Navy To Shoot Down Satellite

A few days ago, we learned that a 10-ton U.S. spy satellite had stopped working and was going to fall back to the earth sometime in early March. The satellite is about the size of a small bus and is too large to burn up completely on re-entry. Complicating matters is the fact that it contains a large quantity of a poisonous rocket fuel called hydrazine.

The government has no idea where the satellite might fall. Even if the satellite doesn't hit anything (or anyone), the hydrazine could form a poisonous cloud around the wreckage.

The U.S. government has now decided to try and destroy the satellite before it re-enters the atmosphere. They are going to have a Navy cruiser try to blow the satellite up with an sm-3 missle. They hope a direct hit will break the satellite up into pieces small enough to burn up on re-entry. They also believe a good hit will burn up the hydrazine fuel and remove that danger.

The Navy has modified some software on the sm-3 to help it recognize the satellite, and if they don't get a good enough hit with the first missle, they may try again.

Both the Chinese and Russian governments don't like the idea. The Russian government thinks this is just a test of the U.S. missle defense system. The Chinese say it could damage world security. I think the Chinese are upset because they did the same thing last year (destroyed a satellite with a missle) and received a lot of criticism for it, including criticism from the U.S.

But no matter who doesn't like it, it's still a good idea to destroy the satellite in space. It's just too dangerous since we don't know where it will fall. By the time we figure out where it will fall, it'll be too late to shoot it down.

Where It Will Fall Nobody Knows

On the old TV show Northern Exposure, there was a female character who's husbands kept dying. One of them was killed by a satellite falling on him. At the time, it just seemed like a funny way to kill off a TV-show character -- now it looks like it could really happen to someone.

There's a 10-ton piece of space junk (the size of a small bus) that will fall out of the sky about a month from now -- around the end of February or the first part of March. It's one of our own spy satellites that lost power and is now in a degrading orbit.

The bad part is that no one knows where it's going to fall. The scientists can predict the approximate time it will fall, but they don't have a clue as to where.

Fortunately, most of the earth is covered with water, and past "falling junk" has landed harmlessly. But there's always the chance that this one will conk one or more of us on the head.

But even if it doesn't hit anyone, it could still be dangerous. That's because this satellite contains hydrazine -- a poisonous rocket fuel that could harm anyone it comes in contact with.

It's not too comforting to know our government is sending large poisonous metal objects into space, that will one day come hurtling back down toward us. Maybe they should have thought of that before they did it.

I feel like we're all part of a giant lottery -- only this is one you don't want to win.