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I did hear on one of the Morning Shows the invocation that the shootdown was also an unveiling of SDI--I didn't get a chance to hear much more on it, but I did know that my stomach tightened and that ol' sinking feeling I had during the Cold War returned....

hahahhahaha i knew they were lying to us a space shuttle burns up in the atmosphere and a tiny satellite is a "grave" danger to the planet?...pleaaaaaaaaase

I found this alarming. Weaponizing space or shooting things out of space can only seen as a step we cannot retreat from.

The argument was flawed from the outset. Initally, the government claimed there was little to no chance of danger from the re-entry of the satellite. How is is that a Space Shuttle can burn up and not injure anyone on the ground in a highly populated area yet a 1000 pound satellite is a grave danger?

This is a dangerous precedent on the part of China and the US. Media coverage was pure party line propaganda.

how do clinton obama and mccain stand on the weaponization of space.

Aviation Week and Space Technology broke the story a couple of weeks ago, when the Pentagon first stated that the NRO satellite had gone feral. Since that time, the US Media parroted Pentagon briefings, without looking to objective experts for any other view point.

Can you discuss what could have been our goverment's motives for this shoot-down, other than the official line?

Can you discuss some possible reasons my much of the US Media didn't dig any farther than the Penatgon's official line?

Thanks, and especially thank you for covering this otherwise uncovered story.

Only on the PBS News Hour was there a scientific analysis of the reason the US Government gave for shooting down the satellite. In this analysis, the reason was completely debunked by an MIT physics professor. The professor pointed out that given the 50g decelleration of the satellite once it entered the atmosphere, a thin walled fuel tank would not be able to survive re-entry and the fuel would burn up well before it reached the ground. Given this, it's clear that this was an excuse to test the missle defense system.

Ms. HItchens: Did you think the US Media did a decent job of covering the shoot-down announced by the US military last week?

I was surprised that that day's coverage including NPR (with the exception of Steve Inskeep's one report) stated simply that "the satellite, which carried dangerous fuel, was successfully shot down."No mention of the point you are speaking to today -- the fun bit!