Briefing at AAAS: Experts Question Motives, Value of U.S. Satellite Shoot-Down

The Navy's recent shoot-down of a crippled U.S. spy satellite may have been undertaken for questionable policy reasons and complicates efforts to restrain the development of anti-satellite weapons, two defense policy specialists said at a AAAS-hosted news briefing.

Pentagon officials said the 20 February shoot-down of the non-functioning satellite was necessary to prevent the craft from crashing to Earth and potentially spreading toxic hydrazine fuel.

But Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control specialist at the nonprofit New America Foundation, said the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has not provided the risk calculations and other data needed to independently verify that the shoot-down was necessary. Geoffrey Forden, a senior research associate in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it is difficult to say whether the hydrazine tank would have made it through the atmosphere without breaking apart. His calculations suggest the re-entry forces might not have been violent enough to destroy the tank and release the toxic gas before it reached the ground.

The two spoke at an 18 March briefing at AAAS organized by the Center for Media and Security and the AAAS Center for Science, Technology, and Security Policy.

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