I haven’t written anything here in a while.  I’ve had some mixed feelings about the blog, but I decided to leave it up, if for nothing but historical interest.  However, I’ve noticed something today that has moved me to write, mainly for the purpose of finding out if I’m the only person in the world to notice that we’re being treated like slow children.

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that a US spy satellite, which had been drifting uncontrollably in low earth orbit since 2006, was about to re-enter the atmosphere, and that at least half of its mass was expected to survive re-entry and impact the earth’s surface at some unpredictable location.

Yesterday, President Bush ordered the U.S. Navy to use a missile to shoot down the satellite before it re-enters.

My bogometer (a delicate instrument which detects the presence and extent of bogus information) went off-scale high the instant I heard this, despite the fact that others around me seemed to accept the news with practically bovine detachment.

First of all, you can’t “shoot down” a satellite.  Satellites orbiting the earth do so in a “coasting” mode.  There’s no power holding them up there other than their own momentum.  If you shoot a missile at an orbiting satellite and hit it, you haven’t shot the satellite down.  You’ve simply turned it into several smaller satellites which are all still in orbit.  Changes in velocity as a result of the missile explosion will boost the orbits of some pieces, lower the orbits of some pieces, and change the orbital planes of other pieces, but none of them are going to simply fall to earth or cease to exist.  I’m appalled that people don’t understand this.

Another problem with the story is the explanation.  We’re being told that the satellite needs to be “shot down” because the hydrazine fuel it carries is a hazard to humans on the ground.  Let’s think about that for a moment.  If the satellite re-enters the atmosphere in one piece, it’s going to be one very hot piece.  What the government would like us to swallow is that somehow, a very thin-walled, delicate tank containing a highly unstable fuel under pressure is going to survive re-entry and present a hazard at ground level.  Hydrazine fuel in similar quantities was aboard Space Shuttle Challenger when it disintegrated in 1986, and I don’t remember hearing any concerns about hydrazine then, nor did anyone seem concerned about the hydrazine fuels remaining aboard  Columbia when it broke up during re-entry in 2003.

The truth is probably that the government doesn’t know where this highly secret satellite’s remains are going to land, and they can’t have even melted secret technology falling into the wrong hands, so their priority is to blow it to unrecognizable shards before it re-enters to ensure total destruction.  This makes sense, is believable, and is even understandable.  Why, then, can’t they simply release that story to the media instead of a completely fabricated, obviously deceptive, paper-thin cover story?  It insults my intelligence to even ask me to believe this garbage.

I have seen this story in dozens of places on the internet, and I’ve heard it on every television and radio news report over the past 24 hours.  No one has questioned it, even though it’s patently ridiculous.  I never before believed the conspiracy theories about the media being tightly controlled with respect to what they’ll release, but those theories are starting to hold water because of this sort of blind compliance.  It would restore my faith a bit if just one journalist or one TV reporter would grow a pair and mention that the government’s explanation of this action is bullshit.  We’ll see.