[Reporting from home with the wrong return address . . .] Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
>Ballistic missile warheads reenter with a velocity of something like >mach 20. A "balloon" dropped from such a warhead would not "drift >away"; rather, it would do something closer to "splatter". The balloons would only be deployed in outer space. Once the vehicle reenters the atmosphere they would be left behind, but as far as I know, target acquisition and destruction can only be done outside the atmosphere. Once they re-enter, it is too late. During the first Gulf war, Patriot missiles were fired at Iraqi short range rockets after they reentered. At the time it was thought they intercepted them, but I believe I saw Congressional testimony that indicted most experts now believe they missed. Anyway, those Iraqi missiles were larger and slower than a nuclear ICBM warhead, and easier to hit. Balloons are only one suggested counter-measure. Many others have been proposed and I expect some would work. If the Chinese come up with a credible missile defense system you can bet the U.S. will develop a dozen ways to overcome it. >I haven't been following the list lately (bad Steve) so maybe someone >(Jones?) has already covered this, but the question of *WHY* the U.S. >chose to shoot down that satellite is an interesting one. > > From an "impressive PR" point of view it seems dumb -- the U.S. has had >demonstrated ASAT capabilities for, what, a couple decades, so how will >this impress anyone? The answer seems pretty obvious to me. The U.S. does not want to develop ASAT capabilities, and it does not want others to have them either, because we have the most to lose. We are the most dependent on satellites. The only people we would even want to impress would be the Chinese experts, and they will not be impressed, for the reasons you listed. They know perfectly well that the U.S. could have done this 30 years ago, and after all, we spent $90 billion after that, so we must be a little better at it. (I will grant, it is ridiculous that we are developing the SDI while we say we don't want ASATs to become popular.) So, the only answer that makes sense is to take the claims at face value. Apparently someone decided it is worth $60 million to prevent any chance of poisoning people on the ground. Plus -- I will bet -- they wanted some target practice, and they didn't want the Chinese or Russians to pick up large, relatively intact chunks of a late-model U.S. spy satellite. The chunks of the two demolished Space Shuttles were more intact and revealing than expected. Normally, spy satellites are still under control at the end of their lives, and they are ditched in the Pacific to prevent anyone from examining them. - Jed
