When I was in high school, my physics teacher ridiculed the proposals some people had made back in '57 to shoot down Sputnik. He said it would be like shooting a mosquito with a rifle at 500 yards. Now swatting that mosquito isn't so hard.
I'm divided between thinking that this really wasn't necessary and thinking that it's really neat that it could be done.
I was wondering where the pieces would go too. Not just pieces of the satellite but pieces of whatever they blew up to hit the satellite. Down is fine, but cluttering the orbit isn't. Blowing it up to protect people from the hydrazine just doesn't seem like it's that important. Hell isn't it, when you just assume your government is lying and wonder what they're really up to?
According to the report, they didn't "blow up" anything to hit the satellite; it was just an impact missile. Hopefully it was in a non-orbital trajectory.
If the pieces are small enough, they'll just burn up. But since they weren't sure if they'd manage to rupture the tank, that may not be a certain conclusion.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-02-21 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 11:31 am (UTC)I'm divided between thinking that this really wasn't necessary and thinking that it's really neat that it could be done.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 02:22 pm (UTC)If the pieces are small enough, they'll just burn up. But since they weren't sure if they'd manage to rupture the tank, that may not be a certain conclusion.