[FPSPACE] "Down in Flames" -- how the mass media got the satellite shootdown story wrong

[Landis, Geoffrey A. (GRC-RPV0)]

You can count me as one of the "supposedly expert commentators claiming the
government¹s official explanation to be a sham."

If you actually read the technical analysis trying to suggest that the
satellite was dangerous, it is so badly technically flawed as to be frankly
idiotic.  It is correct only if the satellite could somehow violate the laws
of Eulerian rotation.

But there's little need to suggest some "conspiracy."  Frankly, shooting
stuff down is what the military is good at, and when they got an excuse to
do what they were good at, their response was "just do it," not, "let's look
at the technical case a little more skeptically."



-- 
Geoffrey A. Landis
NASA John Glenn Research Center, Cleveland OH