The US Department of Defense announced today that it has struck the failing spy satellite with an anti-satellite missile fired from a cruiser near Hawaii. Apart from the initial reaction of "OMG thats awesome" there are other issues that have to be discussed. The biggest issue is why? Why did the US shoot down its own satellite when it has never shot down spy satellites in the past that had failed and were going to come tumbling back down to earth? Its pretty simple I think. This is a satellite that was launched in December of 2006 and was supposed to be the pinnacle of US espionage technology.
It goes without saying that the US doesn't want this satellite landing in Siberia where the Russians could get at it. The odds of the satellite falling to earth and landing in an urban area are pretty big. I don't think any educated person would actually buy that excuse. But hey, we probably scored some points with Green Peace for pretending to care about the environment, so thats good. Mmmm.....whale toffee.
Also, there is the little issue of China shooting down a satellite last year without telling anyone ahead of time. The satellite was not in a decaying orbit, and China merely wanted to see if they could do it. Alot of people got pissed off at that. So, we have to assume that its possible that the US saw this as opportunity to show the world that it could shoot down satellites too. Which brings me to the point of this post. China is demanding that the US provide technical data of the event to prove that it wasn't just shooting down a satellite to show everyone that they can do it.
China has also blasted the US for working towards militarizing space by shooting down a satellite.
......wtf??? Didn't China do that last year without telling anyone beforehand and without letting the satellite's orbit degrade enough so that its destruction wouldn't pose a major threat to other satellites? Seriously China.......cry me a fucking river.
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