Direct Hit

...and hey, why is my DirecTV out?

The U.S. Navy said Thursday it was tracking debris from a spy satellite it destroyed using a missile fired from an American warship.

The White House ordered the satellite's destruction due to concerns that its onboard fuel supply could pose a toxic hazard if the craft re-entered over a populated area.

Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh..... so that's the cover story they're publishing.

I've been holding off discussing this until they confirmed that they hit it.

Couple things I've been thinking about why the trouble to shoot down that satellite:

1. It's the Andromeda Strain. Nuke it while it's in orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
2. Really sensitive material on board - and I'm not talking about the fuel. It's the same thing as all that cover-up Roswell crap. Our best spy satellite goes on the clink - maybe they forgot to carry the two or convert from English to Metric (again!) and it's broke. It'll probably survive re-entry. You can imagine what kind of cool lenses, the hard drives, the led displays and stereo equipment that the everybody would like to take a look at.
3. Nuclear powered - ooooppppsss. Best to let that plutonium burn up in the atmosphere than cause further mutations in West Virginia. And also have to admit that we're launching nuclear powered spacecraft. "It's not like it's going to come down and... oh, yeah."
   
4. The Chinese did it first - now we have to prove that we can do it too!
   
5. Suck it China - we did it from a boat! Boo-yah!
   
6. We have 30 million bucks laying around, so ah what the hell. What else could we do with it?