To all the people talking about how its all because the satelite might hit something consider Skylab.
That thing weighed 75 tons and hit western Australia and I'm pretty certain it didnt manage to do all that much damage. The worst that seemed to come of it was NASA getting fined $400 for littering.
To all the people talking about how its all because the satelite might hit something consider Skylab.
That thing weighed 75 tons and hit western Australia and I'm pretty certain it didnt manage to do all that much damage. The worst that seemed to come of it was NASA getting fined $400 for littering.
western austrailia
Uninhabited, desolate, barren fucking wastleland western Austrailia.
To all the people talking about how its all because the satelite might hit something consider Skylab.
That thing weighed 75 tons and hitestern Australia and I'm pretty certain it didnt manage to do all that much damage. The worst that seemed to come of it was NASA getting fined $400 for littering.
western austrailia
Uninhabited, desolate, barren fucking wastleland western Austrailia.
Big difference compared to north fucking America.
75 tons and pieces hit people's houses.
Big difference compared to the 5 that this one is. I somehow doubt that this thing poses much if any threat to any Americans.
I suppose the question arises, why is my government putting 75 ton deathbomb spy sattelites over North America?
And if you're going to put a 75 ton deathbomb spy sattelite over North America, why don't you have like five redundant systems to make sure it operates? You know, so they never have to shoot it down and I never have to know about it?
To all the people talking about how its all because the satelite might hit something consider Skylab.
That thing weighed 75 tons and hitestern Australia and I'm pretty certain it didnt manage to do all that much damage. The worst that seemed to come of it was NASA getting fined $400 for littering.
western austrailia
Uninhabited, desolate, barren fucking wastleland western Austrailia.
Big difference compared to north fucking America.
75 tons and pieces hit people's houses.
Big difference compared to the 5 that this one is. I somehow doubt that this thing poses much if any threat to any Americans.
Yes, but skylab was up there for a while. This one failed off the bat, and so is still full of toxic chemicals. Even the editorial page of the New York Times acknowledges that the stuff could kill people, and it's one of the few places that admits to now viewing the president as untrustworthy (as it should).
That doesn't make it so this isn't suspicious when viewed in the context of Bush's opposition to a ban on space weapons and the fact that China did it a while back and there's a general fear of being overtaken by China.
Western Austrailia has a population density much, much lower than the majority of North America does. If a 75 ton piece of metal hits anywhere in western Austrailia, chances are it will do considerably less damage than if a five ton chunk of metal hits anywhere in North America.
To break it down even simpler:
If a Skylab hits western Austrailia, there is a pretty good chance it's going to hit a desert. If a satellite hits North America, there's a pretty good chance it's going to hit a city.
Even simpler:
Big Skylab hit desert - no big deal.
Little satellite hit city - bad.
I suppose the question arises, why is my government putting 75 ton deathbomb spy sattelites over North America?
And if you're going to put a 75 ton deathbomb spy sattelite over North America, why don't you have like five redundant systems to make sure it operates? You know, so they never have to shoot it down and I never have to know about it?
Oh, you'd know about it. Stargazers love to catalog these things, because they're cool. The defense department even views them as a bit of a pain in the ass.
I am against this decision. It will just create more space debris that can hurt our astronauts.
I'm confused... you'd rather have it hit people on the ground?
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground. But the growing amount of space debris in orbit is becoming troublesome. At the speeds they travel, a piece of metal the size of a pea can penetrate an astronaut and kill him instantly. And never even see it coming.
Blasting a sattelite with a low and rapidly decaying orbit to bits will produce pieces that have a low and rapidly decaying orbit. All the pieces will probably be gone long before anything goes up.
I am against this decision. It will just create more space debris that can hurt our astronauts.
I'm confused... you'd rather have it hit people on the ground?
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground. But the growing amount of space debris in orbit is becoming troublesome. At the speeds they travel, a piece of metal the size of a pea can penetrate an astronaut and kill him instantly. And never even see it coming.
pfft, all they have to do direct more power to the shields at the bow of the ship. Haven't you ever watched Star Trek?
When the chinese blew up their sattellite they left a shitload of debris behind.
I think that was in much higher orbit. The junk just stayed up there. This one is near re-entry as it is, and the junk will probably fall. And fucking explode, actually, if that info on the rocket fuel is accurate.
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground.
You don't think two and a half tons of metal (carrying a considerable amount of toxic chemical) is harmful to people on the ground? Are you serious? Space junk is a significant issue, but when it comes between having pieces of the thing floating in orbit and pieces of the thing raining down on a populated area, which one do you really think is safer?
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
The Chinese sattelite was in a 310 mile stable orbit. This one will be ~150 miles above the Earth when it's blown up, and the orbit is decaying. The situation is not the same at all.
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground.
You don't think two and a half tons of metal (carrying a considerable amount of toxic chemical) is harmful to people on the ground? Are you serious? Space junk is a significant issue, but when it comes between having pieces of the thing floating in orbit and pieces of the thing raining down on a populated area, which one do you really think is safer?
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground.
You don't think two and a half tons of metal (carrying a considerable amount of toxic chemical) is harmful to people on the ground? Are you serious? Space junk is a significant issue, but when it comes between having pieces of the thing floating in orbit and pieces of the thing raining down on a populated area, which one do you really think is safer?
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
Frankly, I don't think there's a tremendous amount to worry about. The Space Shuttle Columbia was a 75-120 ton vehicle designed specifically to survive re-entry. It met its unexpected and unfortunate end over populated areas of Texas and Louisiana, and so far I haven't been able to find reports of property damage from falling debris. A 2.5 ton satellite has approximately a snowball's chance in hell of surviving re-entry, much less after being struck by a missile imparting 130+ megajoules of kinetic energy.
That's a good point. If that shuttle didn't kill people when it fell, then a sattellite probably won't kill people either.
The difference is that the fuel in the sattelite is completely frozen solid; their speculation is that it won't just immediately blow up like other unfortunate space vehicles.
The Chinese sattelite was in a 310 mile stable orbit. This one will be ~150 miles above the Earth when it's blown up, and the orbit is decaying. The situation is not the same at all.
You forget that total inertia will stay the same, which means some pieces will be blown right back into orbit.
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
Er, sorry? I thought it was an interesting subject.
I was lamenting on the guys who can't seem to understand that a giant piece of metal filled with toxic chemicals potentially falling on people is not a good thing. The thing itself is totally threadworthy.
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground.
You don't think two and a half tons of metal (carrying a considerable amount of toxic chemical) is harmful to people on the ground? Are you serious? Space junk is a significant issue, but when it comes between having pieces of the thing floating in orbit and pieces of the thing raining down on a populated area, which one do you really think is safer?
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
Say you're saying I don't have a point.
No, you have a point. It's just that if you were to weigh A and B (A being having some extra space debris that could potentially impact astronauts in the future and B being having a bunch of flaming metal rain down from the sky on a populated area), B is the more pressing concern. I'll simplify again:
Pieces of the satellite floating in space, endangering the lives of astronauts could be pretty bad. Pieces of the satellite coming down and endangering the lives of a highly populated area could be catastrophic.
And even simpler:
Satellite go boom stay in sky - Bad
Satellite hit ground go boom - More bad
Yes, Space debris is a very serious concern that every government on the planet with a person or piece of equipment in space should be concerned with, but that concern should pale in comparison to the concern we should feel over an Earth impact in a populated area. Most of the time we can direct a falling satellite into an area of the ocean, where the potential loss of life non-existent. This satellite is a dead stick, and no one has any control over where it might end up. The prevailing rumor is that it may end up impacting somewhere in North America.
Frankly, I don't think there's a tremendous amount to worry about. The Space Shuttle Columbia was a 75-120 ton vehicle designed specifically to survive re-entry. It met its unexpected and unfortunate end over populated areas of Texas and Louisiana, and so far I haven't been able to find reports of property damage from falling debris. A 2.5 ton satellite has approximately a snowball's chance in hell of surviving re-entry, much less after being struck by a missile imparting 130+ megajoules of kinetic energy.
First of all, Columbia was only 39 miles up when it broke up, and it was flying at almost 13,000MPH. This is why the debris pattern was as scattered as it was. The areas where debris was found include southeast Texas (the vast majority of the shuttle ended up there), with small fragments hitting in Arkansas and Louisiana. The fragments that hit Arkansas and Louisiana were hardly dangerous, and the pieces that were dangerous all impacted in scantly inhabited areas of southeast Texas, so your comparison to Columbia dropping chunks in a populated area is incorrect.
Secondly, Columbia wasn't carrying an almost full tank of Hydrazine.
Third, the White House expects somewhere around half of the satellite to survive a reentry into Earth.
This is why I'm glad you aren't making decisions regarding my national security. Compared to the dunce who actually is, that ought to tell you something.
Saying "Well, if a shuttle didn't kill anyone, a satellite probably won't either" is ridiculous. You don't put people's lives in danger on a "maybe".
If it costs millions of dollars in taxpayer money to hit it with a missile that adds space debris and makes the rest of the globe think the US is just trying to say "we can too" to China - all so that we can be sure that it won't hit somewhere and end who knows how many lives, well, that's fine by me.
If Bush's advisors had told him he should just let it fall, and he did, and it plowed it's way into a large city, impacting into a highly populated area and spreading debris and toxic chemicals "over several hundred miles" killing thousands of people and shitting up the environment in the process... well, wouldn't you just feel like the world's biggest dummy.
I think the concern over the hydrazine is being overstated here. It has a flashpoint of 38 degrees, it reacts to form harmless gases on a hot day. It will probably do so during re-entry, and if the fuel tank remains intact then it will almost definitely do so on impact.
I'm just avoiding using definitive terms because I don't know much about this specific situation. The pieces probably won't go through an astronaut or satellite at a bajillion metres per second, but it's still a possibility. Honestly, I'm not sure which is more likely.
The mental image of Bush in a cowboy hat, possibly on a horse, shooting 2 revolvers at a satellite coming directly at him is a hilarious mental image.
Einhander, do you think that you're maybe overreacting a bit? You act as if anyone who disagrees and is skeptical of the situation is 'stupid' and has no merit of discussion.
Einhander, do you think that you're maybe overreacting a bit? You act as if anyone who disagrees and is skeptical of the situation is 'stupid' and has no merit of discussion.
I don't mind skepticism at all. I do mind people making such idiotic statements as "Well, if a shuttle hit the ground and didn't kill anyone, then we probably won't have to worry about the satellite killing anyone" and "satellites have fallen to the ground in the past, why do we have to shoot this one down?", and "Can't they just use the fuel onboard to power it down into the ocean?" .
There is a difference between healthy skepticism and plain old stupidity.
HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Has anyone else in the thread pointed out that maybe Bush is just doing this because, fuck, he doesn't have to worry about getting elected again, and the American people already despise him for the crimes he's perpetuated, so while he's still got the power to do so, why not shoot a satellite with a missile?
Seriously, this whole situation has 'for the lulz' written all over it.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
If Bush's advisors had told him he should just let it fall, and he did, and it plowed it's way into a large city, impacting into a highly populated area and spreading debris and toxic chemicals "over several hundred miles" killing thousands of people and shitting up the environment in the process... well, wouldn't you just feel like the world's biggest dummy.
Problem: the tank is only so big. You WANT it to spread over several hundred miles because the damage will be tiny. The less concentrated any remaining chemicals are when they land, the less damage they can do. A hundred miles? No one notices. A mile? Ditto. A city block? Poisonings, possibly. All in the same spot? Definite problem.
The physical debris are a non-issue. The news report stated "landing in North America", which is a far cry from hitting a city. Again, Columbia was in a MUCH better position to do damage, (larger, lower, re-entry shielded pieces) and nothing major happened.
Has anyone else in the thread pointed out that maybe Bush is just doing this because, fuck, he doesn't have to worry about getting elected again, and the American people already despise him for the crimes he's perpetuated, so while he's still got the power to do so, why not shoot a satellite with a missile?
Seriously, this whole situation has 'for the lulz' written all over it.
This is a pretty good question.
Bush has been even more rambunctious than normal with the lip he's been getting from congress.
It's possible that the military just had this whacked out weapons test proposal on his desk, and he figured he'd do it on the off chance that the technology used in knocking down the toxic slushie somehow became the basis for the next great weapon system that would start/end the next war. That would be another chance for his legacy to be vindicated.
This is still an outlier reason, but still an amusing possibility.
This is why I'm glad you aren't making decisions regarding my national security. Compared to the dunce who actually is, that ought to tell you something.
Saying "Well, if a shuttle didn't kill anyone, a satellite probably won't either" is ridiculous. You don't put people's lives in danger on a "maybe".
If it costs millions of dollars in taxpayer money to hit it with a missile that adds space debris and makes the rest of the globe think the US is just trying to say "we can too" to China - all so that we can be sure that it won't hit somewhere and end who knows how many lives, well, that's fine by me.
If Bush's advisors had told him he should just let it fall, and he did, and it plowed it's way into a large city, impacting into a highly populated area and spreading debris and toxic chemicals "over several hundred miles" killing thousands of people and shitting up the environment in the process... well, wouldn't you just feel like the world's biggest dummy.
It's not just a rare occurence, though: literally no one, EVER, has been killed by falling space debris. You are actually astronomically more likely (pun intended) to be injured by a meteorite than be injured by this satellite. Which is to say, not at all. Falling satellites also happen more often than you might believe and are almost always ignored and allowed to burn up in re-entry. This is highly, highly unusual activity on the part of the US.
Their concerns over the icing are well-founded. The ... gosh, what's the word, it's been so long since I took thermodynamics ... heating coefficient, for lack of the actual term, is much lower for a chunk of ice than it is for metal. Think of taking a baking pan out of your oven -- the cookies on it are going to be hot to the touch, but they're not going to cause burns like you would receive if you touched the tray -- just the same, the tray will cool faster than the cookies when you take it away from the source of heat.
Reentry is a very quick process and the ice will be slow in melting; if it has a very large volume, then it's going to be insulating itself and there's a fair chance that some of it will survive into the lower atmosphere.
I can't say anything more than that. All that I remember from thermodynamics class is that ice is a fantastic insulator and very slow to communicate changes in temperature ... a chunk of ice is far more durable than a chunk of titanium for the purposes of reentry. You can look to the atmospheric effect on icy planetoids versus meteroids too, to get a better grasp of this ... they retain much more of both mass and surface area. The one that caused the explosion in the Soviet Union was reasoned to be principally ice.
How is it "stupidity" if several past examples of similar situations have shown the outcome to be of little consequence?
I'd say that is a pretty valid counter-point.
Probably because none of those examples can be compared to the current situation by anyone with the mental facilities higher than a toddler.
Here is the deal - A chunk of metal that weighs 5,000lbs is going to come crashing down into the planet next month. Around half of it will be destroyed during re-entry, leaving somewhere around 2,500lbs of falling metal. This 2,500 object may or may not contain an intact fuel tank loaded with somewhere around 1,000lbs of Hydrazine. When it impacts, it may impact "in the North American area".
This satellite is different from the situations you mentioned in that it may land in a populated area, as opposed to every other satellite which has impacted in sparsely- or non-populated areas.
It's also different in the fact that a significantly large chunk (an entire half) of it will survive re-entry.
It's also different in the fact that it's carryin A THOUSAND FUCKING POUNDS of Hydrazine.
And before you say anything about Hydrazine carrying objects impacting in the past with no trouble like I know you're slavering to, consider that all of the Eart impacting objects carrying Hydrazine have been carrying extremely small amounts, and none have landed in populated areas. This is in stark contrast to a satellite that is carrying 1,000lbs of it, that may end up impacting in a populated area.
Also, I'm glad the "Comedy Gold" article was linked again, because it's pure bullshit. You've got nameless "Space Security Experts" running conspiracy theories. And while no one on record has ever been killed by falling space debris, that doesn't mean that a 2,500lb potentially toxic chunk of burning metal is any less of a threat. Satellites fall to Earth all the time, but they don't fall to Earth on a full tank.
Saying that "No one has ever been killed by space debris before, so no one will ever be killed by space debris" is fucking stupid. Here is the quote from the article about Hydrazine-carrying objects hitting Earth:
In addition, roughly 8-12 upper stages that originally contained UDMH reentered during 2007. Some of these could very well have contained some residual propellant. [One particular] upper stage probably contained several hundred [kilgograms] of residual propellant, for example.
Which basically means this: "Well, maybe some of them might have had a little bit of Hydrazine in them. Maybe."
If it came to choosing who to believe on the matter of a space object hitting the Earth, and my options were NASA/the DoD/the White House... or Wired Magazine... well, guess who I'd pick?
There has never been a confirmed death from a satellite impact, sure. Realise that there has never been a satellite hitting the ground carrying such an enormous amount of rocket fuel. Realise that if a 2,500lb object carrying 1,000lbs or Hydrazine landing on a town or city has enough potential to make trying to shoot it down a worthwhile endeavor.
Yeah, the fuel tank will probably break up during re-entry. The satellite will probably impact in a non-populated area. Probably no one will get hurt. Probably.
But, once again for the people who are slow on the uptake, you don't endanger human lives on "probably".
"Several hundred kilograms" is hardly a little bit, Einhander. Oh, and 200kg- the lowest number I'd expect to see called "several hundred" is 440 pounds. That's not THAT far off.
EDIT: I'd actually wager that the chances of the missile exploding on launch and killing someone are higher than the chances of the ignored satellite coming down and killing someone. :P
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That thing weighed 75 tons and hit western Australia and I'm pretty certain it didnt manage to do all that much damage. The worst that seemed to come of it was NASA getting fined $400 for littering.
western austrailia
Uninhabited, desolate, barren fucking wastleland western Austrailia.
Big difference compared to north fucking America.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
75 tons and pieces hit people's houses.
Big difference compared to the 5 that this one is. I somehow doubt that this thing poses much if any threat to any Americans.
And if you're going to put a 75 ton deathbomb spy sattelite over North America, why don't you have like five redundant systems to make sure it operates? You know, so they never have to shoot it down and I never have to know about it?
Yes, but skylab was up there for a while. This one failed off the bat, and so is still full of toxic chemicals. Even the editorial page of the New York Times acknowledges that the stuff could kill people, and it's one of the few places that admits to now viewing the president as untrustworthy (as it should).
That doesn't make it so this isn't suspicious when viewed in the context of Bush's opposition to a ban on space weapons and the fact that China did it a while back and there's a general fear of being overtaken by China.
Jesus Christ. Read this slow so it sinks in, ok?
Western Austrailia has a population density much, much lower than the majority of North America does. If a 75 ton piece of metal hits anywhere in western Austrailia, chances are it will do considerably less damage than if a five ton chunk of metal hits anywhere in North America.
To break it down even simpler:
If a Skylab hits western Austrailia, there is a pretty good chance it's going to hit a desert. If a satellite hits North America, there's a pretty good chance it's going to hit a city.
Even simpler:
Big Skylab hit desert - no big deal.
Little satellite hit city - bad.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Oh, you'd know about it. Stargazers love to catalog these things, because they're cool. The defense department even views them as a bit of a pain in the ass.
I'm confused... you'd rather have it hit people on the ground?
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
No. It is more likely that it will not really harm anyone on the ground. But the growing amount of space debris in orbit is becoming troublesome. At the speeds they travel, a piece of metal the size of a pea can penetrate an astronaut and kill him instantly. And never even see it coming.
pfft, all they have to do direct more power to the shields at the bow of the ship. Haven't you ever watched Star Trek?
I think that was in much higher orbit. The junk just stayed up there. This one is near re-entry as it is, and the junk will probably fall. And fucking explode, actually, if that info on the rocket fuel is accurate.
You don't think two and a half tons of metal (carrying a considerable amount of toxic chemical) is harmful to people on the ground? Are you serious? Space junk is a significant issue, but when it comes between having pieces of the thing floating in orbit and pieces of the thing raining down on a populated area, which one do you really think is safer?
There is so much stupid in this thread it's unbelievable. I thought D&D was where you went to have a serious, intellectual discussion.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Er, sorry? I thought it was an interesting subject.
Say you're saying I don't have a point.
The difference is that the fuel in the sattelite is completely frozen solid; their speculation is that it won't just immediately blow up like other unfortunate space vehicles.
You forget that total inertia will stay the same, which means some pieces will be blown right back into orbit.
I was lamenting on the guys who can't seem to understand that a giant piece of metal filled with toxic chemicals potentially falling on people is not a good thing. The thing itself is totally threadworthy.
No, you have a point. It's just that if you were to weigh A and B (A being having some extra space debris that could potentially impact astronauts in the future and B being having a bunch of flaming metal rain down from the sky on a populated area), B is the more pressing concern. I'll simplify again:
Pieces of the satellite floating in space, endangering the lives of astronauts could be pretty bad. Pieces of the satellite coming down and endangering the lives of a highly populated area could be catastrophic.
And even simpler:
Satellite go boom stay in sky - Bad
Satellite hit ground go boom - More bad
Yes, Space debris is a very serious concern that every government on the planet with a person or piece of equipment in space should be concerned with, but that concern should pale in comparison to the concern we should feel over an Earth impact in a populated area. Most of the time we can direct a falling satellite into an area of the ocean, where the potential loss of life non-existent. This satellite is a dead stick, and no one has any control over where it might end up. The prevailing rumor is that it may end up impacting somewhere in North America.
First of all, Columbia was only 39 miles up when it broke up, and it was flying at almost 13,000MPH. This is why the debris pattern was as scattered as it was. The areas where debris was found include southeast Texas (the vast majority of the shuttle ended up there), with small fragments hitting in Arkansas and Louisiana. The fragments that hit Arkansas and Louisiana were hardly dangerous, and the pieces that were dangerous all impacted in scantly inhabited areas of southeast Texas, so your comparison to Columbia dropping chunks in a populated area is incorrect.
Secondly, Columbia wasn't carrying an almost full tank of Hydrazine.
Third, the White House expects somewhere around half of the satellite to survive a reentry into Earth.
No, it's a terribly stupid point for terribly stupid people. The two situations cannot be compared at all.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
This is why I'm glad you aren't making decisions regarding my national security. Compared to the dunce who actually is, that ought to tell you something.
Saying "Well, if a shuttle didn't kill anyone, a satellite probably won't either" is ridiculous. You don't put people's lives in danger on a "maybe".
If it costs millions of dollars in taxpayer money to hit it with a missile that adds space debris and makes the rest of the globe think the US is just trying to say "we can too" to China - all so that we can be sure that it won't hit somewhere and end who knows how many lives, well, that's fine by me.
If Bush's advisors had told him he should just let it fall, and he did, and it plowed it's way into a large city, impacting into a highly populated area and spreading debris and toxic chemicals "over several hundred miles" killing thousands of people and shitting up the environment in the process... well, wouldn't you just feel like the world's biggest dummy.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
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Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
I'm just avoiding using definitive terms because I don't know much about this specific situation. The pieces probably won't go through an astronaut or satellite at a bajillion metres per second, but it's still a possibility. Honestly, I'm not sure which is more likely.
The mental image of Bush in a cowboy hat, possibly on a horse, shooting 2 revolvers at a satellite coming directly at him is a hilarious mental image.
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I don't mind skepticism at all. I do mind people making such idiotic statements as "Well, if a shuttle hit the ground and didn't kill anyone, then we probably won't have to worry about the satellite killing anyone" and "satellites have fallen to the ground in the past, why do we have to shoot this one down?", and "Can't they just use the fuel onboard to power it down into the ocean?" .
There is a difference between healthy skepticism and plain old stupidity.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Seriously, this whole situation has 'for the lulz' written all over it.
I'd say that is a pretty valid counter-point.
Problem: the tank is only so big. You WANT it to spread over several hundred miles because the damage will be tiny. The less concentrated any remaining chemicals are when they land, the less damage they can do. A hundred miles? No one notices. A mile? Ditto. A city block? Poisonings, possibly. All in the same spot? Definite problem.
The physical debris are a non-issue. The news report stated "landing in North America", which is a far cry from hitting a city. Again, Columbia was in a MUCH better position to do damage, (larger, lower, re-entry shielded pieces) and nothing major happened.
This is a pretty good question.
Bush has been even more rambunctious than normal with the lip he's been getting from congress.
It's possible that the military just had this whacked out weapons test proposal on his desk, and he figured he'd do it on the off chance that the technology used in knocking down the toxic slushie somehow became the basis for the next great weapon system that would start/end the next war. That would be another chance for his legacy to be vindicated.
This is still an outlier reason, but still an amusing possibility.
It's not just a rare occurence, though: literally no one, EVER, has been killed by falling space debris. You are actually astronomically more likely (pun intended) to be injured by a meteorite than be injured by this satellite. Which is to say, not at all. Falling satellites also happen more often than you might believe and are almost always ignored and allowed to burn up in re-entry. This is highly, highly unusual activity on the part of the US.
Check out this article: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/fishy-rationale.html
http://lexiconmegatherium.tumblr.com/
Reentry is a very quick process and the ice will be slow in melting; if it has a very large volume, then it's going to be insulating itself and there's a fair chance that some of it will survive into the lower atmosphere.
I can't say anything more than that. All that I remember from thermodynamics class is that ice is a fantastic insulator and very slow to communicate changes in temperature ... a chunk of ice is far more durable than a chunk of titanium for the purposes of reentry. You can look to the atmospheric effect on icy planetoids versus meteroids too, to get a better grasp of this ... they retain much more of both mass and surface area. The one that caused the explosion in the Soviet Union was reasoned to be principally ice.
Probably because none of those examples can be compared to the current situation by anyone with the mental facilities higher than a toddler.
Here is the deal - A chunk of metal that weighs 5,000lbs is going to come crashing down into the planet next month. Around half of it will be destroyed during re-entry, leaving somewhere around 2,500lbs of falling metal. This 2,500 object may or may not contain an intact fuel tank loaded with somewhere around 1,000lbs of Hydrazine. When it impacts, it may impact "in the North American area".
This satellite is different from the situations you mentioned in that it may land in a populated area, as opposed to every other satellite which has impacted in sparsely- or non-populated areas.
It's also different in the fact that a significantly large chunk (an entire half) of it will survive re-entry.
It's also different in the fact that it's carryin A THOUSAND FUCKING POUNDS of Hydrazine.
And before you say anything about Hydrazine carrying objects impacting in the past with no trouble like I know you're slavering to, consider that all of the Eart impacting objects carrying Hydrazine have been carrying extremely small amounts, and none have landed in populated areas. This is in stark contrast to a satellite that is carrying 1,000lbs of it, that may end up impacting in a populated area.
Also, I'm glad the "Comedy Gold" article was linked again, because it's pure bullshit. You've got nameless "Space Security Experts" running conspiracy theories. And while no one on record has ever been killed by falling space debris, that doesn't mean that a 2,500lb potentially toxic chunk of burning metal is any less of a threat. Satellites fall to Earth all the time, but they don't fall to Earth on a full tank.
Saying that "No one has ever been killed by space debris before, so no one will ever be killed by space debris" is fucking stupid. Here is the quote from the article about Hydrazine-carrying objects hitting Earth:
Which basically means this: "Well, maybe some of them might have had a little bit of Hydrazine in them. Maybe."
If it came to choosing who to believe on the matter of a space object hitting the Earth, and my options were NASA/the DoD/the White House... or Wired Magazine... well, guess who I'd pick?
There has never been a confirmed death from a satellite impact, sure. Realise that there has never been a satellite hitting the ground carrying such an enormous amount of rocket fuel. Realise that if a 2,500lb object carrying 1,000lbs or Hydrazine landing on a town or city has enough potential to make trying to shoot it down a worthwhile endeavor.
Yeah, the fuel tank will probably break up during re-entry. The satellite will probably impact in a non-populated area. Probably no one will get hurt. Probably.
But, once again for the people who are slow on the uptake, you don't endanger human lives on "probably".
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
EDIT: I'd actually wager that the chances of the missile exploding on launch and killing someone are higher than the chances of the ignored satellite coming down and killing someone. :P