soc.women

"The Werewolf's Lair" wrote in message
news:13rufm7oee97j38@...
> The news release about the Navy's destruction of the NASA satellite
> mentioned that the missle hit the satellite at "22000 mph at an altitude
of
> 130 miles producing a fireball".
>
> However, I have trouble with this scenario. First of all, there is no
> signifcant oxygen above Earth at this altitude which would support a
> "fireball" from a hydrazine explosion. Then, although there is a small
> amount of N2O4 oxidizer on board, which would not explode the hyrazine,
> where is the igniter? The missle contained a kinetic-energy warhead, not
an
> explosive, so what provided the trigger for the so-called fireball?
>
> Was the photo doctored to mislead the public as the Navy either missed or
> the satelllite plopped into the ocean? Or did the missle hit a much lower
> altitude resulting in the fireball? Or, did the hydrazine tank vent due to
> the hit, and just released a vapor cloud?
>
> Your thoughts please!
>
> I'm a retired chemist who worked many years for a NASA contractor.
>
> --
> "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it". -- George
> Santayana

Of course, nobody really knows if they destroyed the satellite or not.
However, if they didn't it would become readily known when the thing is
discovered to still be in orbit or when it finally came down as was
predicted. So, the Navy would be taking a big risk of perpetrating a fraud
if they really didn't hit and destroy it. It would be a hard thing to cover
up for very long.

As far as a fire ball is concerned, the kinetic weapon is traveling at
nearly 10,000 meters per second and has a kinetic energy of over 48 million
joules per Kg of mass. The release of that amount of energy will transform
it and anything it hits into a very hot plasma, no oxygen required. As a
retired chemist, you can calculate what temperature rise would be expected
in that kind of kinetic impact. I think you'll find it to be high enough to
be an intensely luminous fire ball. Remember meteors don't need any oxygen
or fuel to be meteors.