Re: Experts Scoff at Satellite Shoot-Down Rationale

On Feb 15, 5:12 pm, Mark Borgerson <mborger...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <59e7a024-27c1-4cfb-b502-8894d7bbf9e5
@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx says...



On Feb 15, 1:41 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
<<SNIP>>

Experts Scoff at Satellite Shoot-Down Rationale
By Noah Shachtman

February 15, 2008 | 1:14:09 PM

The Pentagon says it has to shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite
because of the threat of a toxic gas cloud. Space security experts
are calling the rationale "comedic gold."

<<SNIP>>

Actually, there is one possible way that shooting down the
satellite might prevent casualties on the ground: If the
vehicle reenters over a populated area people are gonna stop
and gawk at the pretty lights in the sky. Lots of small lights
are less likely to cause freeway accidents than a few big
lights! ;-)

Mark Borgerson

Odds are listed as 50-50

Satellite shootdown plan began in Jan.
By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON -- Long before the public learned in late January that a
damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel was going to crash to
Earth, the government secretly assembled a high-powered team of
officials and scientists to study the feasibility of shooting it down
with a missile.

The order to launch the crash program came Jan. 4, according to
defense officials who described Friday how it came to fruition for a
final go-ahead decision by President Bush this week. The officials
spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be identified
because of the sensitivity of the work.

The initial order was twofold: Assess whether shooting down the
satellite with a missile was even possible, and at the same time
urgently piece together the technological tools it would take to
succeed.

In a matter of weeks, three Navy warships - the USS Lake Erie, USS
Decatur and USS Russell - were outfitted with modified Aegis anti-
missile systems, the ships' crews were trained for an unprecedented
mission, and three SM-3 missiles were pulled off an assembly line and
given a new guidance system.

The decision to attempt a shootdown was disclosed by the Pentagon on
Thursday. On Friday officials said it could happen next week, shortly
after the space shuttle Atlantis returns from its current voyage at
midweek. Officials want the Atlantis to be home to avoid the risk of
being hit with satellite debris.

Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that it's difficult
not only to hit the satellite but even to know the best time to shoot.

"It's a bit of an imprecise science at this point," Ham said.

With an eye to the possibility that the missile effort will fail, the
government has placed six rescue teams across the country to be
prepared to act if the satellite hits the United States, according to
a Federal Emergency Management Agency memo dated Feb. 14 and obtained
by The Associated Press.

The spacecraft contains 1,000 pounds of hydrazine in a tank that is
expected to survive re-entry and a fuel tank liner made of beryllium.

FEMA has prepared a guide for emergency responders that includes
information about hydrazine and beryllium. The agency warns officials
not to pick up any debris or provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to
anyone who has inhaled hydrazine or beryllium.

The AP first reported on Jan. 26 that the U.S. satellite had lost
power and was going to crash to Earth by early March. Normally the
government would simply let a dying spacecraft fall on its own, with
minuscule odds that it would land in a populated area. But in this
case, Bush was persuaded by advisers that it would be worth trying to
shoot it down to reduce the risk from the on-board toxic fuel.

As a first of its kind, the shootdown scenario draws on a wide range
of scientific and military technologies - from ships and radar sites
in the Pacific to high-powered telescopes in Hawaii and elsewhere, to
a specially fitted Air Force plane and a Navy ship that snoops on
missile tests.

To kick off the planning, the government assembled a high-security
team of about 200 people - Navy scientists and missile defense
experts, plus representatives of defense contractors Lockheed Martin
and Raytheon, as well as scientists from the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory. Lockheed is the manufacturer of the Aegis
system and Raytheon makes the SM-3 missile.

The Lake Erie, a destroyer that has participated in a dozen mostly
successful tests to intercept a mock enemy missile in flight over the
past six years, would take the first shot at the satellite at a
distance of about 150 miles, just beyond the reach of Earth's
atmosphere.

The SM-3 missile aboard the Lake Erie is equipped with a heat-seeking
sensor that has been modified in order to enable it to zero in on the
satellite, whose heat "signature" is smaller than that of a ballistic
missile in flight.

The SM-3 costs $9.5 million, not counting its one-of-a-kind
modifications. It is designed to destroy its target not by detonating
an explosive nearby but by slamming directly into the satellite at
high speed.

Publicly, officials have expressed confidence that they will succeed
in the intercept. Privately, some say there is a rising sense of
anxiety, although the consequences of failure are not what they would
be in war; if the missile misses, the bus-sized satellite will tumble
to Earth on its own, with very small odds that the on-board tank of
hydrazine - a toxic fuel - will harm any humans.

David Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists,
said in an interview Friday he would put the odds of a successful
intercept at no better than 50 percent. And he expressed concern that
debris from a successful strike could harm the other objects in
relatively low orbit.

Wright said the situation presents diplomatic as well as technological
challenges for Washington. The Bush administration is trying to
convince other countries that the shootdown plan is not a disguised
means of developing a program to kill their orbiting communications
and intelligence capabilities.

The State Department has instructed U.S. diplomats around the world to
inform their host governments that the operation is aimed solely at
protecting people from the danger posed by the onboard fuel.

"Our role is to reassure nations around the world as to the nature of
what we are trying to do," spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday. "It's
an attempt to try to protect populations on the ground."
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Eileen Sullivan contributed
to this report.


.

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