Weather May Delay Shootdown of Satellite
February 20th, 2008 . by TexasFredWASHINGTON (AP) - High seas in the north Pacific may force the Navy to wait another day before launching a heat-seeking missile on a mission to shoot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
Weather conditions are one of many factors that U.S. military officers are taking into account as they decide whether to proceed with the mission Wednesday or to put it off, according to a senior military officer who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on condition that he not be identified.
The officer said the assumption had been that the mission would go forward Wednesday night, unless conditions are determined to be unfavorable. Earlier in the day, bad weather in the north Pacific was causing rough seas, which may be a problem for the USS Lake Erie, a cruiser armed with two SM-3 missiles.
“We don’t anticipate the weather being good enough today,” the officer said, adding that conditions could improve enough in the hours ahead to permit it to go forward. A final decision would be made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Alluding to the high seas and strong winds, the officer added, “It has not been enough for us to say ‘no’” and put the launch mission off until Thursday. But it would take improved conditions to proceed.
Full Story Here:
Weather May Delay Shootdown of Satellite
OK, I have had this feeling for a long time but now I am completely convinced, our nation is being led by a bunch of idiots, I mean indisputable, total, rubber room idiots, from the President right on down through the leadership at the DoD, and only God knows where else…
For one thing, according to this, “Adding to the difficulty of the shootdown mission, the missile will have to do better than just hit the bus-sized satellite, a Navy official said Tuesday. It needs to strike the relatively small fuel tank aboard the spacecraft in order to accomplish the main goal, which is to eliminate the toxic fuel that could injure or even kill people if it reached Earth.” it’s got to be better than a perfect shot, it’s got to be that miraculous shot, one in 100,000,000 I guess, long odds anyway…
Now here’s what I want to know, IF they do hit the satellite itself, but not a direct hit on the fuel tank, what happens to the fuel then?? Does it vaporize and just disappear into the vastness of space, is that what happens if they DO hit the tank itself?? Will it eventually migrate it’s way back into Earth’s atmosphere and dissipate itself there?? Does the White House, NASA or the DoD have an answer to that?? If they DO have answers, I haven’t heard them…
Is this all much ado about nothing??
So, here’s the part that convinces me that we’re led by morons, “High seas in the north Pacific may force the Navy to wait another day before launching a heat-seeking missile on a mission to shoot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite, the Pentagon said Wednesday.”, in other words, it ALL depends on the weather, tell me that Military and Intelligence are words that don’t belong in the same sentence because somewhere in a secluded room in Moscow, Boris and Natasha are laughing manically while they try to tune in the Weather Channel so they can plan their next attempt at taking over the USA…
If we can’t strike a satellite in bad weather, what chance do we have of stopping an inbound flock of ICBMs?? The Russians are drooling over this little theater as it plays out for the world to see…
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I don’t want to make predictions, but I feel it’s going to miss pretty badly. After all, how many attempts did it take for the military to be able to hit a moving missile in its tests a couple of years ago?
I would have thought that once the missile is launched, it’ll be guided by remote to its target? I didn’t think rough seas would play a part in guiding the missile.
Well Bob, that would have been MY thought too, but I had some doofus TRY to make a highly critical comment about technology that he likely doesn’t have a clue about, and one of his ridiculous points was that yeah, rough seas matter…
He was apparently a dumbass, somewhere along the lines of the idiots foisting this bullshit off on us, and praying that we’ll believe the reason for this shootdown has ANYTHING to do with public safety…
I don’t claim to be a “rocket scientist” and didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but the only thing I can add is that the missiles are “heat seeking” and the satellite has been dormant for awhile. Without the heat emitting from the satellite, it is harder for the missiles to lock on to the target.
Perhaps when they are targeting the real thing, the heat factor is greater and therefore an “easier” target.
Don’t know for sure, just my small bit of info. To bad the missiles don’t really miss and land in the middle of an Iranian nuclear reactor accidently, sorta.
nun
Think about the Challenger breaking up. What friggin’ piece of this thing will the heat seeker lock on to? And don’t they have radar guided missiles on those Aigis cruisers that can be targeted reguardless of the weather? Damn.
Someone told me that shooting this thing down would be like hitting bullet with a bullet.
I don’t think the missile will be heat seeking. It’ll have some kind of guidance system that will take it right to the target. If a B-52 can launch a cruise missile and put it through the goal post on a football field 400 miles away, I would think they could it a school buss drifting in space.
It sounds to me like they’re going to go for it with-in an hour. Gates and only Gates will pull the trigger, not a Military Commander.
This should be fun.
Maybe they are practicing how they will keep the freeways clean so when we commute between Earth and Mars for work in the future, there will be no traffic jams. :- O
They did it, they took it out.
1,000 pounds of hydrazine. That’s the reason they shot it down, because of the hydrazine. The same stuff F-16’s use to power their EPU’s.
http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/851971
Okay, showing my ignorance here, but what is/are EPU’s? I guess they must be something bad but just wondering exactly how or why?
I know FUBAR and SNAFU, but EPU is not part of my military acronym lexicon.
The F-16 aircraft utilizes an Emergency Power Unit (EPU) to generate electric and hydraulic power. The EPU is used to maintain aircraft control in the event of failure of the main electrical system generator, failure of the main hydraulic system pumps, or F-16 loss of engine power.
http://desp.udri.udayton.edu/task_order_0005_Bowman.htm
I think the US Navy just sent a message to Russia and China.
Exactly…
Which is why it was critical to hit the thing. Two reasons: 1) it’s a damned intelsat. VERY big deal for ANY nation to find ANY piece remaining and 2) we can’t hit it, we look like blithering idiots. And yes, it went down already. “Targeting the tank” was a bit of PC diversion; there is no guarantee that every molecule will be vaporized, IN SPACE. Once again, jerking off the public to make everyone think we are a kinder, gentler nation. That wasn’t the point; knocking the damned thing down WAS.
BZ
That’s why when Ronald Reagan said, “We begin bombing in five minutes” it actually got some attention.
With him, it might have actually happened and missing wasn’t an option.
I don’t think it had anything to do with the satellite, it was all about the shootdown. I don’t think the weather was an issue, it was just a “red herring” for the press. I agree that it was all about the message. I don’t even think it was a test of something new. It was just the first public display. Yeah, there’s a few idiots in the government, but in the military as well as in a few key positions in the Executive, there’s a few old country boys that are “dumb like a fox.”