[meteorite-list] U.S. To Shoot Down Defunct Spy Satellite

[Chris Peterson]

> Surley fragmenting something this big, will mean it is actually more
> likely for [something] to survive?

I don't think so. Space debris reaches the ground when it is protected 
by large structures around it. Break it up into small pieces, and it's 
doubtful anything will survive. (While the official claim is that this 
is being done to protect people from falling, toxic debris, I think we 
all know better. It's being done so sensitive material doesn't end up 
dropping someplace we have no control over.)

> ...since you will create random
> pieces of debris with very differing velocities and therefore some 
> might
> have more chance of having suitable rentry parameters which will allow
> them to survive...

Probably not all that much variation in velocities.

> Either way - Really, this is not very good news for the low earth 
> space
> environment!

This is the _really_ low earth environment- only marginally "space" at 
all. While I suppose it's possible that a very few pieces could end up 
in higher orbits, on the whole there's nowhere near enough energy being 
delivered to have much effect on the average orbit. Breaking this 
satellite up into small pieces is just going to increase individual 
decay rates. Within a matter of days, the vast majority (if not all) of 
the junk is going to be gone. What the Chinese did last year was 
irresponsible, but destroying this satellite isn't going to produce any 
debris that we have to worry about.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Ford" <mark.ford at ssl.gb.com>
To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] U.S. To Shoot Down Defunct Spy Satellite


> Hmmm.
>
> Looks like we are in for an even better firework display now then!
>
> Surley fragmenting something this big, will mean it is actually more
> likely for [something] to survive? -  since you will create random
> pieces of debris with very differing velocities and therefore some 
> might
> have more chance of having suitable rentry parameters which will allow
> them to survive...
>
> Either way - Really, this is not very good news for the low earth 
> space
> environment!
>
> About time we had some proper global treaties in place to stop 
> countries
> randomly polluting space, all for the sake of some commercial secrets
> (which are already probably common knowledge anyway).
>
> Best,
> Mark Ford