Satellite Shutdown- what you need to know and do if it comes down near you.

Flipper wrote:

Tonight? But theres a lunar eclipse tonight... Why would the government wait to shoot a missile at a broken down satellite until there is a Lunar Eclipse?

...HOLY SHIT THEY'RE GONNA BLOW UP THE MOON!

It is the occasional gem like this post that keeps me sifting through the seemingly endless garbage on these boards. Well done, sir: that is grade A humor.

Troll 45 wrote:

lol, POD peeps.

you slay me bro with your trolling and fear mongering.

it is not trolling if it is true.

I love peeps wrote:

Don't make me go into it,

No, please do go into it. Let us bask in your extensive knowledge of nucular fyziks.

I love peeps wrote:

Again, I wouldn't be talking about it, if Hawaii and the left coast weren't possible fall out areas.

So peeps, looks like they got it.

Did any of the pieces fly up your ass?

Looks like a chunk landed in Nevada and caused an earthquake.

crazy stuff all around us wrote:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/21/nevada.quake/index.html

Looks like a chunk landed in Nevada and caused an earthquake.

Fortunately, Mr. Bush is responding to this attack on our freedoms by invading Utah.

Peeps,

Dude, you are warning us against some impending doom. That is SO unlike you!

I love peeps wrote:

what if you're one of them too? how do you know I'm not 10 miles from you, right, this, very, instant?

Well if I'm one of them, that would be my bad luck. But it would still be worth it.

how many names has peeps posted under on this thread? I've counted like 3 or 4.

bump

It isn't a KH-11, you dumb fvck. This satellite was modern, and more of the "KH-13" generation.

I don't know much about physics, so this might be a stupid question, but is there any reason to think that the thing would fall to earth after being struck as Peeps seems to think it should? If something is in orbit and it breaks into pieces, aren't all the pieces still in orbit? Peeps seems to think that the thing should have fallen to earth as one piece like a plane getting shot down, but I don't see why that would happen.

I love peeps wrote:

its far from a superpower.

a regional power, with a massive food and energy crisis, but not a super power. pwnd.

peeps, you are the biggest moron on these forums. congrats.

Harry Kooter wrote:

I don't know much about physics, so this might be a stupid question, but is there any reason to think that the thing would fall to earth after being struck as Peeps seems to think it should? If something is in orbit and it breaks into pieces, aren't all the pieces still in orbit? Peeps seems to think that the thing should have fallen to earth as one piece like a plane getting shot down, but I don't see why that would happen.

Peeps is an idiot. The US shot it down at a distance so the pieces would continue their decent. The chinese left the one they blew apart at a distance to keep it in orbit and now there's alot of space junk floating around, it was a hot topic of criticism for people. Alot of the pieces of this satellite will get destroyed on re-entry, the smaller pieces that do rain down will be minimal and probably land in the ocean.

Peeps, you are an idiot. Here are the reasons why you are an idiot.

1. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit get plenty of solar flux, and solar cells and batteries are more than sufficient for power generation and storage. RTGs, your dreaded nuclear nightmare are used almost exclusively on missions past the orbit of Mars, like the New Horizons and Cassini spacecraft. The result, no nukes on board.

2. I know quite a bit about hydrazine, as well as propellant tanks. The temperatures encountered upon re-entry would surely exceed the burst pressure of the propellant tank, causing it to rupture and the hydrazine inside to be decomposed into nitrogen, hydrogen and ammonia. Monopropellant rocket engines use a chemical catalyst and high temperatures to decompose hydrazine into these species and produce thrust. Granted, there are still some toxic byproducts, this amount will be very, very small after decomposition. The gases will also be in the upper atmosphere and disperse quite nicely before it gets to ground level.

3.

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080221-satellite-kill

Please find the gigantic nuclear explosion you warned against in this video of the collision.

Don't spread your misinformed psuedo science ramblings. Do some research before warning of impending doom.

In addition, the U.S. has shot down a satellite within the last 30 years. A missle launched from an F-15 took one out.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/080220-satellite-shoot-down.html

Also, the satellite was hit at the lowest point in it's orbit, within the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Drag will bring down most of the debris within 2 days, and nearly all within 40 days. The Earth's atmosphere has no clear ending point, and the density at any particular height depends on several factors, most notably solar activity. Many satellites in Low Earth Orbit contend with minute amounts of drag, that is a large reason why there was so much propellant on board in the first place, to counteract the small amount of drag encountered.