Posted on 02/14/2008 12:09:48 PM PST by mojito
Glad to see someone understands basic thermodynamics.
The three laws of Thermoeconomics.
1. Heat is work.
2. Work is dollars.
3. Dollars is GOOD!
Get it hot and hit it HARD.
American Art Forge, 35 years of red hot Iron.
Tet68 Prop.
Heh heh heh bttt
Hmmm. The Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle?
My understanding when I worked at LockMart was that we don’t have the missile anymore. - since 1987 when the dems killed it for good.
It worked pretty damn well, but the funding was pulled and the USAF dropped the program.
I heard that there was one left, but it couldn’t be operational after 30+ years.
20+ years
anyway, sounds kinda entertaining.
which band of weirdos speaks up for endangered satellites, anyway?
You’d be right if it wasn’t a cloud of particles. And I’m not so worried about THIS specific event as I am about the precedent it sets.
From your knowledge and screen name, you know it’s all about relative velocity. Those particles carry a whole lot of momentum at a relative velocity of only a few hundred meters per second. And it’s all academic at this point, they’re going to do it, and we’ll have to live with the fallout.
I don’t want this to continue, the Chinese did it and it was a really stupid thing, the US doing it again is even worse. Next Russia will hit one of theirs and we’ll have a debris cloud around the planet. So much for moon, Mars and beyond.
Thanks! My ultimate favorite movie is “Armageddon”. :) So, that’s about all I know about this stuff and the “big ass sky”. I do love NASA’s photo of the day, too.
Matt 5:33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.” NIV
Speaking of movies...How about movies dealing with space?
Remember SPACE COWBOYS? I think, in that film, astronauts were sent out there to destroy some Russian satellite...
How about a Bond film? In DIE ANOTHER DAY, US fails to destroy the bad guy’s satellite...
But not as an official ASAT.... my only point. You're right about the rest.
There's one other advantage in hitting the satellite, as opposed to a missile target: there's lots of time to track it, and get a very good orbit solution. The SM-3 crews will be able to give a very precise targeting solution prior to launch.
Yes -- they're by far Iridium's biggest customer. Guys in-theater love it.
Indium? Work with solar arrays, do you...?
Oh, heck yes. This is the sort of decision that only the president should make. It's got huge international ramifications.
Not "Indium" (atomic number 49). Iridium (atomic number 77).
Iridium was so named because the first proposals envisioned 77 satellites in low earth polar orbits (seven planes, with 11 sats in each). It didn't work out that way. Iridium chose six planes, with 11 sats in each, for a total of 66. "Dysprosium" is not nearly as sexy a name as "Iridium" (It sounds like a acid-reflux med). So, Iridium it remained.
The junk propelled by explosion or impact won't necessarily decay all that fast. As one big object, it was a self-contained trash bin which proved no threat to other orbiting objects. But as a shotgun blast of debris it could produce exaggerated orbits of sufficient apogee to take it through the orbital paths of Iridium sats. Probability of impact: P > 0. I would have preferred P == 0.
LOL... oops... wrong element... mind blank... does not change my argument, though, as the more eccentric the orbit of a given fragment, the more quickly that orbit will decay - thus my “100 day risk” suggestion for people to calculate/ estimate.
I am convinced that there is a tendency for people to associate this destruction of a satellite at very low, and dying orbit, with the very different situation of the Chinese killing a satellite at 500miles AGL, in a very stable orbit. The average fragment in that case would remain in orbit for many years... which is definitely not true for this case.
I was not aware of the origin of the Iridium name. Thanks for that story.
This is going to be fun to watch, as long as it doesn’t land on my house if they miss!
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