Moving Target

Blown up, sir!

The Pentagon's plan to shoot down a failed satellite with a missile defense interceptor in the coming days is aimed at preventing toxic fuel from reaching earth. But U.S. officials and experts said yesterday it would also signal that U.S. missile defenses can be used to counter China's strategic anti-satellite weapons.

Now that's more like it. None of this cowering and quaking while the satellite plummets through the atmosphere. We'll shoot the fucker down.

Never mind that there's not any real danger, since the thing will break up on re-entry into very, very tiny pieces, and the fuel will vaporize. This isn't about protecting anyone; this is about putting China on notice. When your enemy is watching your every move and evaluating your capabilities, it is always better to blow something up than not.

It will be the first time a missile defense interceptor will be used against a satellite, something that has not been attempted since the 1980s, when the Pentagon tested an anti-satellite missile from a jet fighter.

The ASAT program. That was just damned cool: an F-15 leaves the runway on full afterburner with an ASAT missile strapped to its belly, pulls immediately into a pure vertical climb for two minutes until reaching an altitude of 80,000 feet, where it launches the anti-satellite missile. The F-15s targeting systems and HUD were even modified to be capable of tracking an orbiting satellite in real-time. Kinda makes you warm and tingly all over, don't it?