Argh!

[gfish]

The Pentagon wants to shoot down that failing spysat. Do we really want to encourage more ASAT activity after last year's disastrous Chinese test? It wouldn't be hard to ruin LEO for decades. Argh.

Comments

[pathdancer.livejournal.com]

I know! Let's turn one large falling object into many!!!

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Many small ones have a good chance of burning up. One big one has a very good chance of landing somewhere unpredictable, chock-full of our very best military-grade spy electronics, which many people would like to see.

[pathdancer.livejournal.com]

Or even better -- perhaps it'll land someplace hostile to us, giving them a (feeble) excuse to retaliate.

Once they've reverse-engineered all the nifty gizmos, of course.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

That's a good point I hadn't thought of. The chances of anyone getting hurt by the fuel are a lot smaller than it landing where the 'bad guys' might get a look at it first.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

'tho as people on slashdot have discussed, this one's in an extremely low, decaying orbit, and its debris are unlikely to pick up enough energy to do anything but delay their re-entry by a few days.
But I agree: this is mostly about a cheap way to get another ASAT test in and show off.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I dunno. They're talking about a 20,000 mph collision. That could easily boost debris back into higher, very inclined orbits.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

What are we doing sending hydrazine into orbit?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

It's a common propellant. (Used on the Shuttle, for instance.) While poisonous, it's a very effective monopropellant, igniting absolutely reliably given a catalyst. No igniter needed. Popular for orbital adjustments, where the extra weight of the low specific impulse is worth it for the simplicity and reliability.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Then I may not understand what you mean by a "catalyst".

Are you saying that it burns in contact with the air? And if that's what you're saying, then how is it likely to become a poisonous cloud? Wouldn't it just burn up as it floats down?