Imagine you've got a car that is having some serious troubles. In fact, it won't even start. The vehicle was a lemon from the day you drove it off the lot, there's damage to the engine block, and to repair it would be impractically expensive. You could just roll it down a hill, let it be wrecked in the crash, and call it a day. However, you have a slight twitch in your conscience at the potential for that to cause damage and personal injury to innocent folks. So, you decide to use this as an opportunity to test your new guided rocket to demolish the car from a launch pad on your kayak. That's a ridiculous scenario, except that it is perfectly analogous to what the US Navy is going to be attempting very soon (see here). One of our spy satellites crapped the bed shortly after it was launched, and will soon hurtle earthward. It is packed with two things this nation does not want to see reach the ground intact:
- sensitive spy-type electronics
- hydrazine, which is described like the love child of napalm and mustard gas
So, we will utilize ("leverage", in milindustricongressional speak) some of the technology developed for the sea-based antiballistic missile system to drop this satellite like a bad habit. Of course, it is certainly totally unrelated that the Chinese recently shot down a disabled satellite with a land-based missile, and that we would be one-upping them. Totally unrelated...
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