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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Odds Don’t Favor Satellite Shoot-Out
The U.S. government will attempt to use its anti-missile system to shoot down a potentially dangerous spy satellite tonight lest the wayward satellite’s toxic fuel cause a dangerous spill on entry.
Russia, of course, thinks this is really just an excuse to test out our missile defense system.
Underscoring the danger of such a rocket fuel leak, a missive from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today went out to health care providers.
The rocket fuel in question is called hydrazine, the agency said. It’s a carcinogen that can irritate the lungs and cause nerve damage. But the good news is, it breaks down to less toxic chemicals quickly when its burned or aerosolized. It breaks down less quickly in water — in a matter of weeks. Ingesting contaminated fish is dangerous.
Hydrazine, by the way, is also a component of cigarette smoke. Shoot that Camel down.
Here’s the link if you want to know more about the fuel.
It might not be a bad idea to bone up on hydrazine. The web bookies are betting that tonight’s missile-defense test will fail, and the spy satellite will plunge straight to Earth.
Then again, they’re putting the odds at 1000 to 1 that the defensive weapon will miss the satellite and hit Iran instead.
Oops.
Here are the odds as calculated by BetUS.com:
Where will the satellite land?
The satellite falls on the White House - 1,000,000,000,000/1
The satellite falls on land - 2/1
The satellite falls in the water - 1/3
The satellite begins working again and goes back into orbiting - 50/1
The satellite lands in water and wakes up the “Cloverfield” monster - 1,000,000,000,000/1
What will be the outcome of the rocket launched?
We hit and destroy the satellite - 11/10
We hit, but do NOT destroy the satellite - 10/1
We miss the satellite - 8/11
We accidentally hit North Korea - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Iraq - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Iran - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Afghanistan - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Cuba - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Canada - 1000/1
We accidentally hit Russia - 1000/1
We accidentally hit the moon - 1000/1
People will bet on anything, won’t they? So where would you put your money?
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