Down in Flames

The head-on collision on February 21, 2008 of a ship-launched U.S. missile and a derelict U.S. spy satellite created instantaneous fireworks as the target disintegrated in a flash. In the hours that followed, much of the metal confetti left from satellite USA-193 burned up in the atmosphere in a man-made meteor shower that thrilled skywatchers lucky enough to be looking up.

But more than metal shards were crashing and burning across the skies of Earth; so, too, were the reputations of the science and space experts of American journalism. The U.S. military’s official explanation for the shoot-down was that on-board toxic chemicals made the falling satellite the most dangerous in history. But in a news media dance so unanimous that it practically looked choreographed, supposedly expert commentators pronounced the government’s official explanation to be a sham, and speculated instead on the secret militaristic motives behind it. Coverage of these views was largely credulous — most news stories about the claims didn’t even bother to seek out contrary views.

Real experts had always believed the official military line. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, whose specialists performed an independent hazard analysis that confirmed the Pentagon experts’ results, attended the Pentagon press conference on February 14, 2008 when the intercept plan was disclosed. “The analysis that we’ve done is as certain as any analysis of this type can be,” he said then. Describing the satellite’s tank of toxic fuel, Griffin said that “the hydrazine tank will survive intact…[because] the hydrazine in it is frozen solid. Not all of it will melt. So [it] will land on the ground with a tank full of slush hydrazine that would then later evaporate.”

Another real expert, NASA space debris guru Nicholas L. Johnson, had been at a scheduled Vienna meeting of a subcommittee of the United Nations Committee of the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space a few days prior to the intercept. “Not a single member state questioned our motivation at that meeting,” Johnson told me. “In fact, our ‛transparency’ was praised not only by our close allies but also by those with whom relations are sometimes less cordial.” After the intercept, Johnson stayed in touch with his international colleagues. “In all my subsequent meetings withforeign space agency personnel,” he continued, “I have only received positive feedback on theopenness of the U.S. and on our decision to protect human life.”