Pentagon Opens Window of Time to Shoot Down Satellite

American Forces Press Service ^ | Gerry J. Gilmore

[penelopesire]

Probably not. I think we were sending a loud and clear message to Russia and China. Does anyone know how our shoot down compares to China’s shoot down last year?

Just curious.

[SE Mom]

Yep- but I’m think real science, real-world stuff :)

[jveritas]

Agree this story should be in the Breaking News Section.

[Westlander]

I imagine this would be filed under ‘need to know’. And what you are allowed to know is just a fragment of the entire plan/operation/capability....etc.

[Desron13]

"Probably not. I think we were sending a loud and clear message to Russia and China. Does anyone know how our shoot down compares to China’s shoot down last year?"

I think that we're telling them that we can launch orbital vehicles from just about any large mobile platform that we want and that we can replenish our vital military space assets faster than they can shoot them down. Additionally, we can shoot your's down much faster than you can replace them. Very cool.

[penelopesire]

Good point. This is so cool! Can’t wait to hear more news. The sad thing looming on the horizon is that if Obama gets elected, we can probaly kiss this technology away.

The libs hate Star Wars (as you know)!

[Octar]

If we can hit this on the first try, we can hit anything our enemies might throw at us.

Just pray that we don't elect a democrat, who would apologize for what we have done.

And would promise that we would never use this technology in anger.

Not only that, but we would share it with our enemies because it would begin to open the door to friendship, co-operation, and mutual understanding.

And truly liking each other, regardless of our differences.

Support B. Hussein O'Bama, the Irish-American candidate and his gastric woman for first lady.

[Desron13]

"The libs hate Star Wars (as you know)!"

Sadly, yes...

[Desron13]

Good night folks, it’s been fun.

[MartinStyles]

It’s always very red. I missed this one’s totality, but it looks a lot like the last one. Dark brown red. Very nice.

[La Enchiladita]

No, I came home awhile ago and learned about it. Awesome.
I like the way they were talking earlier like it might not happen, kept everyone guessing:)

[kinoxi]

They nailed it. :)

[RS]

I believe that their target was still in it’s stable orbit, so they knew exactly where it was.
It could also have been still broadcasting some kind of signal that would allow it to be homed in on.

[doorgunner69]

Remember, PMRF on Kauai has some very good radar used for all the MDA tests similar to this. They certainly had the gear up, running, and recording. That is it's mission in life and they were perfectly situated to see it.

Does make you wonder at the convenience of it all..............Prolly just serendipity.

[El Gato]

What poor USAF slob got the assignment to measure that with his tape measure?

The Swabbies shot it down, let them measure and count the fragments.

[El Gato]

If it is little pieces, as they hoped it would be, the pieces may drift a long way and take a long time to come down.

Actually smaller pieces will in general come down faster, because they are more affected by the slight drag of the upper atmosphere which is present even at the 200+ mile altitude where the dead bird started out.

[El Gato]

Does make you wonder at the convenience of it all..............Prolly just serendipity.

Not really, the satellite went over the entire earth, between about 58 degrees north or south of the equator. They just set up the intercept for a time when the satellite was on a northbound ground track in the appropriate location.

[zot]

Actually smaller pieces will in general come down faster, because they are more affected by the slight drag of the upper atmosphere

No, smaller pieces come down slower because they are more affected by the drag of the atmosphere all the way down. Of course, it depends on the shape of each piece. For the same weight, a sphere falls fast: a thin piece flutters down slowly.

[gridlock]

But the orbit will decay more quickly the lighter the piece.

[penelopesire]

Thanks for the post. Someone else had said that the Chinese also shot theirs from a land based platform. Looks like we just showed the Chinese/Russians a thing or two about American ingenuity!!

For cryin out loud, even the English and French libbies were complaining about this mission. But if an asteroid is ever headed straight towards for their countries....who do you think they are going to call? (eye roll)