Navy Claims Successful Strike on Dead Spy Bird

[Elspode]

I agree that the hydrazine was not the primary reason for blowing this thing up. It was certainly, in varying degrees, a test of a system on a convenient target; it was an answer to the Chinese having demonstrated their own capabilities - showing them that if they took to killing our birds, we'd kill theirs. It was a warning to those who might want to lob ballistic missiles at us that there was at least a chance that we might be able to mount a functional defense. The fact that we could likely respond with overwhelming force of our own is implicit. Finally, and most importantly, there won't be enough recognizable pieces of the late spy satellite for anyone to recognize, let alone analyze, and people in Australia won't be finding chunks ala Skylab.

There will undoubtedly be more pieces of debris up there than there were before the shot. If you saw the video, or understand physics, you'll understand that a significant amount of debris was kicked into a higher orbit by the impact of the kinetic energy warhead. The higher the orbit, the longer it stays up there. But all in all, probably not the worst military decision ever made when all factors are considered.