Cost of shooting down a spy satellite: $60m. Look on Alien's face when the missile hits: priceless.
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Feb 16th 2008 9:31AM
posted Feb 16th 2008 9:31AM
[Thanks, Laura]
Update: Apparently Russia is calling the whole operation a cover for the US government to test out a new anti-sat tactical missile system. Ok, we wouldn't rule that option out, but it's not like the concept of shooting down satellites is so revolutionary, right? We mean, haven't governments been capable of blowing up satellites for decades, now? Thanks, Mukul.
I am more worried about the debris that will left from this explosion. What country are they going to blow this satellite over? I hope not a poor developing nation that would definitely have little or no means to clean up the mess. I wouldn't be too sure of any help from the developed. They better plan this right coz the world is watching. Human Right Activists, anyone??
The pieces will be so small, they will burn up upon reentry in our atmosphere.
If the entire thing came down, I would be more worried.
75% of the earth's surface is covered in water. Chances are slim as it is of the debris hitting anything but ocean.
Ireland apparently :(
I can't believe that it is that hard to shoot an orbiting object down. I mean hell, isn't it cheaper to build a satellite and launch than to do this?
It would be easier to crash an old Space Shuttle to the satellite itself. Then we will have one less piece of scrap on earth! How economical.
And the astronauts? Well, sucks to be you, but at least you will be the first people to do a Space Kamikaze. You'll be popular! Or, you could chicken out and use a parachute to land safely to earth!
What pisses me off is that their shooting it down over Ireland, my country!
@Derry Quinn
Last I checked Ireland wasn't an "undisclosed location in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator."
@Stickman
Have a friend throw a ping-pong ball in the air above you and try to hit it with another ping-pong ball.
Now have your friend shoot bullets from a gun, but you still only get to use a ping-pong ball. It's kinda like that.
Its funny how kids or someone with little intelligence will always make comments like "wow its not that hard to do this" when the only calculation they can perform is 2+2. It is immensely difficult to shoot something like that down from the ground. I know you may think that in the real world, we are at the same level as StarWars, but you know what? That is not really the case. The target is tiny, and it is being shot from the ground without last minute guidance correction. So like someone said, its really like shooting down a moving ping pong ball with a bb.
And also, even though the satellite is moving at the same speed of rotation as the earth, by the time the missile reaches it will be in a different location than where it was originally aimed for, so they have to fire before the satellite moves into the designated target
It's not "that hard", really.
""The kicker? They'll probably miss." Engadget hasn't done their homework on this one.
They have a projected 80% chance of hitting the satellite on the first shot according to several reports (although not this particular one). Hardly "they'll probably miss" odds if you ask me.
Eeek. I mean I would only assume it's easy to do because we launch shuttle missions routinely all the time. Corporations launch satellites all the time. I didn't think we were that far behind in missile guidance technology that they couldn't send one up to take out a satellite. I mean no crap that the satellite is moving.
How long has the government known about the satellite's potential for destruction?
You have to understand that this satellite is going about 9km/s, or about 32,000km/h, in other words, its hauling ass. Also, the rocket will probably be going around 3-4km/s, trying to hit the satellite thats going in the opposite direction, 300 miles away.
So its equivalent to firing a bullet from 300 miles away and hitting another bullet going in the opposite direction...and that is quite hard to do, even with the best calculations there are far too many variables affecting both trajectories that it is highly probable that they will fail.
@JLTate
Wel all the irish news agencies are going crazy over this one, see http://independant.ie
The chinese in January where able to destroy a satellite with a missile.
US want to prove to Chinese that they can do the same! That is why they do it, nothing else!
HAHAHA!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003531646_chinasat190.html
As if military accomplishments are nothing more than a pissing contest? Idiot. It is a very important operation, which can determine our capability of waging war against technologically advanced countries. Spy satellites are the backbone.
I think our gov't its trying to prove we can do it worse, for more money! (like everything else) Why don't we ask china to do it?
>>Why don't we ask china to do it?
HAHA! Very good point!
You know how americain are! They would never ask help!
They where the first on the moon and now are second to destroy a satellite :P
Guess the chinese will destroy Americains if they send a man to Mars first!!!!!!
LOLL!
Don't worry, Americans are good at hitting things or their side.
"As if military accomplishments are nothing more than a pissing contest? Idiot. It is a very important operation, which can determine our capability of waging war against technologically advanced countries. Spy satellites are the backbone."
@Kyledl
I take it you don't understand sarcasm very well. It also helps if you remembered what happened during the Cold War and the whole rivalry between the U.S. and Russia.
Tard.
America already did successful test shooting satellites decades ago, mind you seeing that the space capabilities of america are only going backwards that doesn't say much about now I guess.
We're not proving anything. We've had the capability to shoot down satellites since the 80s. In 1985, we shot down a satellite with an ASM-135, from an F-15.
Its cheaper...
>>We're not proving anything. We've had the capability to shoot down satellites >>since the 80s. In 1985, we shot down a satellite with an ASM-135, from an F-15.
you are talking about a air to air attack. We are talking about ground to air!
that ASM-135 missile could only go up to 560km(350 miles) and max 1000km
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite are 2000km up
Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) is below 35786 km
>>We're not proving anything.
In 1957 was Sputnik 1 satellite by Soviet Union and 1 year later it is the United States 1958 Explorer 1 satellite!
no we are not proving anything...
When we reach peak oil, China will at the other end of an energy tug-o-war. We DO have things to prove to them as they are a (powerfully) developing nation with a rising middle class/population who are soon to be (in my opinion) one of the next world superpowers; as our middle class continues to fade. The cold war is living proof that pissing contests do exist so don't be so quick to deny that. Its something we should always remember. In fact, war in general is proof. However there is no way that this is the only reason and I'm sure that the fact being this is a spy satellite has a lot to do with it. Two-birds one stone do you see? Doesnt have to be one or the other.
@Jerome too bad those Americains are going to be destroyed, makes me im glad im an american,(not getting destroyed)
While the US definitely does engage in such military pissing contests (and Russia apparently has already accused us of so), shooting down this particular satellite that's supposedly already dropping low in orbit (and thus going to hit the earth) would seem to be kinda silly, since the whole point of the pissing contest is to show off that you can shoot down satellites that are way deep into space because that's where everyone's (functional) spy satellites are.
This satellite is only about 260km above the ground by now, which would make it a poor choice for a pissing contest, since the satellite china shot down was 865km out into space, and a lot smaller (thus harder to hit accurately).
Since we've been able to hit farther away satellites since 1985 (that satellite was 555km out into space), it'd be pretty silly to spend this money just to prove that we can hit something bigger and closer 23 years later, lol.
So this means we're probably shooting it down to either avoid looking like a-holes when it crashes into someone's house in some country, or to avoid sensitive spy satellite parts that survive re-entry from being taken by other countries, or probably some combination of the two.
Point is, it's not very useful as a pissing contest tool, especially after we ranted about space debris to China last time, which mostly just makes us look like hypocrites.
@Fanman
Go fuck yourself you jerkoff conspiracy theorist.
not to get low ranked or anything, but BS like this is why other parts of the world like Canada, France, Britain, Cuba for god sake all have free health care.
Imagine if the US didn't waste all it's money, and I mean really, becuase there's alot of money. not just the satelittle, this is just one example amoung many.
well hell, you might even get free university like most of europe if the US governemnt stopped pissing away all the money Americans are working for.
I dunno. if the canadican governemnt pulled bull like this they'd have a hockey stick in the jaw and be in the hospital.
The candian government wont pull anything like this because we cover their butts on anything military related. We are protecting the continent. Canadians benefit from that.
Get a job and pay for your own health care you lazy bum. And Cuba is a communist country you douche bag, they may have "universal health care" but the hospitals are shit, there are no bed cloths, pillows, food or nothing, the family has to bring all that stuff from home and when it comes to medical supplies and technology they are seriously lacking as well. Get an education you ignorant fool.
"not to get low ranked or anything"
You already know your comment is bullshit before you even started. If America wants shitty socialized health care, we will vote for it. And until people start clamoring to get out of the USA, instead of into it, keep your socialist American hating venom to yourself.
And for the record, they will hit the satellite, whats left of it will burn up in the atmosphere, and thats the last you will here of it.
We don't get free healthcare. We pay for it in our taxes.
The difference is our governments spend our money more responsibly and intelligently, rather than throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into fighting a war against a country which doesn't threaten us on a lie about non-existent links to September 11. Yet, ironically, in doing so creating a new generation of international terrorism at a level we have never seen before which now threatens all Western democracies. Good Job, George W.
So guys, you keep voting for a government which wastes your hard earned money in the trillions. Beware the Red Menace!
PS Yes, the usual attack of everyone who dislikes how Americans do things must be a socialist or a commie b******. How intelligent. How typical of Americans.
GO BARAK.
@DelSource:
That's pretty good. I've never heard someone be so liberal and conservative (i.e., contradictory) in one paragraph. No war, but reduce government spending.
@dj-kenpo:
I don't mind paying for healthcare at all, not to mention the best healthcare money can buy. There are many reasons more people want into the country than want out, and that is one of them.
If we didn't spend $8bilion a year polluting the environment through recycling, we could have free health care. For a cite, go watch Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode on recycling.
@Jesse-S:
We wouldn't have to worry about the 8 trillion if we stopped spending trillions of dollars on research and development to stop 'global warming'. WHAT A JOKE!
Of course, the recycling is a joke too, trying to reserve the overabundance of resources that we have.
Check that, we wouldn't have to worry about the 8 Billion
@Chuck,
You fail to describe where any contradiction lies. I did not say reduce taxes, I inferred that taxes should be spent on more worthwile and justifiable things (to say money is wasted is not to say the money should not be spent! Duh!).
Must try harder.
DelSource;
Have terrorist attacks actually increased since Sept 11th, or has reporting on terrorist attacks increased? What is your source for your statement? (I know, it's futile to expect sources from a comments rant, but man.)
Is universal government-run healthcare not socialism? Seems to be one of the critical elements.
One other thought; what's the US government spending as a percentage of GDP? What's the percentage of military spending? Yeah, our government pisses away a lot of money, but we've got the money to piss away (not that I approve).
The Iraq war has been done to death, but this is my take. Saddam refused to prove he did not have WMD. The international consensus was that he did. Even Saintly Canada thought he did. He paid a bounty to suicide bombers. The links to Al Qaeda are now really pretty clear (even though Saddam had no connection to the 9/11 attack, that wasn't really the point). The risk of him providing biological agents to a terrorist group was too high. I know, you've watched a lot of Vietnam War movies, war is hell, I know, I know, I know, blah blah blah.
Also, there's no red scare in the US. Communism pretty much got its ass kicked, and countries with free markets are by far the most wealthy (with great economic side effects for less-free mooching neighbors to the north - I kid!).
I just get the sense that a lot of folks on the interwebs believe the first thing they hear, don't have a sense of history or context, and don't have the patience to really look into things.
And Canada, we love you guys, we'll protect you with our navy and air force if we ever need to, and we respect the differences in our cultures. But really, bugger off.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/02/15/brit-robots-put-phone-mast-moon
enough said.
We should all print out rodan32's post as a testament of american ignorance and boundless stupidity, he's a textbook example and it would be a waste to let it go to waste.
And send copies to the leaders of all countries so they can have a laugh and know what they are dealing with when talking to the US, I think it would better the world.
Rodan,
You're take on the Iraq war should sound more like this:
"We went in there and destroyed a relatively secular, stable government and replaced it with an unstable breeding gown for Islamic extremism, the consequences of which are going to be felt for the foreseeable future. And this is regardless of whether or not we some how manage to prop up the government we’ve built there and establish some sort of security, the damage has already been done. Not to mention siphoned resources from Afghanistan where we actually had a conceivable reason to be... oh and lets not forget that our healthcare system is going banckrupt "
To people jumping on the terrorist breeding ground conclusion:
Hindsight is always 20/20. Do i agree with our country being in iraq/afghanistan? no. but i am not going to sit on a high horse saying "i told you so" when in reality you people werent and are never going to be in the streets protesting it, just arguing on the engadget comment section hitting your negative vote button. grow a pair.
wow. the ignorance is mind boggling.
to the "we protect canada". from who? don't piss people off and you won't need protection.
and "get a job and pay for your own health care"? it's like the stupid kid that drops out of high school, you want to help them not be stupid but in the end the best thing to do is shrug your shoulders and walk away because they're clearly happy being stupid and anything you say will just piss em off.
my job pays for my health care. so that if i got into a car accident with my friends I wouldn't have to ehar 'your wife (etc) is dead, oh and you owe us 40,000 dollars for your surgery. have a nice day!".
clearly if you think america has the top medical system you've never gotten sick in another country. it's not top quality by a long shot.
the genral idea here is I am clearly a dick becuase I suggest there are better ways to spend money than waste it.
your economy is failing and quite clearly it deserves too if you're going to be ignorant about why. how many billions of dollars is the US in debt now? or is CNN censoring that from you?
@chuck
It would seem that for quite some time, money can buy you better health care in more than one country (http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p02s01-uspo.html). Other than that, I believe it's the health care you can get if you don't have the money that is causing all the discussion.
@ dj-kenpo
You had me on your side until you said "from who? don't piss people off and you won't need protection".
Really? It's all about just pissing people off? Wait until Russia is claiming territory in Northern Canada for trade routes, energy or even your growing diamond industry. Do you think they would think twice about taking them all from you if you weren't our neighbor and protected by American military power? In fact, they are already trying to do this by putting flags at the bottom of the sea saying this is Russian territory.
As for this satellite issue, it is clearly a public display of our missile defense system. It better work or a lot of people will look like fools.
wow megellan, talk about paranoia. I bet russia would just swoop right in and steal of of canada if not for the US... right.
the flag was an accomplishment becuase they went down deep. canadians seem to of understood this, and patted them on the back. it was mostly only the americans that got their panties tight over it.
americas guns don't protect canada, they do the opposite. it's like the 'protection' you get if you're a small business owner from the mafia.
most canadians are afraid of getting attacked BECAUSE ofthe worlds hatred for the US.
We've seen what the shuttle can do. (Moonraker anyone?)
Just have it swing by on the way home and blast it. After that, it's all about auto-pilot and Dr. Holly Goodhead.
Apparently it's not that easy. Not to sound rude, but I imagine the guys over at NASA have a little more knowledge of the situation :-)
{wooooosh!}
jeez gimmie 250 quid and a plane and i;ll shoot it with my bb gun.
[...]"They'll probably miss"
And they'll still call it a stunning success.
Why the low rank? That was a superb comment.
Do catch up chaps. This is an opportunity to test missile defence technology without breaking international agreements and being subjected to criticism that it is hypocritical after attacking China for doing the same.
So, an operation a steal at the price.
I agree with the above post about proving we can do it to others. They claim the reason for shooting it down is the hydrocortozine fuel which is toxic but you would have to breath it in for several hours in order to die. Plus it evaporates fairly quickly so no real danger there.
Protect military secrets? Nothing would survive re-entry so that argument is bull.
Landing on a human. Bull again. When the space shuttle broke up it spread parts across half the country without doing any damage.
It is all administration lies. They either want to show they can do it or test something classified.
Mike
http://packratstudios.com
Hmm - Don't get it, they already have a weapon for that purpose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT
You are right. I forgot about that.
SmartMarc:
In the link provided, it states the ASM-135 was canned due to restrictions from Congress about shooting shit in space. Reagan officially disbanded the program in 1988.
Sure, but it worked.
It just is funny you said "Nothing would survive re-entry" and then say "the space shuttle broke up it spread parts across half the country". The fact is that alot of thing survive re-entry. The Mar station and the sky lab all survive re-entry. Beside,we talking about one of the newest US spy satellite. Having it survive re-entery is not a good idea in all military mind set.
i, for one, welcome our new spy satelite overlords
You're not the one with the missiles...
FIRE!
I find it funny how there are so many experts on not only complex space operations, but government reasoning out there these days :-)
Has anyone stopped to think they very well may be doing what they say they are? Testing defense technology..the government can test defense technology anytime they want. They don't have to cover it up with a lame satellite gig. Heck, what do we have to prove to other countries? We're the leading country in space development. I say the reason they're shooting it down is because we've got so many environmental wackos in this country, all of whom would somehow tie the satellite to global warming if they didn't shoot it down.
I would absolutely love to take them at there word but that has gotten us in a lot of trouble over the last decade or so.
The government can do what it wants, and we can use the word hell on internet as much as we want, are you listening.
Obviously the satellite is nuclear powered and they don't want to get into shit when a chunk of radioactive isotope hits canada again, or irradiates the state of texas when it falls apart in the air over it.
Why don't they just make it a pay per view event to recoup some of the cash? And for an extra 10 bucks you can have a live feed to the camera mounted on the nose of the missile.
Heck, and why stop there. They should be doing some pay per view on lots of different things. Maybe some sponsors also. "Tonight's raid on a cave that may be housing Osama is brought to you by: Pepto-Bismol, and Static Guard"...
That IS a really good idea.
Exellent Idea, but what about all the kooks who would then jump on the "There's too much violence on The TeeVee already ohnoes our children cannot understand anything past parroting what they observe we will turn little Johnny and Suzy into gun-toting maniacs ahhh!" bandwagon?
They better put a camera on that missile. That footage would be flipping /sweet/.
You can't tell me they're going to spend 6m on the action and not have so much as a video to show for it.
I like the idea that were doing this to prove to the Chinese that we can. Even if we miss, the Chinese know we can destroy satellites (if at first we don't succeed...).
I think it's very unfair to the Chinese to think they have no conception of our resources and capabilities.
Wait a minute. All this brouhaha to shoot down a satellite whose orbit can be calculated perfectly and they want to make us believe a missile defense system is feasible? Am I missing something?
Good point.
Missiles != satellites.
Satellites at an altitude of about 150 miles, the height this spy satellite will be at when it's shot down, travel at around 17,000 miles per hour.
The U.S. military's Sprint anti-ballistic missile could reach a top speed of mach 10, or around 7,500 miles per hour. Even if the missiles they're going to use for this went double that speed, they'd still be slower than the satellite.
See the problem?
Sorry, meant to include this for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_%28missile%29
I believe that with some very sophisticated mathematics they could pinpoint where it would land to at least a fair degree of acuracy. They figured out how to shoot it down for crying out loud and that is my proof. Therefore I believe it would have landed in an area that they wouldnt have wanted it to (China/Middle East = a lot of land mass). And I presume that is the main and most important reason; no question about it. The only important questions are: What are they hiding? From whom are they hiding this? And Why? And these are ones we may never know.
Ha! That's nothing when their spending BILLIONS a year on ePassports. www.cagw.org
Is it me or has spelling gone down the shitter around here?
Americains? Canadicans? BARAK?!???!
Come on now.
Ease up, they're qwerty typists. You can't expect them to be looking at their monitors as they type, right?
(colemak FTW)
Really though, I hope they don't hunt and peck, because that /will/ kill your spelling.
Maybe we Americans should save our money and not try saving the world.By now the British would be fluent in German, mainland Europe in Russian and the Chinese speaking Japanese.
And the US would be gone since either russia or germany or japan or all of them would have usurped it.
I despise comments like yours simply due to the fact that the British Army let alone the British public would have never lost to Uncle Adolf. France perhaps, but, "Britain never never never shall be the slaves!"
And so how's that a problem. A splinter of metal might land in your neighbor's back yard? I'm sure meteorites hit Ireland every so often and no damage is done.
Anything that this White House thinks is good is probably bad for everyone else...
Oh, I don't know about the spy secrets burning up in the atmosphere. I saw pictures of the debris field after Columbia. There was a lot of stuff that was easy to recognize (as a macabre example, an intact helmet).
At least we know that they will hit the target without fail, after all, its friendly fire isnt it?? lol
Looks to me like they dont know where it will fall. 60 mil is probably cheaper than a lawsuit should this thing fall on someone's house with a lawyer neighbor.
Even worse, if it falls on China and they somehow manage to catch it with a giant net. All those military secrets will land right on China's lap.
*shudders*
Oh great, a mastercard commercial joke. That's been unfunny for 6 years.
looks like you need to get laid
Why spend $60 million shooting down the satellite when you can give that money to me, and I can guarantee to bring it down?
Whats this? No, no, I've had that Swiss Account. No, I'm not trying to cheat you. This plane is nessecary to my mission, I'm using it to bring down the satellite. No, the captain did not say the destination was South Africa....
And I do agree, the spelling around here needs spell-check.
Hint for those who spell "American" or "Chinese" wrong: write your posts in MS Word or Open Office first, then post it after spell-check.
Or just use Mozilla =]
We call it firefox now, by the way ^_^
3beta3 rocks.
Hrm, I'd rather play a nice game of Chess over Global Thermonuclear War.
What I fail to see addressed are two main points. Who is responsable for the satallite failure, Why should the US taxpayers be responsable for cleaning up yet another mess.
I understand that launching and deploying a satallite is an extremely difficult undertaking. Thousands of people and companies are involved in the process. Our tax dollars are spent paying sub-contractors hundreds of millions of $$$$ to produce and manufacture parts that should perform as needed. Who is the manufacturer of the part(s) that failed? Why is nothing done to recoup the cost to the US gov't (by the way every taxpayer in America is considered part of the gov't). I see amazing apathy on behalf of the media and the politicians provide any answers to these questions..now another 60 mil to fix this problem, add it to our bill thank you.
If it's a spy satellite I imagine most of the part makers had no idea what they were making or how it all plugged together. Only the "spy satellite" division of the military made the final assembly and I would then assume that they are the ones paying for the "repair job".
To jeff,
reguardless of final project knowledge, each part should be engineered and produced to be defect free. I am suggesting that these companies be held liable for faulty products. I am sure this can be done without compromising security.
To mmmaher: once in orbit, its in orbit. No malfuctioning part is going to bring it down, only gravity or an outside force. You can't stand up and shout at imperfection, that isn't realistic. I doubt they had intentions for their SPY SATELLITE to fail, it was most likely something they couldnt help. To jeff: It doesnt matter what division of what branch "payed for the repair job" it still comes out of our pockets. We buy the govt., military, and rediculous obsolete measures such and this through taxes.
oh no! we hit the international space station!!
haha.... They'll probably miss and hit Iran! And there ain't not gonna be no sattelite crashin' in the end and we all will live happily ever after