Russia Claims Satellite Collision - Was U.S. New Tech and Shot Down Their Sat.

So has the U.S. begun a "star wars" that Regan had wanted back in the 80's? Russia claims we have. They are saying we shot down their satellite and it is our new technology, so we can shot down others sats.

link to article: en.rian.ru...

MOSCOW, March 3 (RIA Novosti) - A collision between U.S. and Russian satellites in early February may have been a test of new U.S. technology to intercept and destroy satellites rather than an accident, a Russian military expert has said.

According to official reports, one of 66 satellites owned by Iridium, a U.S. telecoms company, and the Russian Cosmos-2251 satellite, launched in 1993 and believed to be defunct, collided on February 10 about 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia.
Shershnev claims the U.S. military decided to continue with the project to "develop technology that would allow monitoring and inspections of orbital spacecraft by fully-automated satellites equipped with robotic devices."

The February collision could be an indication that the U.S. has successfully developed such technology and is capable of manipulating 'hostile satellites,' including their destruction, with a single command from a ground control center, the general said.

I would not doubt that Bush began this secretly and the "accident" of the colliding satellites was a "test run". Especially, since it was said about a week later, that there was no "accident" after all.

It seemed weird that they had come out publicly about it anyway, because it was something they so readily disclosed, which is abnormal for the U.S. govt.

I am inclined to believe Russia with this one.

Interesting.....
I'm sure this technology had been around for ages..upon ages.
It's just time to make it to the public. Certainly I believe the Russians as well.

The first thing that I wondered, when I heard about the satellite collision, was could this have been intentional?

The second thing I wondered was who was responsible.

Then I wondered if you could hack a maneuverable satellite and crash it into yet another countries satellite thus creating a diplomatic incident.

With the sheer number of satellites in orbit a collision is inevitable. There is so much debris and junk in orbit that I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often.

I think i would have to ask, What is to gain from crashing one of their old junked out satellites into one of our 60 satellites in orbit for satellite telephones. (edit: i reread that ours hit it, but then i saw how they hit. looks like we T-boned em at 15k mph)

Asked which satellite was at fault, Johnson said "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction."

I guess people in the space station are happy to hear that....

Iridium Satellite LLC operates a constellation of some 66 satellites, along with orbital spares, to support satellite telephone operations around the world. The spacecraft, which weigh about 1,485 pounds when fully fueled, are in orbits tilted 86.4 degrees to the equator at an altitude of about 485 miles. Ninety-five Iridium satellites were launched between 1997 and 2002 and several have failed over the years.

Apparently Iridium has a problem with this....

[edit on 3-3-2009 by mahtoosacks]