Blogcritics Comments on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:50:20 EST

Nice comment 55 Doc, I've even seen were a solar sail could be attached and enough push from the solar winds could devert it, if the detected it soon enough. Also theres dropping or spraying carbon powder on it enough to absorb enough solar energy to warm it into another orbit...

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:46:31 EST

From all the news reports I say, they only had a 10 second window in which to shoot at this thing and if they missed they had to wait til the next day, small assurances if it were an asteroid?

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:19:17 EST

We'll just have to hope that we can start off world colonisation before a big one comes our way... Quoted for truth, and not just for that reason either.

Comment by Christopher Rose on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:09:14 EST

Doc, as I said, there is no weapon capable of rendering us safe from an asteroid, as blowing it into lots of little pieces wouldn't, as you indicated above. And as there isn't a large enough warning window, no weapon can keep us safe. We'll just have to hope that we can start off world colonisation before a big one comes our way...

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:46:43 EST

Agreed, Deano. Fortunately, it's this guy.

Comment by Deano on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:35:00 EST

Somebody's been watching their DVD of Armageddon too frequently....

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:17:47 EST

Chris, Dave, It's not so much whether there are weapons of sufficient power and range to do the job (there are). It's that blowing up an asteroid wouldn't do a blind bit of good. Instead of having, say, a million-ton lump of rock hurtling towards Earth, you'd now have thousands of lumps - still with a collective mass of a million tons and still on a collision course. There are ways to defend against an incoming asteroid - if the potential impact was detected/calculated early enough (we're talking years). The cheapest and easiest way would be to point a low-powered satellite-based laser at it. Light exerts an infinitesimal but constant pressure which, sustained over time, would be enough to deflect the object into a non-Earth-intersecting orbit. Another way would be to shoot a rocket up there and strap some boosters on the thing. This would have the same effect as the laser and would be somewhat quicker but way more expensive. (The money would, of course, be a moot point in such a situation...) However, without years of advance warning, there's precious little we can do with our current technology. An asteroid that's a week out before we're even aware of it might as well already have hit us. Which is why investing in long-range asteroid detection and observation is of paramount importance.

Comment by Christopher Rose on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:16:09 EST

Dave, to my best knowledge breaking up a potentially dangerous asteroid is just a fantasy. Nobody has powerful enough weapons of sufficient range to do the job.

Comment by Dave Nalle on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:49:10 EST

Let me just tack on to the other intelligent observences here that the REASON the government is so relatively secretive about why they test weapons systems like this and why they might want to shoot this satellite down so much, is likely that they don't want to scare the hell out of the public with the fact that they think there might be a future need for a weapons system which can break up an incoming asteroid. Remember the bomb shelter craze in the 50s and 60s? Dave

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:47:09 EST

How long will it take for Bush to apologize for the navy shooting at a school bus near Lake Erie?

Comment by Clavos on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:49:57 EST

It was good practice, and the significance of the outcome will not be lost on those who might have been contemplating lobbing a missile at us one day. Props to the Navy missile crew.

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:51:32 EST

Wow, the government is pre-making excuses incase of the probability they miss it. I think I predicted that. I also pointed out this expensive experiment wasn't necessary as the satellite is so small it almost has to burn up on re-entry.

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:54:07 EST

That explains a lot Clavos

Comment by Clavos on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:01:33 EST

No, but I am an owner, which is why I'm pretty familiar with the company; I always research and learn before I invest.

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:36:59 EST

I was right you do work for Haliburton

Comment by Clavos on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:34:30 EST

"Tens of billions" Only 13 in Iraq, out of 450; less than 3%. Also, you've said more than once that their contracts were all no-bid, and yet you yourself point out, in #38: "KBR beat out DynCorp and defense giant Raytheon for the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001, this one to run 10 years..." "Beat out" how? In chess? :>)

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:32:08 EST

Simple Doc, the more the Bush Administration hides the more power he thinks he has. Sooner or later he's going to find out that political power is like a handful of sand. The harder you clench your first, the more that slips through your fingers.

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:15:28 EST

Although this little incident does make me wonder... I'm not making any kind of value judgment or ideological statement here, but it does strike me as ironic that a government which is supposedly of the people, by the people, for the people expends so much effort in keeping secrets from the people. :-)

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:52:50 EST

G, #20: When NASA does'nt see the large "Dark Matter Objects" on a course towards Earth there scientists say, it's a near miss.Asteroids and comets come this close to Earth all the time.Well, if you check the recent trajectory of objects headed toward Earth, they are getting closer. Point of order: near-miss objects aren't getting any closer or further away than they always have - we've just improved our ability to detect them. Other than that - what Cannonshop said.

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:46:19 EST

Love that movie. And the book it was adapted from even more so.

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:39:14 EST

One of my favorite quotes from the movie "Contact" is "It's one of the basic rules of government spending Doctor; 'Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?'!"

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:26:47 EST

If the truth be told, I'd support the target practice as a good test of our technology, if only Bush would've kept his mouth shut and not said anything until AFTER we'd shot the damned thing down. With the odds not in our favor, it's probable that we'll miss the damn thing or have to use tow or more extreeeeeeeeemly expensive rocket/missiles to shoot it down, causing us international embarrassment. What is the difference between a military rocket and a military missile anyway? ...other than the spelling and the Scrabble score?

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:18:24 EST

Cannonshop, with the exception of Chenney's Haliburton, it was all built by the lowest bidder...

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:16:14 EST

Tens of billions "...In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program contract, an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations. When the Army needs a service performed, it issues a "task order," which lays out specific work requirements under the contract. From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). KBR beat out DynCorp and defense giant Raytheon for the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001, this one to run 10 years..."

Comment by Cannonshop on Bush Plays Target Practice With Falling U.S. Spy Satellite

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:12:50 EST

It's a good test. Seriously, guys, it is. I expect what's going on, and what's reported, only bear the faintest resemblance to one another-reporters tend to be technological ignoramuses as notable im CNN reporters in 1990 telling the world how the CRG (COmmunications Relay Group, the antenna truck) detects and shoots down Scuds in the gulf war. Why do I say it's a good test? simple: objects in space tend to operate without friction, and under only mild influence of gravity, making their movement very newtonian. Around 165 million years or so ago, according to the most commonly accepted scientific hypothesis, an object from space rearranged Earth's Ecology. Under our current state of affairs both in terms of publically available tech info, and physical resources, if one of those is coming, we can do exactly not a damn thing. 'Armageddon' and 'Deep Impact' were FICTION. What's this got to do with shooting down a sat? Well, guys, it's like this: If one were developing a gun-system for coastal defense, one generally will build based on pre-existing technologies-in other words, if you can't hit the sattelite, you can't hit the Asteroid. ASAT and BMD systems are the natural precursors for detecting (reliably) and doing-something-about inbound objects moving at high speed, before they convert millions of people to ash and render the entire global-warming debate (and every other partisan bickering in our modern society) a moot point. Bolide impacts aren't a matter of 'if', they're a matter of 'When'. it may not be in your lifetime, or grandchildren's lifetime, but the longer it takes to develop your core technologies for deflecting/preventing them, the higher the odds that whatever issues you think are so important at this point in history are going to be less than pointless.