Will They Name The Missle "The Eagle"?

It's a small, small world... and the fate of it may hang in the hands of Decatur. That's USS Decatur (DDG-73). The Decatur is one of 3 ships that have been tasked with shooting down that schoolbus sized dead spy satellite that is plummetting out of control towards Earth.

From CNN

Decatur will fire the last chance missile should the first two miss. It will also be handling the targeting telemetry for all three attempts. The missle will be a kinetic strike, meaning it's actually going to punch a hole in the satellite not just blow up close to it. The closing speed will be around 22,000 MPH. That is ludicrus speed!

The cover story is that the dead sat has about 1,000 lbs hydrazine propellant on board. Real nasty stuff stored in a beryllium tank. It's enough to contaminate an area the size of 2 football fields. So we are going to lob $10 million dollar missles at it.

The real story is probably more along the lines of we don't want anybody snooping around with whats left of a state of the art US spy satellite. That and a strong message to anyone that has doubts about the Anti-Ballistic Missle system we have sunk billions into. Besides, how often do you get to have a live fire test?

We should find out about 9:30 tomorrow night if they put one in the pickle barrel.

Good hunting, Decatur!

Oh, and there is absoulutely no truth to the rumor they are secretly trying to make a bankshot into Bridgeport.