This is being discussed on another list I'm on. The list is full of professional astronomers so I'm surprised to see "conspiracy" (over why "they" want it shot down) being mentioned there. But to your question, it looks like the plan is to hit it when it's so low that, unlike the Chinese fiasco, the pieces will decay quickly. patrick On 15 Feb 2008, at 00:57, Howard Jackman wrote:
It's uncanny how similar ths is to a recent Nova program, see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/astrospies/
Very interesting! I'd never heard of these programs, not surprising since they were conceived of before I was ;-P I was very impressed with the Soviet station. I had no idea they had an active manned orbiting recon station, well besides Mir that is. They had a 23mm cannon on theirs, would've been useful now. Quick question, how is this different from what the chinese did awhile ago? I understand this satellite is in a decaying orbit but won't this missile impact and explosion possibly cause some debris to accelerate up into a higher orbit and become nuisance trash?
Howard