Lance A. Brown said: >The point of shooting the satellite was to disrupt the fuel storage. If >the satellite came down in one piece, there is a chance the hydrazine >fuel on board would survive to reach the surface. If it impacts on >land, you get nasty poisonous gas cloud.
>If the missile did it's job, the fuel storage was destroyed. The >satellite (or remaining parts) will still come down, but now the >hydrazine will burn up during reentry. This is indeed what they said, but frankly that's just a ludicrous statement. Hydrazine isn't fun, but nobody has cared before in the slightest about spacecraft with much bigger loads of un-burnt hydrazine crashing to earth. Given the very remote possibility that this US spy-bird had crashed in a populated area, the negative effects of hydrazine landing on your head would be far less problematic than a piece of hurtling space junk tapping you on the head. The general consensus among many (e.g. www.theregister.co.uk) appears to be that the US wanted simply to test their sat-interceptor systems, and maybe make a bit of PR capital by flexing their muscles on the world stage. Curtis. Alpha-male syndrome Maru. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
