Approx 1/4 of the Earth's surface is land. Less than 20% of the land surface is urbanized. Thus, there's about a 1/20 chance of the the spacecraft hitting urbanized areas.

I worked on the recovery of the space shuttle Columbia that descend on East Texas and W Louisiana. Most of the artifacts we found were small and composed of a very lightweight alloy. Many large pieces were found in urbanized areas on top of buildings, even. Nobody was hurt and no structures were damaged.

The spy satellite is smaller and was not designed to re-enter the atmosphere so it doesn't have any structure reinforcement or heat shielding that the shuttles have. You could probably catch most of the pieces with a butterfly net without ripping the net.

B

Anybody remember Skylab?

I think the US wants to use this opportunity to demonstrate it's satellite kill capability before it begins any engagement in the "space arms race" negotiations scheduled in the U.N. and by the British.

It was a brand-spanking new, extremely expensive, state of the art satellite. There are plenty old that are obsolete. It makes no sense to do as you say.

However, if it's on it's way down anyway, may as well get some value out of the loss.

B

Thanks for that, Bot. I'm picturing Harvey Corman and Mel Brooks running around on the praire with butterfly nets catching pieces of the satellite as spys in charge of recovering it . . . .

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OBK #55

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Precisely. It's pretty clear that the US has developed the technology to kill re-entry vehicles, since they test them regularly here in Hawaii to demonstrate to certain nations in the Western Pacific that we know how to do it. Depending on where and how they take this errant bird out, it will just be another demonstration, but in a slightly more 'real world' situation.

My bad, I misunderstood your post.

Sorry.

B

If it has that much fuel left why don't they point it towards Iran an fire away? Give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a nice suprise!

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The avionics are dead. It's sort of like having a fully gassed up car, but no one to drive it. Worse, the car is headed down the highway at full speed!

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Since when do we concern ourselves with trivial facts??

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