserably. As frank pointed out this is an ad-hoc modification of an existing ballistic missile which is really designed for missile defence within the earth's atmosphere; its unlikely it would be effective for extra-terrestrial operations. The target vehicle is at a much lower altitude than would normally be the case in an ASAT operation and it is in no way comparable to the Chinese test. All this intercept has done is hand a propaganda victory to the Chinese. It would have been far more sensible to just let it fall to earth and run the risk of gassing someone; although perhaps morally dubious.

[hr]

http://humphreyclarke.blogspot.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[Guest]

Quoting NASA from 17:37, 21st Feb 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_193

Is no one else outraged at this tit-for-tat, needless act of destruction? Not to mention the multi-leveled hypocrisy of the incident but to patronize with claims of "a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth" takes the fucking piss. There better be uproar about this...or...or...or I'm just going sit in my airmchair and shake my fist harder!

We destroyed out own satellite. How that's a "needless act of destruction" is really beyond me.

Get a life.