Mystery of the toxic satellite

[IndianaGreen]

Perhaps the reason the US wants to shootdown this satellite is because it has a plutonium-powered batteries, and it is not the hydrazine the publicly claimed they are worried about.

Mystery of the toxic satellite

The US plans to shoot it down, but is it telling the truth about health risks?

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Sunday, 17 February 2008

It sounds like the plot of a bad Hollywood movie. A dying US spy satellite is hurtling towards Earth. Military specialists worry that its toxic fuel load could contaminate a populated area. After weeks of deliberation, a resolute president gives the order to shoot the satellite down with an air-to-space missile...

<snip>

The satellite, which is about the size of a school bus, has been drifting back towards Earth since last month. True, it does contain about 1,000lb of a toxic fuel called hydrazine. But the risk, even if the fuel did spill out in the middle of a city, is so minimal as to be laughable, according to experts.

"In the history of the space age, there has not been a single human being who has been harmed by man-made objects falling from space," Michael Krepon of the Henry L Stimson Center, a military think-tank, told The Washington Post. "There has to be another reason behind this."

Other researchers point out that 42 objects fell to Earth last year, including one with a form of hydrazine on board and a dozen others containing hydrazine residue. They put the risk of someone being harmed at about one in a trillion. "Having the US government spend millions of dollars to destroy a billion-dollar failure to save zero lives is comedic gold," one expert told Wired magazine's blog.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mystery-of-the-toxic-satellite-783390.html

[MADem]

1. The real reason they are shooting this thing down is to flip the bird to the Russkies

This is PAYBACK for their buzzing the Nimitz with those bombers.

You bring a knife? We bring a gun...FUCKERS!

Welcome to the Twenty First Century Cold War.

Brought to you by Monkeyboy and Pootie Poot.

Gotta find a way to keep the arms dealers and manufacturers (GE, We Bring Good Wars To Life) in business.

[Warpy]

3. I still think it's to keep the advanced optics out of anyone else's

hands, not that there would be that much of them after that thing smacks down.

[MADem]

8. It's a believable excuse, that one. Better than the fuel one, certainly.

And well bought by the general public, too.

But I do think it's the BIG F YOU that's the "real" reason. BushCo 'rolls that way.'

This is an opportunity to suggest to the Russkies that fucking with us with those bombers ain't too swift, it wasn't funny, and we didn't appreciate it.

They humped our leg. This is our way of saying we can shoot their dog.

We can bounce one of their satellites in low earth orbit outta the sky without breaking a sweat if they pull that crap again.

[Warpy]

10. You're probably right

Of course, being in the area where antimissile weapons were tested, I have little faith in a successful shoot down.

It would be good if they did, though, because having something that size coming through the atmosphere could be very nasty if it hit a populated area.

[MADem]

11. Gee, the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this!

Maybe the 'authorities' will activate the top-secret destrucion pack that is built in aboard the satellite just as the missle, which will miss the mark, passes by at the Closet Point of Approach (CPA)!!!

That will convince the Russkies that we have a super-duper missile system, and a brand new Star Wars, Big Money, "Raytheon - GE - Missiles-R-US" weapons race!! Let's beat those plowshares into swords! Those who have been learning Russian in college, their talents have not been wasted!! CIA is hiring!!

[lovuian]

2. I have thought the same its plutonium in that spy satellite

radiation into our atmosphere

again

[Redstone]

4. No, it's not the hydrazine OR the plutonium. Jesus, how hard is this to figure out?

We don't, most of us, know what the fucking thing was sent up there to do. It's a SPY satellite.

It's not a Keyhole bird either; as far as anyone knows. So what is it carrying, that the government is so damn concerned that it not come down with any large parts intact?

There's one thing I CAN tell you: They're not worried about anyone getting hurt, either by hydrazine or plutonium. They're worried that, because the sat never got hight enough, there are things aboard that won't burn up enough when it re-enters. And tthe Government would NOT be happy if anyone outside the US got to look at those things.

Not tinfoil-hat stuff here. Just what it's been for a long time; there's stuff we have that we don't want other people to know that we have. Because we don't want them to know what we know, because of what that stuff does.

No mystery at all here.

Redstone

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. what do we do with it

if it lands in our back yard. All those juicy secrets!

[Redstone]

9. Sell to the highest bidder, of course. It's the American way, yes?

Redstone

[RainDog]

5. I've also heard the reason given by some on DU

for shooting down the satellite is to keep its technology from China and Russia. and it could be a two-fer, who knows.

I thought it was intended a psy ops to threaten others, too, because the U.S. could take down a satellite. All I know is that anytime I read anything about what Cheney and the gang are planning, I immediately feel queasy.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. wouldn't surprise me

[TalkingDog]

12. Oh what the hell, it's Sunday. My tinfoil hat theory:

It's not even a satellite. It's an extraterrestrial ship abandoned in orbit. The crew is on earth awaiting a rescue ship. But the Govt. nor the ETs can do anything about the ship's increasingly decaying orbit. And given that the structure and materials would survive even a violent reentry, the Govt. is forced to shoot it down.


My political theory is: a thumb of the nose to the Chinese and their satellite downing missle tests and to the Russians.

Other than that.... I got nothin'.

[benld74]

13. ThereIS NO HEALTH RISK,,

THis is all about protecting any technological pieces from falling into someone elses hands AND lets them play Star Wars in the process of doing it. As you may recall when Bush first took office a spy plane made an emergency landing on China soil, actually it was forced to land. The crew had no chance of ridding the plane of all of its stuff, and the Chinese ghad a field day taking stuff off the plane, while IdiotSum biched and moaned but could do nothing.

[leftofthedial]

14. this isn't about health issues

it is about what really happened on 9-11

[bemildred]

15. They don't give a crap about health issues, that has long since been clear.

So the question is what is this really about?