Video proof of the renegade satellite's destruction

Sure, it's one thing to hear about that satellite getting blown to bits, but there's nothing like cold, hard video evidence to really cement our belief in the Navy's extreme skill at hitting fast moving objects in space with huge missiles. Yes -- the video is grainy and hard to make out, but if you can't tell how bad we blew that thing out of the sky... well maybe you're not looking hard enough. See it all go down (literally) after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Timmy @ Feb 21st 2008 8:40AM]

Take that China!!!

[Jack Chambers @ Feb 21st 2008 8:43AM]

OK, so who's going to be the first one to take this footage, add a couple score indicators, and throw on the sounds from Missile Command?

[Phantom @ Feb 21st 2008 9:09AM]

Apparently, both China and Russia are extremely concern about this event. No kidding. While China needs to launch a satellite to kill another, U.S. can just launch a missile anywhere from earth to knock one off the sky.

[guerilla779 @ Feb 21st 2008 9:12AM]

seriously man china can F*** O** . By the way Japan is the only U.S ally that has the tech and ability to do shit like that.

[Jonathon Hibbard @ Feb 21st 2008 9:41AM]

@Phantom:
Get your FACTS straight dude. China's and Russia's satelites are 500+ miles above the atmosphere, meaning it would DAMAGE other satelites to try and take them down. THAT is why we don't want them doing it, due to them possibly destroying communication satelites.

America was able to do this because their's is close enough to Earth that it will be pulled in via gravity and burned up in the atmosphere.

Way to go moron. Way to be an idiot.

[Blackstar @ Feb 21st 2008 10:02AM]

We must not allow, an anti-satellite GAP!

[Frankenstein Black @ Feb 21st 2008 10:12AM]

China? Screw that. This is a warning to all hostile Alien species.
EARTH IS NOT TO BE F’ed WITH!! LMAO ;^0...

[Phantom @ Feb 21st 2008 10:15AM]

@Jonathon Hibbard

Woah! Did someone wake up from the wrong side of the bed or what? Take a chill pill and get back to work!

[Jeff P. @ Feb 21st 2008 10:35AM]

"We must not allow, an anti-satellite GAP!"

LOL, nice Dr. Strangelove reference!

[BeforeISleep.net @ Feb 21st 2008 10:45AM]

Proof of the satellite's destruction? I dunno... it's definitely proof that SOMETHING blew up. :) But all I've seen is the video of the missile launching, and then cutting to a video of something blowing up. Who knows if it was really the satellite in question.

[OddManOut @ Feb 21st 2008 11:12AM]

"Apparently, both China and Russia are extremely concern about this event. No kidding. While China needs to launch a satellite to kill another, U.S. can just launch a missile anywhere from earth to knock one off the sky."

Uh...Phantom...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.missile/index.html

[fanman @ Feb 21st 2008 11:39AM]

@guerilla779

Wrong, sir Wrong

http://www.6june1944.co.uk/images/GB-flag.gif

[Phantom @ Feb 21st 2008 11:48AM]

@OddManOut

DUH! Pure PWNAGE! I didn't know the Chinese took out a weather satellite 500+ miles away from earth with a mid-range missle. Then, why are they complaining so loudly now? At least U.S. Military has an excuse to do so.

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 21st 2008 12:48PM]

They aren't concerned about us shooting down their satellites, as Jonathan pointed out, BUT this test DID scare them. Why? It proved we can hit a moving target, entering the atmosphere, given an extremely small launch window. And we did it from a platform being tossed around at sea. So what?

Well, read the descriptors again ... sounds like that satellite test was a pretty good proxy for an ICBM, doesn't it?

[kerberos @ Feb 21st 2008 5:19PM]

to #1 who wrote: "Take that China!!!"

..China has a fleet of submarines that can position the US pacific fleet on the buttom of the pacific in a short amount of time.. That's more scary than being able to pick out sattelites from the atmosphere.

[atlasfugged @ Feb 21st 2008 3:36PM]

@J. Hibbard

to follow up on johnathan's point. when china destroyed its defunct weather satellite, the satellite was not on a descent toward earth. as a result, none of the resulting debris fell to earth and, indeed, still remains in space where it continues to pose a threat to other satellites and space vehicles.


and so china's pollutive ways transcend terrestial boundaries.

[Serco @ Feb 21st 2008 4:14PM]

@Phantom u dickweed,

China shot down their satellite with a ground lunched missle. Russians did it by satellite to satellite impact.

J. Hibbard just owned u, so gtfo

[Wwhat @ Feb 21st 2008 6:02PM]

The list of countries that could do this is quite long, and what this shows is a failure of the US forces to make a even half-way working satellite isn't it.

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 21st 2008 6:06PM]

@kerberos

You're the perfect example of a person who knows just enough to be ignorant. Show me a fleet of diesel subs that can disappear (we have satellites watching chinese ports) unnoticed, secretly transit from China all the way to the US at 3-4 kts (required speed to stay undetected) without surfacing to recharge, and then simultaneously torpedo every U.S. naval asset floating in the Pacific.

Oh, and I'm sure you knew that to take down the "entire pacific fleet" (which doesn't really even make sense if you know anything about the US Navy's distribution of command) you'd have to torpedo ships AND subs (how woul you detect the subs?) in Japan, Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Bangor, etc.

You're a fool.

[Mr. S. @ Feb 23rd 2008 4:57AM]

New footage uncovered!

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28930310

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 23rd 2008 12:22PM]

@Mr. S.

Fantastic ... is that the shockwave from death star that was added?

[oshean @ Feb 21st 2008 8:42AM]

I want to feel raining satellite debris or it didn't happen.

[AutoTom @ Feb 21st 2008 9:05AM]

funny you should say that lol i just came inside from looking at the sky ( vainly ) hoping to see some kind of debris re-entry

[Wwhat @ Feb 21st 2008 6:05PM]

Since objects hit the atmosphere in large numbers at all times it would be hard to tell what's what unless it's a cluster I guess.

[Kamokazi @ Feb 21st 2008 8:42AM]

I destroy coward toys!


Woah...need to stop playing TF2 until 3am...

[E71 @ Feb 21st 2008 7:06PM]

TF2 is for noobs, TFC FTW!

Hey, why are you moving your cursor there.. no, don't click that!

[FThorn @ Feb 21st 2008 8:43AM]

that's a neat gadget. How do they fit that 'tall' of a missile in that shallow-looking boat?

[BigD @ Feb 21st 2008 8:44AM]

Damn....Goodbye everyone else's satellite intelligence...It's been fun...

[aaa @ Feb 21st 2008 9:34AM]

Yeah, fun.

Except that something like that would probably start a third world war.

If you start to destroy all of a counties intelligence satellites, or worse all other, period; they would expect an immediate attack, so not fun.

Even the destruction of one satellite would be an act of aggression that would force the other country to (with different degrees of ease, and help of allies) act in retribution, soon scaling and probably leading to the declaration of war.

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 21st 2008 12:51PM]

Agreed. If we're in a war where missiles are shooting down satellites, the nukes probably aren't that far behind.

[BigD @ Feb 21st 2008 4:13PM]

I wasn't intending this to be a pre-emptive strike...but something that could be used if the US was already at war with another nation.

It's My United States of Whatever, though, serious people....

[ScareyJ @ Feb 21st 2008 4:41PM]

Messing with other satelites is a sticky situation but not unheard of ... for instance, the Chinese have used lasers to blind our/US satelites while over their territory already.

[mada1ive8 @ Feb 21st 2008 8:47AM]

nice zombie tag

[NHAnimator @ Feb 21st 2008 8:48AM]

There was no "poisonous satellite". Didn't you people see Close Encounters?

The government just called up the same director they used for that "moon-landing" video and asked him for a sequel.

(Sorry, gotta run. Mom is upstairs calling down that dinner is ready.)

[HansVB @ Feb 21st 2008 8:49AM]

Great to see that after Armageddon, Bruce Willis actually took a job destroying whatever is heading for earth.

[dataminer49er @ Feb 21st 2008 8:49AM]

"Easier than shooting Womp-Rats in Beggars' Canyon back home..."

[Navy Seals @ Feb 21st 2008 8:52AM]

Seems like he knows what he's talking about. Perhaps the Navy can investigate what happened to World Trade Center Building #7 since the 9/11 commission chose to ignore it completely during their investigation.

[Razor @ Feb 21st 2008 6:03PM]

That's an easy one moonbat, I'll try using simple words so you can understand. The two big buildings that came down right beside it weakened it enough to cause it to fall. Had you been watching the news that day you might have noticed the reports that the building was damaged extensively and was expected to fall on its own at any time.

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 21st 2008 8:54AM]

Seriously people! Why the f**k dose the American Government and NASA use the crappiest video shooting devices ever? When they went to the moon they had billions of dollars in hand that enabled them to use a good and decent camera which were available at that time, but they preferred using a black and white camera with the sh*tiest quality ever; and since then, it has become something usual for them, as also seen in this stupid video!

I mean couldn't they use a feakin HD camera with a high range zoom? My Sony consumer camera can take better pictures than the video they showed!!! And VHS??!!? Are they f**king kidding me!

This was a freking nice moment in human history and they've just ruined it!

[Dave @ Feb 21st 2008 9:01AM]

its all about budget cuts:

$73,999,900 - Ballistic missile and trajectory calculation
$100 - Camera and film

[Kyledl @ Feb 21st 2008 9:01AM]

Do you honestly believe they didnt record it in HD? and that they are really using a VHS player, and not Hi8 or something more advanced? Why would this warrant such a long comment? So many questions here....

[Randall @ Feb 21st 2008 9:04AM]

You do know that the things they're videoing are kind of far away, right? Like, hundreds of miles above the earth? No amount of HD is really going to help with that.

And as for the video of the launch, they probably were more worried about the thing going where it needed to than setting up cameras; that's probably their standard missile-hasn't-blown-up-on-the-pad check camera. Why should they have added a fancier one?

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 21st 2008 9:07AM]

@ Dave: looooooool.

@ Kyledl: Dude, this is what everybody said in 1969 when the moon landing was aired in crappy-black and white TV quality, and even after 35+ years, we haven't seen any good footage of the moon, yet, if there is any.

[Don @ Feb 21st 2008 9:08AM]

I'll bet your camera wouldn't have even been able to see this. Do you know how far away that is? It's obvious that it's zoomed in significantly and that this is even digitally zoomed.

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 21st 2008 9:17AM]

God dammit you guys!

A camera with a telescopic lens would've solved the whole problem! They are shooting pictures and sometimes videos of galaxies hundred light years away from us, and explosions happening at super far distances from earth, and they supposedly can't shoot an exploding satellite that close to us?

And do not say that having high quality images is not important, it is damn sure very important and is part of history to have good quality videos of such events! If the cause was so important and video is not, all these news reporters would have been using standard quality cameras until this day, but this is not the case; if people are dieing in some war that doesn't mean shooting the events on camera is wrong, it is what we call "Digital History", keeping records through video, which is damn sure important, and cool.

Not hate right here, just simple question: Why isn't that shot in HD then showed to people in HD too?

[Jason Schloer @ Feb 21st 2008 9:19AM]

So your Sony camcorder can shoot high speed images of an object moving 5,000 miles an hour crashing into something moving 17,000 miles an hour, at night from around 133 nautical miles away? Must be some camcorder. There's a lot more to this than pointing a camcorder with a big lens on it at the sky. At least one of the videos was shot from 26,000 ft, apparently from an aircraft, which given the velocities of everything involved, the fact that they were able to track the missile, and have zoom capable of seeing the impact is pretty impressive. Also, I would imagine that their goals are based more on getting clear, high contrast cloud free images rather than looking like some big budget film.

[Don @ Feb 21st 2008 9:23AM]

Let's also not forget that it was a spy satellite and the reason for shooting it down was so that it didn't fall into the hands of others. Let's for a second assume that what Jason just said didn't make sense and they DID have HD footage of this, isn't it possible that they modified it for public showing? No... what Jason said makes perfect sense.

@Jason - intelligent post

[pundit @ Feb 21st 2008 9:26AM]

@ Randall

Did you even watch the video, or any other news source? First, "Hundreds of Millions of Miles above the Earth" is going to take you quite far away. That Sun deal is only 100,000,000 miles away. They stated in the video that it was shot down at 149 Nautical Miles above the Earth, or 171 Statute miles, or 240 km. The space station orbits at a whopping 350-460km or 189-248 miles up. It's not that much of a stretch, a high-def camera plus digital zoom wouldn't provide too shitty of a picture. Mind you, without a huge optical lens it wouldn't be a pretty picture either.

[Kamokazi @ Feb 21st 2008 9:28AM]

@Saad

There's a big difference between shooting pictures of very large objects very far away and very small objects (relatively) very near to us.

Keep in mind that sattelite is moving at about 17,000mph (to put that in perspective, the missile was going 5,000mph, and a commercial jetliner doesn't usually go much faster than 600mph). To focus on a small object like that, traveling that fast at a somewhat close distance is quite difficult for any piece of equipment. Galaxies and whatnot like you mention are EXTREMELY far away and large, so any movement they do is negligible. What's easier to do....focus on a bird flying above you ~40ft or focus on a plane flying above you at 30,0000ft?

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 21st 2008 9:30AM]

Well, Don, if this is really a spy satellite as what you said, then my whole comment is just plain nonsense. My apologies, I didn't know it was a spy satellite.