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Chris,
I read about that today, andwonder if it the real reason for shooting it down isthe US flexing muscle for the Chinese and Russians. Won't rocket fuel burn up on reentry anyway?
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I think there are several reasons, Doug. Yes, of course we want to test (and display) our own capabilities in light of the recent Chinese experiment. But, the risk of hydrazine release is a serious one. The fuel tank might not burn up enough to release the fuel if it isn't already cracked open. Those tanks arepretty heavy duty. They have to be in order to keep the pressurized fuel from bursting the tank insuch a low-pressure environment as space.
Seems like we're doing a couple of good things with this test. Imagine if the thing entered the atmosphere on its own in a month or two and ended up killing a bunch of people somewhere. Even if no one is killed, it could be an environmental disaster.What a PR nightmare that would be.
Navy Planning To Shoot Down Spy Satellite
