I think they should have used it as a test of the new railgun. Word is it is powerful enough to throw a projectile into at least a suborbital ballistic arc, if not orbit itself. It would have been a simple math problem, just like the missile shot. Of course, if the projedctile missed, well, it would have come down somewhere...
Dont you all find it a bit odd, that only a few years after the Chinese show down one of their own satellites (which as labeled as a show of force by our own Govt), we mysteriously wound up having to shoot down one of our own as well Do you think.. this was all a ploy to send a message to the Chinese! Hey..we can shoot down Satellites too..so don't get any ideas!
Great in theory, but aiming it right now would be a bitch, seeing as it's on a fixed concrete mount and isn't designed to be aimed yet.
Actually, it was labelled more as a dumbassed move by everyone else with satellites in orbit. The debris cloud from the Chinese test is going to cause problems for YEARS. The debris cloud from this shot will be gone in about a month.
Us, them, the Russians, the ESA... everyone. And for years. Whereas all our debris will have reentered in 40 days.
SHIT! I was just on the phone with my mom and forgot to mention this. She's out visiting (she's on the Big Island right now) and we were touring the USS Missouri when the fleet was putting out to do this. And as cool as the lab railgun is, it's years and years from being able to do this sort of thing. They'd have to get to a position where it could shoot at the target and figure out some sort of aiming setup. Both those things are practically impossible. They've got a custom-designed lab right now to meet the power requirements and because of the electromagnetic forces involved, the "barrel" is in a fixed position. In addition to pushing the slug, the charge tries to push the rails apart, so if they tried to elevate it, they'd get one shot and almost certainly destroy the device. When it gets down to it, this was a pretty nifty test of the Aegis system as well and was a challenge enough for that. The railgun won't be ready for this sort of thing for at LEAST another 15 years--likely more like 25. Back on topic, I wonder what they'll paint on the side of the ship that shot it down...
Sorry about the new thread. I didn't see this one as I searched for "satellite" and Bear hadn't put up text from the article. On topic, awesome!
It makes me laugh, but I guarantee the crew of that ship is saying "Thank FUCK that is over with!" Because with a high profile deal like this, I'm sure the front office was crawling up EVERYONE's ass the past month or two, and their command was under lots of scrutiny and pressure not to fuck this thing up. Now that it's done they have bragging rights, and no doubt the patches have already been ordered. The captain is feeling pretty good because he knows he's gonna get a good fitrep out of this (nothing ensures a good fitrep like making the Navy look good) and he'll make O-6 at least. For the rest of the crew, they'll be like 'yeah, we're bad. Now leave us the fuck alone, m'kay?"
Nope, don't believe it. We've been hearing for years that the missile defense program (which is what generated this capability for the Navy) is a costly red herring that will never produce a workable system. Must all be smoke and mirrors. Right, all you naysayers out there?
Uh, yah. It's nice to see our "missle defense program" can work when it's a single target, when we know exactly where it's going and when it will be there and the weather is nice. Glad to see all those billions producing that. As long as a single missle is launched at high noon and we are radioed the route then all will be well.
Back at you. This is a nice technological success. Stupidly trying to turn it into a success for a completely different problem, which it does nothing at all to solve, will only unnecessarily turn victory into defeat for you.
The problem with a missile shield is no matter how sophisticated it is it can easily be beaten with countermeasures. I somehow doubt that the satellite tried to stop the missile from hitting it.....
And if you actually knew what you were talking about, you'd know that the system in question has been exceeding performance expectations in all testing and is in fact considered to be a very successful system...which is why they were willing to try using this system for this purpose in the first place.
Which part of the statement was incorrect? You do know they cancelled the first shot because it was cloudy, right?
You guys sure are willing to go a long ways to be wrong. Yeah, the first scheduled shot was cancelled cuz it was cloudy. So that the cameras that were going to track the shot would have a clear view. Had this been an inbound hostile, that would not have been a concern. What you have here is an unscheduled, real-world test under actual operational conditions of an antimissile system. And it worked. And those of you out there who for years have been bemoaning the waste of money spent on an "impossible" defense are sure looking silly. Bear's got it right, this is technology that is working. I know some of you are absolutely horrified of the idea of the US defending itself, but luckily we have folks who have a more realistic view of how the world works.
It wasn't unscheduled! They knew about it for a week! Show me a nuclear missle that takes a week to get to its target. And they had to cancel the first shot due to H20 in the sky because they weren't sure it would work.
There really isn't anything to say about something as incredibly ignorant as what you said, except to say that it once again shows your idiocy in such matters.
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect he wasn't going to get the nod. If he fucked up, he was expendable. This might grease a few wheels, but then again did he really have to do much besides get the ship to Point X at Y time?
You do know we don't need good weather to see anything coming in from orbit? If we did then the old USSR could have just waited for a cloudy day to launch WWIII. Second with our technology we can tell you exactly where any ICBM is going to land. We've had that ability for years. Hell we can watch a enemy ICBM launching and follow it all the way from it's silo to it's target. We can do the same with SLBMs. You might not know this but we have these things called computers and they can *gasp* compute this information very fast. So we don't need nice weather to see something in orbit. Nor do we need nice weather to shoot something down. The Navy however wants nice weather so the OPTICAL CAMERAS can see and record it. They do it to see how it worked and also for the public relations part of it. The Navy wants to brag about their system and the best way to do that is to show a picture of it working. So stop whining that it was a failure because it was cloudy. Clouds don't stop RADAR. They only stop cameras. And as has been mentioned multiple times in previous threads..... The Missile Defense Shield program is not designed to handle huge numbers of incoming ballistic missiles and their warheads. It's designed to stop a limited attack. Also you need to understand what Lanzman wrote about unscheduled. He doesn't mean they did it on the fly. It's not like the Navy called the ship and said, "Yeah about five minutes form now we need you to shoot down X." Yeah they knew about it for a couple weeks. Most tests of this nature are well planned out in advance. Budgets have to be approved. Conditions of the test have to be approved. This one was a spur of the moment, "Lets get a ship out there in a hurry so we can take a shot." I bet that ship hauled ass to the spot it needed to be. That's what is meant by unscheduled.
