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April 5th, 2007, 08:31 GMT · By Lucian Dorneanu

Combat in Space or Accident ?

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A small Russian research satellite has been destroyed last week, and the cause remains unknown. Could it have been researching too much? Or maybe just "researching" the wrong subjects?

Russian space experts are wondering whether the United States used an anti-satellite weapon to destroy their satellite or not.

Guess what?

The claim that the Pentagon intentionally crippled the satellite brought an almost immediate denial from U.S. military officials.

I wonder where have we seen that before...

"There's no way this is a credible story," said U.S. Navy Capt. James Graybeal, spokesman for the U.S. Strategic Command. "We've checked with everybody, we have talked
to everyone."

If you say so...

This incident comes less than two months after China's surprising launch of a missile that hit one of its own retired satellites, blasting the spacecraft into thousands of shards of space junk and sparking an international outcry over anti-satellite weaponry.

Somebody's been playing with big boys toys, and we know how excited boys can get when it comes to their toys. I'm sure they're not trying to overcompensate for anything, since there are two billion of them!

The Russian space experts' speculation was based on the timing of the satellite's failure: they claimed that the satellite stopped functioning on March 7 and said the United States was conducting a military experiment at about the same time.

"According to some Russian experts, chances are high that the satellite fell victim to U.S. experiments in ray influence on spacecraft," Novosti reported.
In the late 1990s, the Pentagon performed some aiming tests of a powerful ground-based laser in New Mexico that successfully illuminated a U.S. spacecraft. The Soviet Union performed similar aiming experiments in the 1980s. However, the Pentagon has discontinued such laser tests.

They also discontinued the search for UFOs, didn't they?

It might be possible that the satellite's breakdown was caused by impact with a piece of space junk. But a collision should have produced more debris, and apparently none was tracked.

Graybeal said the U.S. Strategic Command, which absorbed the U.S. Space Command five years ago, had no record of any missile launch on March 7, and since there are no ongoing laser experiments, apparently nothing from Earth's surface caused the breakdown.

Maybe some little green men had a football game with the Russian satellite as the ball.

Let's get real here, I'm sure no one believes in aliens.

Am I mistaken?
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space
combat
missile
satellite

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