So we're gonna shoot that satelite down, huh?

[Foxwood]

It is the size of a bus. After fuel, controls, and all the other things necessary to be an orbiting satellite, there wouldn't be a whole lot of room left for missiles and warheads.

Blowing up a satellite loaded with your nukes would leave a huge signature of something you are trying to keep from being known. It just doesn't make any sense.

If you want to launch a nuke, the conventional system would place one on target in a short period of time. Dropping one from orbit requires a change in orbit to place it on a trajectory to carry it to target. Then it has to decelerate and survive re-entry. It takes days for the Space Shuttle to align itself after seperation from the Space Station to land on a predetermined point. It would be very difficult to place a space launched nuke where you want it in a short period of time.

 

[pre-set]

Blowing up the satelite wouldn't set off the nukes on board. They're not "armed", and the MIRV units are very, very durable things (they're desinged to re-enter). All they need to do is have the interceptor missle hit the satelite with enough energy to de-orbit it immediately.

As for size, the kind of nukes that would likely be placed on such a system would not be very large. Size-wise, they would probably resemble an office water-cooler bottle and weigh a couple hundred pounds. Double that size for the targeting module and guidance package to get it through space to the de-orbit point and it's still small. Not very big at all, but plenty big enough (prolly 500kt range) to carve out the heart of a city or crater the deepest underground bunker structures or destroy a high-value surface ship like a carrier or missle cruiser.


As I said, the biggest advantage of this system would be the deniablity of it. The launch process would only involve a few people making keystrokes and mouseclicks, as opposed to the dozens or hundreds to launch a missle, arm and fly a bomber or launch a ship/sub based missle.


And, something I haven't mentioned before now, maybe the purpose of these nukes isn't to attack surface targets at all. Maybe they're designed to create EMP's over enemy territory by going off high in the ionosphere, disrupting communciations and destroying power grids and electronics beneath them.

As for the fissile material - the actual stuff that makes the nuke work - the plutonium - that can be traced to where it was produced by it's chemical and atomic signature. If you can recover bomb residue, you can tell where it was made. I'd imagine that if we DID have such a weapon, the plutonium lilkely isn't ours. It's probably Chinese or Soviet/Russian in origin, that we "apropriated" somehow.

Then the deniablity wouldn't merely be plausible, it would be complete.

 

[Foxwood]

Dude,

You look over your shoulder a lot?

 

[Foxwood]

Well, if George W. Bush gave the approval to send nukes into space, it would be destined for failure.

It all falls into place.

 

[Tippster]

Hillary Clinton's charisma?

Nah, GWB's military records.

 

[pre-set]

Dude,

You look over your shoulder a lot?

Yep. And I also look over the shoulders of people when their speaking to me, too. If you don't, then you're not as smart as I'd originally thought you to be...

 

[pre-set]

My money's on the explanation from the movie "GI Jane"

The satellite is probably powered by fuel cells that contain weapons grade plutonium designed to survive re-entry and, if fallen into the wrong hands, could give terrorist the ingredient they need to produce a nuke.

Wow, I hadn't really considered the fuel-cell angle. That makes a lot of sense, too.

That Casini space-probe rocket - the one destined for Jupiter that was launched like 6 or 7 years ago - I remember the enviro. folks raising Holy Hell about that because it had 300 lbs of Plutonium in it's on-board reactor.

Yep, that's plausible, too.

 

[SeattleShooter]

I will say this...it was launched when Bush was in office and it was his choice to shoot it down. So who the hell knows what is up there that Bush wanted up there.

 

[smartcam]

I think these days...anything is possible. I don't know didlysquat about how re-entries and space things work like some of the "experts" on this site, but there is certainly something more than what the "Gods" in Washington are telling our fine folks in the networks. Whether it is nukes or nuclear fule aboard, they are willing to shoot it down for great costs. We may never know...unless the damn missile misses and lands in North Korea!

 

[f11vid]

OMG! The MOON'S GONE!!! They shot down the moon by mistake!!!!

 

[pre-set]

OMG! The MOON'S GONE!!! They shot down the moon by mistake!!!!

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

 

[Canonman]

Well, they claim that they did hit it, but won't know for a day or so whether that 'pesky fuel tank' was destroyed or not.

cm

 

[Land Rover]

Here's the link. Looks like it was 133 miles up when they hit it.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/20/satellite.shootdown/index.html

 

[McQueen]

Nice job...153 nautical miles up,direct hit.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=71c_1203596547&p=1

 

[canuckcam]

Funny how the US can rave about THEM shooting a satellite down, but only a year earlier, bitch about China shooting their own "weather" satellite down.

 

[elvezz]

I don't believe we hit it.
They cant even hit the practice missiles without
placing a GPS tracking unit in the target missile.

 

[pre-set]

Well, hit or not, believe or not, this saga is prolly over now. The only thing I AM 100% sure about is we'll never, ever know the real story with this...


Neat video of the impact though. Well, of something being impacted. Somewhere. Sometime.....

 

[SeattleShooter]

Are we dead?

 

[McQueen]

The bitchin came from around the world and Canada after the Chinese blew up the sat in HEO(500+ miles) and left a huge debris field that could collide with other sats. We waited till the orbit retrograded and then took the shot,with the rest frying in the upper atmosphere.

 

[Deaf and Blind]

Well interestingly enough the first stories we got here were not to touch anything should it land. Things like hard drives were mentioned.
Remember where Skylab ended up?

Personally the whole fuel thing to me is a crock. That bird had either nukes or a nuclear fuel cell on board. it was certainly more in it's entirity than a bunch of HDD's and cameras. I suspect like many satelites it was Nuclear powered which is why we never go collect them regardless of value.

The other part is imagine the fall-out literally and physically if a bird with a nuclear power cell landed in North Korea or Russia, China. Let alone the EU or Japan.

Mull that over ones cornflakes.