Reach out and touch someone.
And by "someone" I mean "a spy satellite," and by "touch" I mean "blast it out of the sky."
By Moe Lane Posted in War — Comments (33) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As AoSHQ noted, you'd almost think that the Democrats were being irrational about trying to shut down our ballistic missile defense program, or something. Hey, do either of the two Democrats still running for President have a quote on that?
Navy Missile Hits Spy Satellite
WASHINGTON (AP) - A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said. Full details were not immediately available.
It happened just after 10:30 p.m. EST.
Anyway, note that it's just "a Navy ship." That means that the next Navy ship that you meet just might be one of the ones that can take out things in orbit. Best not to mess with her on general principles, no?
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...called SUMO that will allow actual satellite retrieval, but that project is strictly nonmilitary in scope, even if it's out of NRL.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
I hope Putin. Machmoonijihad and Ill Dong are all watching very closely...
I saw this news and all I could think of was what another great plus for President Bush and the case for defending this country from this honorable man yet again. It also reminded me that the Dems are just weak on nat'l defense and were of course against this like they always seem to be on nat'; security issues.
This is an excellent point, Moe. The opposition to missile defense has never been about effectiveness. It's about ideology - fear that the U.S. needed MAD to restrain it (which is doubly silly these days now that the M has gone out of MAD) and a sentimental, mush-brained opposition to 'militarizing space' (yeah, let's make sure that wars are never fought in a vacuum with no civilians).
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
hit-job or details hidden-away?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
The reason for killing the satellite, since there has been some back-and-forth on this, what do you y'all think - there was an actual danger to human life, or it was just to prove that we can blow stuff up in space?
Kind of like cleaning up after yourself and we would have been liable for any damage it did.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I ask because a lot of people have said this was not necessary, and there was basically no risk of anything bad happening.
Carrying toxic fuel.
Even Skylab did damage when it deorbited.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
That dropped carrying radioactive fuel. I believe they fell in the canadian wilderness.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
that no parts and pieces fell into the wrong hands probably had as much to do with it as anything else. And, of course, the fact that success would not go unnoticed in places like NorKor, Iran, and Russia is an added benefit.
In Vino Veritas
Is why we blew it up. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a convenient excuse for demonstrating capabilities.
Of interest is the Chinese response ... today, they are repeating back to us almost exactly what we said when they blew up their own failing satellite.
There was little danger in the satellite falling: the hydrazine would have burned up in the atmosphere; few chunks-o-metal would have made it to earth, as demonstrated when SkyLab fell.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
That had his cow hit by a piece.
A goverment that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Barry Goldwater
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Wasn't this, at best, only a "proof of concept" of some form of intercept system. And the main concept it proved, for now, was that even when there's only one target, you have the orbit all plotted out, and plenty of windows for shooting it, an angry sea can still screw you up.
And even though its reached the level of "Instantly Rejected Liberal Argument" (I wanted something with a catchier acronym, I'll try to think of one later), I'm not sure why all this money should be spent on something that, even now, doesn't work too well in a storm when a nuke could be smuggled in on a barge. Why wasn't the money spent on a miraculously good trace element detector or something? It makes no sense to me.
But the reason for the post is to note that the navy ship was reportedly the USS Lake Erie. It has its own web site.
Missle defense is a form of welfare for the defense industry. I say this both as a defense contractor and as a proponent of the research side of of MDA. Sure, you could probably spend this money elsewhere, but this is no more of a waste than any other big contract (FCS, KEI, etc.). At least this project will eventually produce some pretty cool stuff, even if it may not have terribly great utility in shooting down missles.
You would have been one of the Wright Bros. critics that the plane never really took them anywhere so they should quit wasting money.
It just shows why I oppose your kind of having any leadership role. Your idea that we can't do both intercept and detect to keep us safe speaks volumns of your lack of faith in your own people and our military.
It just shows why I oppose your kind of having any leadership role. Your idea that we can't do both intercept and detect to keep us safe speaks volumns of your lack of faith in your own people and our military.
It is not necessarily a question of whether we can do something, but whether it is worth the money, time, etc. which can be used for something else. Like the military could theoretically spend a lot of time/money on researching/developing and then building a Death Star powerful enough to destroy a planet, but there would be no use. But to say that building a Death Star is a bad idea has nothing to do with lack of faith in the US or its military.
Who do you mean by "your kind"?
Kinda makes me, I dunno, proud of my country when we are able to something pretty cool like that.
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Two thirds of the world is covered by water,
the other third is covered by Champ Bailey.
Are we sure it was a hit? After all, how often is the first news wrong? I better check the FNCCNN boys.
What is Dan Rather saying?
I think it was something that should have been done, and it provided a great opportunity to try out some technology.
I was particularly pleased that we went ahead with it after some of the usual suspects complained about it.
The "Third Worst Person in the World" and aiming higher.
The information can be found at www.defenselink.mil
and there appears to be a picture of the launch, or at least a similar launch at the ship web site
http://www.lake-erie.navy.mil/index2.html
I believe that would make it a Ticonderoga class Aegis cruiser
not that it matters, since the Aegis cruiser can launch it's missles in support of a dingy with a GPS and a data link, in a harbor hundreds of miles away from the ship.
It never hurts to have another arrow in the quiver regardless of various delivery systems.
One should pause and recall the ridicule heaped on "Star Wars", chortle, chortle, and on the "amiable dunce", Reagan.
And this was even before the birth of the "Reality Based Community".
You can't fool a liberal, damn they're smart.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
The missile shoot down by the navy was part of a very important conversation that is now being pursued at the highest levels.
The following article at Wired
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/inside-the-chin.html
gives a good background and it is impossible to understand the star wars significance of the current back and forth w/o understanding that China knocked down a Chinese satellite about a year ago, for no particular reason. This is significant because China could most likely knock out the American Pacific Fleet in one day (called the Pearl Harbor II scenario) if China could first knock out twenty or thirty American satellites just before they tried for the ships.
The American shoot down of an American satellite from a blue-water ship, for no particular reason, is a pretty cool response.
BTW: Just imagine trying to get this issue into a presidential debate
In some small and rather annoying nations.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777