[meteorite-list] U.S. To Shoot Down Defunct Spy Satellite

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:39:18 -0700
Message-ID: <05e901c86ff9$b6c39530$0a01a8c0_at_bellatrix>

> Surley fragmenting something this big, will mean it is actually more
> likely for [something] to survive?

I don't think so. Space debris reaches the ground when it is protected
by large structures around it. Break it up into small pieces, and it's
doubtful anything will survive. (While the official claim is that this
is being done to protect people from falling, toxic debris, I think we
all know better. It's being done so sensitive material doesn't end up
dropping someplace we have no control over.)

> ...since you will create random
> pieces of debris with very differing velocities and therefore some
> might
> have more chance of having suitable rentry parameters which will allow
> them to survive...

Probably not all that much variation in velocities.

> Either way - Really, this is not very good news for the low earth
> space
> environment!

This is the _really_ low earth environment- only marginally "space" at
all. While I suppose it's possible that a very few pieces could end up
in higher orbits, on the whole there's nowhere near enough energy being
delivered to have much effect on the average orbit. Breaking this
satellite up into small pieces is just going to increase individual
decay rates. Within a matter of days, the vast majority (if not all) of
the junk is going to be gone. What the Chinese did last year was
irresponsible, but destroying this satellite isn't going to produce any
debris that we have to worry about.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Ford" <mark.ford at ssl.gb.com>
To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] U.S. To Shoot Down Defunct Spy Satellite


> Hmmm.
>
> Looks like we are in for an even better firework display now then!
>
> Surley fragmenting something this big, will mean it is actually more
> likely for [something] to survive? - since you will create random
> pieces of debris with very differing velocities and therefore some
> might
> have more chance of having suitable rentry parameters which will allow
> them to survive...
>
> Either way - Really, this is not very good news for the low earth
> space
> environment!
>
> About time we had some proper global treaties in place to stop
> countries
> randomly polluting space, all for the sake of some commercial secrets
> (which are already probably common knowledge anyway).
>
> Best,
> Mark Ford
Received on Fri 15 Feb 2008 12:39:18 PM PST


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