Fanboy Fantasy: Shoot Down the Spy Satellite

When I first read the The Pentagon is going to shoot down an ailing US spy satellite, my first thought was “I want that job!” But sadly instead of sending up fanboys on the space shuttle armed with ray guns (like the Japanese Tin Space Gun pictured above) the Pentagon will just do the conventional solution of firing a missile from boat:

‘Jury-rigged’ missile to destroy falling spysat

“The Pentagon is going to shoot down an ailing US spy satellite before it can fall out of control into the atmosphere. And despite its huge arsenal, the US says it has nothing to pull off the shelf to do the job.

The falling satellite is an experimental spy satellite that failed almost immediately after launch in December 2006. It never deployed the solar arrays that normally power such spacecraft, and remained in an orbit so low that atmospheric drag is causing it to spiral towards Earth. The satellite is totally unresponsive, so there is no way to control where it falls.

A Pentagon analysis indicates that about 1100 kilograms of material from the 2.5-tonne satellite will survive re-entry, including a tank containing some 450 kilograms of toxic hydrazine fuel. Although the remains are unlikely to fall in a populated area, the Pentagon says President Bush decided the risk to human lives is high enough to justify shooting down the satellite.”