Satellite Fuel's Risks Are Disputed

According to the Washington Post, “The Pentagon counted down Wednesday toward a dramatic nighttime effort to shoot down a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite, using a souped-up missile fired from a ship in the Pacific.” This recent announcement by the Pentagon is the latest development in a story that has spanned the course of several weeks: the fate of a dying US spy satellite. Launched in December 2006, the spy satellite was defective and failed within a few days of orbital deployment. Shortly after the failure of the satellite, officials at NASA realized that it was loosing altitude and would ultimately reenter earth and most likely burn up upon reentry. The problem: the satellite contains 1,000 pounds of unused hydrazine, a toxic rocket fuel. In order to remedy the slight risk of this fuel falling into the United States and causing harm to people, the Bush administration has proposed to shoot down the failed satellite using a modified standard missile 3 (SM-3) in order to destroy the fuel tank and its toxic contents.

Government officials maintain that the only purpose of this mission is to protect the public from the threat of the toxic fuel but many people think otherwise. Others, including Washington Post writers Kaufman and White in their article Satellite Fuel's Risks Are Disputed are now questioning the government’s real intentions regarding the spy satellite. The emergence of such articles brings the Government’s statement under heavy criticism. The government claims to be protecting the people, but according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology research professor Geoffrey Forden, the risks associated with the satellite are exceedingly low. According to Forden, for someone near Los Angeles the risk of injury is one in one billion. However, the government estimates that the risk of someone being struck by lightning is only one in 700,000. With information such as this in mind, one can conclude that the government’s ulterior motives, such as the desire to test this newly developed anti-ballistic missile defense system, are really the main reason behind the decision to down the satellite. However, the Russian defense minister’s conclusion that the United States is planning to test its “anti-missile defence system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites” might still seem far fetched. The conclusion that United States wants to test its new missile system and is looking for a target seems plausible, but only time will tell whether the Russians have indeed uncovered the heart of the matter or if they are exaggerating the issue as usual.