I'm greatly troubled by our governments upcoming weapons test. Not only is our government provoking the Asian powers with this test, they are purposely deceiving the American people. The news media reports that the government is merely trying to protect the Earth from hazardous material. Science doesn't bear that out.
What's more, this test of our missile defense shield could create a new arms race something that would further endanger peace on this planet.
Reason's the US should not shoot down the spy satellite:
- Odds of surviving re-entry are low: Columbia weighed 165,000 lbs and was disintegrated upon re-entry. This satellite will most likely never reach earth. Edit: parts of Columbia reached the Earth although it weighed many more tons than the spy satellite does.
Edit: The shuttle weighs 165,000 pounds empty. The external tank weighs 78,100 pounds empty. The two solid rocket boosters weigh 185,000 pounds empty each. But then you have to load in the fuel. Each SRB holds 1.1 million pounds of fuel. The external tank holds 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen (1,359,000 pounds) and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen (226,000 pounds). The whole vehicle - shuttle, external tank, solid rocket booster casings and all the fuel - has a total weight of 4.4 million pounds at launch. 4.4 million pounds to get 165,000 pounds in orbit is a pretty big difference! To be fair, the shuttle can also carry a 65,000 pound payload (up to 15 x 60 feet in size), but it is still a big difference. The fuel weighs almost 20 times more than the Shuttle
from Robert in WV
- Odds of contaminating populated areas: Far less than 1%. The odds overwhelmingly favor that it would crash into the sea if it reached Earth at all.
One good thing may be that we try and miss. Then, potentially at least, the U.S. can stop this silly missile defense shield project.
It we shoot down the spy satellite though Russia and China will have no choice but to respond. They will need to respond in one of two ways:
- Create their own missile defense shield.
- Create enough ICBMs to defeat any shield the United States creates. This would also include (obviously) producing more nuclear warheads.
All of this is just bad bad bad policy. I'm troubled by both the stupidity of this and the deceit. How do you all feel?