Fun Today
Update: CNN is reporting that the Pentagon says they hit the satellite at 10:26PM EST. Now we wait for the aftermath from the debris created.
There’s a lunar eclipse on tap and they are apparently going to attempt the $60 million dollar publicity stunt of shooting down one of our own satellites which may cause debris to land in Canada.
Of course the Chinese are on our case because of all the grief the Hedgemony gave them for doing the same thing some months ago, and I would assume our northern neighbors aren’t exactly thrilled.
Regardless, the missile defense budget needs to have a stake put through it and then be cast into a volcano. We can’t afford it.
Update: This is the anniversary of John Glenn returning to earth from the first US orbital mission in 1962.
17 comments
…so they are going to shoot a heat-seeking missile at a dead satellite that has no heat-generating sources in order to score a bullseye on a very small fuel tank that isn’t otherwise designed to withstand the heat of re-entry in any case so it will blow up and save the world from the scourge of a small quantity of hydrazine. Is that about it?
And now Breaking News has it that the mission may be compromised by the rough seas that the cruiser is wallowing around in. This whole story is moving further beyond the back side of the looking glass by the day…
They are going all out to find an excuse for their “missile defense” boondoggle.
Is it time to break out that plastic & duct tape?
It’s quite a gamble from the publicity point-of-view, but I suppose they have a costume all ready for the Decider should it be successful.
Looks like the missile strike mission is being delayed because of weather. I like this explanation form an “official” on a how a heat seeking missile can shoot down a satellite that has no heat-generating propulsion system on board… “software changes had been made to compensate for the lack of heat”. Ah ha!
Btw, love the new ever changing header. 🙂
Theater, we have a circus instead of a government, Andante, and no one to cancel the run.
They are making things up as they go along, Lady Min, and are using spokescritters who don’t have the faintest idea of what they are talking about.
I changed a header to reflect the eclipse and shoot down, but it’s one of six, so people may not see it.
that’s the one that came up when i clicked on the comments for this post. nice one!
The clouds have moved in over Atlanta so it is nix on the eclipse tonight. Bummer! Since they are not going to embarrass themselves by not shooting down the satellite tonight maybe we’ll still get a chance to see it pass by. The weather forecast for the region is not conducive to sky gazing for the next couple of days so we’ll just have to see.
the clouds are eclipsing my view of the eclipse too. the dog, however, has enjoyed the extra trips outside.
maybe if the hydrazine and satellite pieces rain down on canada, they’ll get mad and invade us, inadvertently bringing us a real healthcare system along the way.
I’m glad someone got to see it. That is a Japanese satellite, but the warhead really is the actual warhead they’ll be using.
We have high clouds down here, so watching anything is out, if the light pollution weren’t bad enough. As you said over at your place, FM, hell of a naval weapons system that can’t fire in bad weather.
Lunar eclipse, and we have snow….a coating, but they’re flakes, at least. I guess that’s what it takes now to get snow in PA.
BTW I like the blog redo! Although I kept thinking that there was a scratch going down my screen, lol….
Thanks, Moi. I’m trying to track down the “scratch” to dump it.
The eclipse was awesome in Chicago. Clear skies all night. Unfortunately it is only 6F plus windchill. Too cold for this girl to be outside. Soooo, I kicked my plants out of the garden window and sat there and watched it through glass top… perfect!
Got to see the new missile strike/eclipse header while I was reading this. Made me lol.
Oops, missed your last comment, Hipparchia. Yeah, with the local haze and high clouds all I got was reflected light pollution. It’s nice that the dog receive some benefit.
I’m glad someone saw, Lady Min, but I wouldn’t appreciate the 6° much, even on the other side of a window, because my house isn’t built for those temperatures.
I saw that banner earlier too. 😀
The BBC have a very good writeup about the mission and a good timeline of events etc. The Russians are not impressed. LOL 😉
US missile hits ‘toxic satellite’
@ LadyMin: What… no telescope? 😉
Last night I refreshed 10 times and never saw that banner. I stopped out of deference to your paying your own bandwidth bill, as does someone else I know well.
If you’re going to change the banner set frequently, perhaps you could put additional links to them all on one page: that way, you’d take the hit only once per viewer. OTOH, if the set is mostly stable, I’m content to take them as they come.
Kryten, I just posted on the last time we did this, and it was inexpensive, even in 1989 dollars.
Steve, here’s the missile shot header. Normally that’s the plain header from the old template.
Cool! Thanks, Bryan.