Missile 1, Satellite 0

[Aught Six]

Navy missile hits spy satellite

***

Now we wait for the fragments to scatter in order to see what's left...

[Canuck_Buck]

well the article says they think they probably hit the tank but will know more in 24 hrs or so...hope it worked and that there is no loss of life from this.

[biscuit jake]

Wish I could hit that far!

[Phil from Maine]

I would like to know if all the feul didn't burn up how far will the hazrdous stuff be spread? I also think it would be hard to put all that feul in the size
of a football though..If that is the case yeah, they probally hit it alright, so the question is did it all burn up?

[pigiron]

A good cleanhit also comes with a few bragging rights, no?

[Jeff Ovington]

Well I'm glad you guys hit it.Congrats..
A more important question would be who the heck built the Satelite in the first place..
If I didn't know any better I would think your govgot the design from China....Maybe you did......
10's Millions of taxpayers doallars building it, for what, to be a complete failure from the launch...
Thats just Pathetic and should be one huge embrrassment from a U.S. Military standpoint not to mention yourselves...
And than a 10 million dollar missile to blow it up.......
MAN, THIS WAS ONEEXPENSIVE MISTAKE OR WAS IT?
This B.S. may have been believable 60yrs ago,
but common now, after the thousands of successful satelite launches, (not to mention this direct hit )the U.S. military has done over the past decades, this spy satelite the Pentagon was responsible for, should never of come down after only 3 months. And the saddest part is, your Gov, really must think you Americans are so stupid, and ignorent, they really think you will believe them when they say,that thisspy satelite crashing down is believable.
The maddning part is, how do you Americans put up with a Gov that thinks of you people like that,a Gov thatconsistantly lies to you all the time..
Would it be more accepatable to you and more heartning, if they just came out and said Country man,"We are conducting a test."We are spending 50 million dollars building a Satleite that will fall back into the earths Atmospere in 3 months.We are them going to launch a missile and blow it up before it hits the ground.....
We are going to prove to China and Russia we can take out any Satelite we want any time we want....
Wouldn't that statement, backed up by the actions, make you want to be American instead of the former?

[Canuck_Buck]

I'm with Phil on this one, curious how a meteor fell not long before this shooting stunt too...

[Aught Six]

We had about an 80% to 90% chance of hitting the fuel tank, and based on the fireball upon impact (the kill vehicle had no warhead), it looks like the hydrazine was destroyed. There might be some bits of metal coming down, but loose fuel would burn up in the atmosphere almost immediately.

[burniegoeasily]

I smell a rat. We didnt shoot it down because of saftey, Hydrogen is about 2% abundant in the air you are breathing right now. I think we did it to flex our muscle, or to keep other countries from getting any of our technology. With that said, I dont think its the later. Remember when skylab fell to Earth? It was bigger than this object and the biggest peice to hit the earth was the size of a golfball.

Also, hydrazine is a common chemical use everyday, if you ever had your air bags on your car go off, you have been exposed to it.

[Aught Six]

Hydrazine. You ought to read about this stuff. I don't think we've ever faced so much of it coming back down intact. It's usually spent by the time satellites and rockets start coming back down.

The hydrazine in airbags is different from that of rocket fuels.