Last night the US military claim they successfully shot down one of their malfunctioning spy satellites. It supposedly made a nice big boom. Putting on my tin foil hat however, it seemed quite odd that they shot it down at all.
The US reason – it had some toxic fuel in it. Oh come on, who are they trying to fool. The Satellite had skewed out of its orbit and would of re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. In doing so, bits of it would have burnt off, including the toxic fuel. Not really a risk to anyone when its being vaporised upon re-entry.
It’s much more likely that the US were ensuring that the satellite which was out of their control did not fall into other states hands. This may sound like a crazy theory taken out of a 9/11 video but it fits with the standard models of US realist politics. You have a nice toy, the Chinese for example don’t – you don’t want them to see it. So you blow it up. Don’t just take my word for it – here’s stuff;
“Some space experts have questioned the Pentagon’s justification for the mission, saying the chances of any part of the satellite causing harm were extremely remote.”
Why you would need to single out the fuel tank on a satellite the size of a small bus due to the non-existence hazardous effects of already vaporised hydrazine fuel is beyond me. What a coincidence that the Satellite stopped communicating a few hours after reaching orbit. It was a nice big useless paperweight for whomever to gawk at.
This raises an interesting question about the use of weapons in space. Unlike Under Siege 2, it is highly doubtful that any nation has a massive seismic gravitron gun that can cause earthquakes in mid air. However, there is a real risk of nuclear warheads being deployed on satellites as part of an ICBM system. Fortunately all of the space-faring nations have signed the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, forbidding the use of weapons of mass destruction in space – but it is unclear of the treaty covers defensive orbital systems in close orbit. Nor does it forbid the implementation of standard missiles in outer-space, or dual purpose technologies such as lasers.
To infinity and beyond huh? Sadly, maybe not for long.