If this is a sooper dooper Sat filled with the latest ( reverse engineered ) tech, why is is malfunctioning ! I suppose that is why the Roswell crash happened as well. Must have been a hungover Monday morning construction.

There is a serious lack of knowledge in this thread regarding the technologies in use here. There isn't going to be any grand explosion, or a nuclear catastrophe. Yes, the Hydrazine is nasty stuff, remember they preached about it when the shuttle broke up as well. If a piece of the sat comes down intact enough that there is a spraying of liquid Hydrazine over the kool-aid station at the local kindergarden, yeah there would be a problem.

Have they told us what exact orbit this bus is, anyway? There is one single stripe around the Earth where it could come down, and I am quite sure that the chances of it happening over a populated area are one in ten thousand. They obviously have some idea of the decay and the point where it nears disintegration in the atmosphere, that is where they will have their ships parked...

I think the key to this shoot-down is that they want to hit the sat at a trajectory that blows the debris down towards the Earth. We will find out in a couple of weeks where exactly they plan to pull this off, if it was over open ocean I would think the missile would probably be used to explode 'near' the sat instead of blasting it into a million pieces.

It is obvious they don't want any wreckage to fall into enemy hands, and that includes most of the rest of the surface of the Earth at this point does it not? They have always been fanatical about retrieval of technology, some fascinating history involving the planes scooping film canisters out of the air with Russian subs waiting below and stuff.

I would imagine that any debris making it to the ground after a missile strike would be very small and unrecognizable. First imagine what the pieces would look like after being hit by a missile here on earth. Pretty mangled, but some recognizable pieces sounds likely. Don't forget that the supposed goal is to destroy this fuel hydrazine so that would increase the destructive power of the missile itself. Now take those chunks, and drop them from orbit. They are gonna be pretty messed up. Like Bhadhidar said, plausible deniability. It might not be hard to deny that a mangled pebble doesn't have anything to do with us lol. If this stuff falls in the ocean randomly, it's probably as good as gone.

KaiBosh, you are right that there wouldn't be a grand explosion if nuclear material was on board. It would be incriminating, however, if we did blow it up and revealed nuclear material in the ensuing cloud that would likely be detectable. This would actually distract from the demonstration of power. It would be like a muscle builder coming out and doing his finest pose when all of a sudden his speedo snaps and falls off. It kind of steals the thunder (and would be a little disturbing).
You bring up a good point. What is it's trajectory? Probably the only change in orbit is it's altitude, right? So the likely areas for landfall should be easy to forsee. Does anyone have this information? I would love to see it.

The problem is that the orbit is wildly erratic. I've watched it make three or four passes along the Eastern Seaboard, then over England, then the next night it was over China and Russia, then over South Africa, coming up near Alaska and Canada, and down over the middle of the US... It's all over the place because there's no way to keep it where they want it.

There are two MAJOR reasons, and neither involve hazardous materials. First and foremost we cannot afford to have technology recovered and reverse-engineered. This could prove a huge blunder and allow for any number of enemy states to develop similar technologies, and/or develop countermeasures against ours.

Second, where will it hit? It could kill any number of innocent people. We are not about to let one of our creations just drop in uninvited over some village or town full of non-combatants. That is not what we are about, and in allowing such an atrocity to take place, we would end up with the mentality our government held 10+ years ago under the Clinton Administration.

Now as far as the crowd that believes we are simply doing this as a form of showing off our missile intercept systems, that is total garbage. Sure, it might serve as such a demonstration, but I can guarantee you that we are not blowing up SATS for fun or simply for show. We have weaponry far ahead of simple missile intercepts, and we are simply using a proven, reliable, non-Classified method of taking down a National Security Threat.

This is an AEGIS Guided Missile Cruiser firing the Intercept, so we will NOT miss the Target.

Originally posted by Justinger1
I would imagine that any debris making it to the ground after a missile strike would be very small and unrecognizable. First imagine what the pieces would look like after being hit by a missile here on earth. Pretty mangled, but some recognizable pieces sounds likely.

The black world has adopted a theory known as the "mosaic theory." It postulates that even the smallest bits of debris from a black project can be analyzed by the enemy for use in reverse engineering the technology. Even forensic analysis of the unrecognizable debris can assist in determining the payload, and use of the satellite.

Perhaps we are looking at more than just a spy satellite here? Perhaps a "hunter-killer" that violates arms control treaties?

Here are my list of reasons that we are going to shoot it down.

1) It has a nuclear reactor on board.

2) It has Nuclear warheads on board.

3) It has some sort of space laser and or other starwars tech on board.

4) We want to demonstrate our missile capability to the world.

5) We don't want anyone else to know what was on board the sat.

6) We don't want a hydrazine tank landing on anything important (IRS buildings, Federal Reserve Banks, The White House, Dick Cheney, ect ect ect.....)

Anybody want to bet it misses and hits Iran?

One thing I am curious about. I know an engineer in high places and he told me that he does not understand why they don't 'propel' this sat out into space away from us and maybe direct it towards another planet to crash it there. I don't see why this would be a big deal, it would just require a short and directed fire.

Originally posted by favouriteslave
Now they are saying there may be beryllium on board. Anyone know why they would need beryllium on board. Answer may lie in what it's used for and what other "element" its used with. These links may provide a better idea.

Beryllium is used a great deal in aerospace construction. It is used for all sorts of structural elements. It is usually used as a multiple metal matrix , alloyed with magnesium and aluminum powders and sintered into a semi-ceramic metal.
It is the lightest non-reactive metal, lighter than magnesium or aluminum.
It is also VERY TOXIC, in dust form, in very small amounts. Only a few micro-grams of dust are needed to breathed in for death to occour.

Sinced this is a spy satellite, its orbital track would have kept it over areas of interest, industrial and urban. Both the hydrazine, and the beryllium would be of great concern if the vehicle were to be allowed to land intact.

And most modern spy satellites are very large and will not burn up completey. Given that the many of the systems on board such a vehicle, are highly classified, its only natural that ANY government would not like its secrets to be revealed to any enemies.

It is a perfect situation to test the anti-missle system.

Originally posted by ViewFromTheStars
One thing I am curious about. I know an engineer in high places and he told me that he does not understand why they don't 'propel' this sat out into space away from us and maybe direct it towards another planet to crash it there. I don't see why this would be a big deal, it would just require a short and directed fire.

Just like the if the computer in your car goes out, it doesn't go anywhere (provided it's not a flying car). Just like if the computer in the satellite is out, it goes nowhere(unless gravity takes it down).

Originally posted by dizziedame
IMO we are taking the spy satellite out because we don't want our enemy, who ever that is, to get their hands on our equipment and learn any secrets we might have or our technology.

I would have more respect for our government if it were honest with it's citizens and didn't feel we were so stupid not to realize why the satellite has to be destroyed.

I really don't care what the reason is, whether it's to keep our technology out of hostile hands, put on a display for the Ruskies and Chinese, test our ABM capabilities, avoid civilian casualties, or some other reason. The US put it in orbit and they have every right to take it down in whatever fashion they decide. I also don't need the US government to make a public announcement providing our enemies with vital information every time they have a sensitive military operation to carry out.

And just imagine the outcry if the US didn't shoot it down and it did hit civilians. OMG, the Bush haters would have a field day with that one. I can just hear it now..."Bush KNEW this COULD happen! Hey, he probably knew it WOULD happen! He just doesn't care! He was too busy making billions more for his billionaire buddies!" yada, yada, yada...

Gotcha' Zaphod, was not really sure of any of the details yet. This may sound like a rediculous idea but since we already have missiles that should be able to reach these defunct satelites, why not have a 'missile' that could slow down, grab onto a satelite and fire again? Just a thought... albeit a goofy one.

It can be anywhere between those two lines on a map. Forty degrees North is right smack down the center of the US, so it could come down on us, or Russia, or anywhere along that line. Or it could be farther North and come down in Canada, Greenland or any of those along that line. Or it could come down as far south as South of Australia, or anywhere between there and the equator.

Well being in CA I still think it wise that we have sufficient canned foods and water on hand just in case KWIM.