Could A Shuttle Be Shot Down?

Ball bearings in orbit - anything with closure rates at 17,000 mph will do a hell of a lot of damage. Small and tough to track, especially with some RAM coatings. Easy to launch too (couple of hundred pounds of say half inchers) would cause a mighty mess and be tough to identify - "space junk"....

A shot at launch - unlikely, a shot at landing, even further out on the probability curve....

Ball bearings in orbit - anything with closure rates at 17,000 mph will do a hell of a lot of damage.

Not many terrorists organisations have the technology to pull off such an
attack unless they were funded by an aggresing nation.
Like i said before, an attack when the shuttle is still on the launchpad would be the most succsessful. Say with mortars or something of the like.

Originally posted by MickeyDee
The falling parts of Columbia were still moving in the direction the shuttle reentered the atmosphere. If it had been shot it would have just blew up and fell straight down to earth.

We are talking about a smart needle hitting a hypervelocity haystack, producing the undetected hole that brought the orbiter down. The theory is that 'insulation' was a cover story.

We are talking about a smart needle hitting a hypervelocity haystack, producing the undetected hole that brought the orbiter down. The theory is that 'insulation' was a cover story.

If that was true the US would have made it public knowledge to get the public back on side for the war on terror.
If Bush had said that it was terrorists that had brought the Columbia down, the whole of the US would still be supporting the war on terror!