Ok, so I’m sure the US government know what they are doing when it comes to shooting down this satellite, but wouldn’t the correct thing to do be to get NASA to retrieve it and make it safe? Surely shooting it down is just asking for trouble down the track? Environmental concerns as well as the unpredictability of it would make this option just as dangerous as trying to catch it.
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Get NASA to retrieve it? How, exactly?
I’m sure its US economics. The missile is cheaper.
Oh I’m pretty sure you are right there.
75million for one rouge satelitte… wow.
There’s also a conspirasy theory going around that the millitry are using this as an excuse to prove that they can shoot objects out of space. If you look at all the facts, its probably not too far fetched either. After all, remember the Star Wars Project?
Gotta love random crap discussions.
If I knew that for sure, I would probably be working for NASA instead of some small shitty company…
My thought was using a shuttle to match its orbit and then at least removing the hydrazine fuel tank and letting the rest plummet to earth as safely as it can.
In space, speed is relative. the satelitte might be moving at 22,000miles per hour with respect to earth, hence the small oportunity for a ground based vehicle. From space though, would it not be easier? In space a shuttle wouldn’t take too long to match that orbit surely? A shuttle is after all powered and controlable, where as the satelitte is just on a predictable degrading orbit.
Wooo! Noooo, that won’t work.
I quote from the Guide here: “Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. I mean, you might think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
Think of it like this: I’m in Canberra, you’re in Sydney. Same continent though, right? So in half an hour I’m going to take my pen and drop it on the floor. Can you catch it before it hits the ground? Oh, and I’ll be on a bus, moving at about 80 km/hr, and I won’t be able to tell you which bus but you can probably find it by looking out for a vehicle with wheels going in a northerly or westerly direction. And when I say “in half an hour”, I really mean some time between now and 4 o’clock tomorrow, but don’t come early or late because (I forgot to say) there are a whole bunch of fruit flies, llamas and bull elephants charging around town and you have to try not to touch any of them. Did I mention you’d be driving a Panzer Tank to do this? And we’ll be charging you for petrol and you may lose your job if you overspend, because we’re not made of money, you know!
Let me know how you go, hmmmm?
Hmmm… OK.
But do you really think its easier to do that from say a 747 flying over Perth,WA with a webcam and mobile phone strapped to your neighbours cat?
Personally I would prefer to do it in a convertable.
Besides… You forgot to mention that the bus was doing a round trip, on the same road, and that the pen hittin the ground is irrelevent, as long as i catch the bus before the fuel runs out. Oh, you also neglected to tell me that the bus company has constant satellite tracking on board, and as I know the right people, that data can be feed live to my phone…
Information is always the key. And if I worked for a company that has spy satellites as big as buses, and probably more of them than they are willing to admit… I’m guessing I would have all the information I needed.