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Subject: Satellite reduced to ball-sized chunks
gf0012-aust    2/21/2008 4:18:00 PM
Here's the difference. The US announces an intercept weeks in advance and china announces hers after the event. China however does a deeper intercept where burn out is not possible, and where fragments are now in orbit (and thus space debris becomes a hazard), the US OTOH does a shot where burnout will facilitate debris destruction. What do we get? The Chinese wanting more details (of course they do!) and also claiming that the US wanted to test its space weapons and ABM systems (Well, gee whiz, what was the PLA doing???) and then the Chinese Govt has the added cheek of complaining that "the missile strike could cause harm to outer space security and some countries." (gee, I wonder what countries that would be ???) They seem to forget that the US didn't need to demonstrate capability (they did that over 20 years ago) and that it was them who thought that they could intimidate the US. Welcome to the real world boys..... --------------------------------------------------------- h!!p://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/satellite-reduced-to-ballsized-chunks/20080222-1trb.html The missile that struck a rogue US spy satellite in space carrying toxic fuel reduced it to football-sized chunks but the Pentagon was not 100-per cent certain its fuel tank was destroyed, officials say. The Pentagon said it had a "high degree of confidence" the US Navy missile struck the toxic fuel tank of the disabled US spy satellite over the Pacific Ocean. But Marine General James Cartwright told reporters it could take another 24-48 hours to know for sure that the tank containing toxic hydrazine fuel had been destroyed. "We're very confident that we hit the satellite. We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank," he said at a Pentagon briefing. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the press conference that he couldn't rule out that hazardous material would fall to the earth. "Thus far we've seen nothing larger than a football," he said. Cartwright said officials also "have a high degree of confidence" - though are not ready to say for sure - that the missile launched from a US Navy ship near Hawaii on Wednesday struck the satellite's fuel tank. Officials said the toxic hydrazine fuel in the tank would have caused a hazard had it fallen to earth. The military concluded that the missile had successfully shattered the satellite because trackers detected a fire ball, which seemed to indicate the exploding hydrazine in the tank. A vapour cloud also suggested the destruction of the fuel, he said. He said officials were 80 per cent sure that the tank was breached and the hazardous material was vented off. Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the US was prepared to share with China some of the information it has about the satellite shoot down. Beijing had complained the missile strike could cause harm to outer space security and some countries. Gates told reporters during a visit to the state of Hawaii that the United States was prepared to share whatever it can "appropriately" share with China.
 
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