Spy Satellite??

Hi all,

im wondering did anyone else hear bout this american satellite spinning out of control in orbit an heading for earth soon...maybe i missed a post here already?

news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1302592,00.html

Nope but that is interesting and one to watch.
there are so many amateur observers now
the chances are someone will see / image it.

Even if they don't admit it, LOTS of stuff has
burned up in our skies the US / China / former USSR don't want us
to know about.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but you just cant deny this stuff happens now and again.
At least they are gonna let it burn up and not blow it up in space
like the Chinese did with the last one!
Boy did they mess up the place with that one!!!!!

Didnt hear about that one the chiense one.....ye im the same id say theres so much going on that we dont know about up in ths sky, god ye i believe theres some junk and debris floating around up there

Ya.
Basically they destroyed one of their own aging weather satellites in Polar
orbit.
It took 'em 3 tries but they succeeded non the less and
made a big bloody mess up there!
By doing it they created more micro fragments in orbit that all of the
launches in history.
VERY bad news for other satellites and even the ISS / Shuttles.
(remember a fleck of paint once cracked the windscreen of the Shuttle!)

The US formally protested and even Bush changed the US Space Policy.
Basically to;
We can do what we want but nobody else can if it interferes with us
and we're gonna smack you one if ye do.

(actually I think they really should have changed it to exactly that.
It reads better than 'Freedom of space' - 'Denial of Adversarial actions that hinder US progress'
then Arnie could get his teeth into it if GW wanted
a sidekick to make future threats....
Might go something like;
''Dis Space is Ours!''
''Your presence here vill be terminated!'')

Yeah I heard about it, It apparently ran out of juice and just stopped functioning.

Should be interesting to see falling out of the sky.

There's some stuff about it on the bad astronomy blog. Not actually that nice a thing to have falling from the sky.

Some nasty toxic chemicals in it that may make it down to the ground and some bits that probably won't burn up .... I don't fancy getting hit on the head by a half-melted mirror!

And because they've totally lost control it could hit anywhere. Normally they aim these things at the pacific ... a nice big target ... but this time if could hit anywhere.

Bart.