U.S. 'confident' over satellite hit

Videotape of the Navy mission to shoot down a dying spy satellite made available Thursday shows an interceptor missile ascending atop a bright trail of burning fuel, and then a flash, a fireball, a plume of vapor. A cloud of debris left little doubt that the missile had squarely hit its mark as the satellite spent its final days orbiting more than 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean.
A different kind of doubt still lingers, though, expressed by policy analysts, some politicians and scientists, and not a few foreign powers, especially China and Russia:

Should the people of the world be breathing a sigh of relief that the risk of a half-ton of frozen, toxic rocket fuel landing who knows where has passed? Or should they be worried about the latest display of the United States’ technical prowess, and see it as a thinly veiled test for a shadow antisatellite program?

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who personally gave the order to go ahead with the satellite shootdown Wednesday, told reporters in Hawaii on Thursday that he was prepared to share some details of the operation with China to ease its concerns that the debris might still prove dangerous. Adm. Timothy J. Keating, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, has reached out to several nations in the region to explain the mission, as well.

Addressing the diplomatic concerns, senior officials dismissed questions raised by the Chinese and the Russians, and echoed by some arms control analysts, about whether the episode was really a test of space weaponry. They pointed out that the missile used in the operation, the Navy’s SM-3 interceptor, was designed to counter a limited ballistic missile attack and had to be reprogrammed for this unexpected task, the likes of which the authorities are unlikely ever to face again.

In missile defense, an interceptor must find a red-hot enemy warhead as it arcs on a relatively short ballistic path, a task often described as “hitting a bullet with a bullet.” This time, the target — much larger then a warhead, almost the size of a school bus — was circling Earth predictably about 16 times a day.

It was still a bit of a long shot. The fuel tank that was the bull’s eye was only about 40 inches across.

And although the United States has hit test targets in space before — including a satellite destroyed in 1985 in a demonstration of an antisatellite weapon launched from a fighter jet — the successful demonstrations have been relatively few and far between.

What Wednesday’s successful strike in space conclusively proved was not infallibility but a robust and flexible military capability that can be cited by either side in what no doubt will be the ensuing debate.

The mission was conducted from Navy warships. So the United States can move this capability at will over three-quarters of the globe.

The missile-defense interceptor was converted to an antisatellite capability in little more than a month. No expensive research and development program. No battles with Congress over money. No starting from scratch on white boards in some laboratory.

This demonstration of military agility has to cause any adversary to pause.

“This was uncharted territory,” said Gen. James E. Cartwright of the Marines, who is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The technical degree of difficulty was significant here.”

General Cartwright noted that important elements of the nation’s missile defense system had been used, in particular the sensors.

“That was the key piece that we would take from the missile defense system,” he said.

To ready the missile-defense rocket for the mission, he said: “We added a lot of instrumentation. We made some modifications to the software to be able to go after a satellite.”

In somewhat theatrical language, the mission was hailed by Riki Ellison, president of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, one of the more energetic groups promoting the development of ballistic missile defenses.

“The factual reality of using deployed missile defenses to destroy a falling satellite or a ballistic missile or even a meteor from space that would risk human life is an achievement for mankind,” a statement from the organization said.

Yet, even the successful mission in no way proves that the United States is safe from nuclear attack, or that it can do what it wants in space.

Mr. Gates, at the start of a weeklong series of meetings in Asia, said that the debate over whether the United States’ missile defense system worked was “behind us” but that issues remained about exactly what types of missile threats the system could be used against.

“The question of whether this capability works has been settled,” Mr. Gates said in Hawaii after a tour of the destroyer Russell, which participated in the satellite operation. “The question is against what kind of threat, how large a threat, how sophisticated a threat.”

The White House and the Pentagon said the hazard posed by the failed National Reconnaissance Office satellite was from its hydrazine fuel. It may be 24 to 48 hours before officials can state with certainty that the fuel tank was punctured and that the hydrazine is no longer a threat.

But Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “The geopolitical fallout of this intercept could be far greater than any chemical fallout that would have resulted from the wayward satellite.”

Mr. Markey said: “The Bush administration’s decision to use a missile to destroy the satellite based on a questionable ‘safety’ justification poses a great danger of signaling an ‘open season’ for other nations to test weapons for use against our satellites. Russia and China are sure to view this intercept as proof that the United States is already pursuing an arms race in space, and that they need to catch up.”

The Chinese warned Thursday that the United States Navy’s action could threaten security in outer space. Liu Jianchao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States should promptly share data about the passage of the remaining pieces of the satellite.

“China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries,” Mr. Liu said, according to The Associated Press.

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The U.S. is confident that its shooting down of a disabled spy satellite with a missile managed to destroy its potentially toxic fuel tank.


Marine Gen James Cartwright said there was a 80-90% chance that the satellite's tank had been destroyed.

A fire ball, vapor cloud and spectral analysis indicating the presence of hydrazine all indicated that the tank had been hit, he told reporters.

The operation has been criticized by China and Russia. ""We're very confident that we hit the satellite,"" Gen Cartwright said at a Pentagon briefing hours after the missile was fired. ""We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank.""

It would take another 24-48 hours for officials to confirm whether the operations had been completely successful, he said.

Gen Cartwright said he could not rule out that hazardous material might fall to earth, but said there was no evidence of this happening so far.

He added that officials would continue to track debris falling over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans over the next two days. ""Thus far we've seen nothing larger than a football,"" he said.

The satellite, USA 193, was struck 153 nautical miles (283 km) above earth by an SM-3 missile fired from a warship in waters west of Hawaii.

Arms race?

Operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite, which went out of control shortly after it was launched in December 2006.

The missile needed to pierce the bus-sized satellite's fuel tank, containing more than 450kg (1,000lbs) of toxic hydrazine, which was otherwise expected to survive re-entry.

USA 193 lost control shortly after launch on a Delta II rocket China called on the US on Thursday to provide more information about the mission.

Russia suspects the operation was a cover to test anti-satellite technology under the U.S. missile defense program.

The U.S. denies the operation was a response to an anti-satellite test carried out by China last year, which prompted fears of a space arms race.

US officials had said that without an attempt to destroy the fuel tank, and with the satellite's thermal control system gone, the fuel would have been frozen solid, allowing the tank to resist the heat of re-entry.

If the tank were to have landed intact, it could have leaked toxic gas over a wide area - harming or killing humans if inhaled, officials had warned.

""The intent here was to preserve human life ... it was the hydrazine we were after,"" Gen Cartwright said on Thursday.

The U.S. has also denied that it shot down the satellite to prevent parts of it from falling into the hands of foreign powers.

Gen Cartwright said most of the satellite's intelligence value was likely to have been destroyed.

Buying Movies on Flash Drives: Nice Idea That Doesn’t Work

With the fall of HD DVD, Blu-ray has assumed the throne as the next format of choice, but its reign will be short-lived.

Blu-ray won't enjoy the same decade-long dominance DVD did after it succeeded VHS. But that's not because there will be other challenger physical disc formats. Rather, instead of buying discs from Amazon, Best Buy or Wal-Mart, people will begin getting their entertainment in the form of digital downloads in larger volumes.

The studios backing Blu-ray already know this. At an HDTV confab last fall, Warner Bros.' vice president of high-definition media development likened HD packaged media to a set of training wheels for digital downloads.

"We can use HD discs to train consumers to move into digital, but it's a transition," said Warner Bros.' Dan Silverberg. "Downloaded content will come, but the consumer will get quicker tutorial into video-on-demand, etc., by owning a Blu-ray player or HD DVD."

It'll happen sooner than they think. With a growing number of alternatives to packaged media, combined with the relatively high prices of Blu-ray players and discs vs. inexpensive, so-called upconverting DVD players, Blu-ray will likely be the last major disc format you'll ever buy.

Netflix, a purveyor of rental discs, obviously saw the writing on the wall, instituting its Watch It Now feature last year. Amazon, which sells plenty of packaged media, has its own Unbox video download service.

The likely reason? Overall consumer spending on DVDs and high-definition discs (HD DVD and Blu-ray), both purchase and rental, has been steadily decreasing since its peak at $24.5 billion in 2004. According to the Digital Entertainment Group, a trade group that represents all disc makers, spending last year amounted to $23.7 billion.

To the chagrin of disc patent holders, discs are not the only way to consumer high-definition media now. There are so many other ways to get content: Set-top boxes are getting far more sophisticated, and will continue to do so in the next few years. Vudu, for instance, stepped up the video on demand option by adding more content than any of its predecessors, including the option for HD purchases and rentals. Apple recently upgraded Apple TV to include rentals--standard definition and HD--and a way to bypass the need for a PC to watch films on a living room TV. Even Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console has a download service for movies.

TiVo and other DVR makers that support cable giants like Comcast have traditional VOD options, and hard drive space will continue to expand. Netflix has its rentals available to watch right from its Web site, and watching TV shows online and for free at sites like ComedyCentral.com, Hulu.com, Joost, means you don't have to buy whole seasons of TV shows on physical discs anymore. If watching TV on a PC isn't your thing, technologies like Sony's Bravia Internet Link and Sling Media's SlingProjector bring Web video directly to the TV.

Perhaps most importantly, consumers will continue to get more and more comfortable with the idea of their library being digital. We're already there with music, and it's a relatively easy transition to make to one's movie collection. But it's also true of other things like Fandango's digital movie tickets, or even airline tickets and gift cards. We live in a world where oftentimes the value is not in the object itself, but in the digital information stored on a computer somewhere. (It's an attitude that's anathema to the likes of Disney and its studio cohorts who have always pushed the concept of personal movie collections, hence the push to upgrade to the "special edition" of older films.)

"The challenge for studios is really about convincing consumers to upgrade their libraries, (and) upconverting to 1080p (the highest resolution currently available) doesn't necessitate buying a whole new format," said Josh Martin, HD and video analyst for The Yankee Group.

People will get tired of replacing their favorite films to the trendy format of the moment. The price of the software ranging from $20 to $30 for Blu-ray discs right now will eventually drop. But compared with less than $5 for a digital copy makes it an easy decision for many.

The biggest roadblock is of course bandwidth, which causes the process to be long and painful and ultimately not worth it for many. But that will change. Consider, for example, this scenario.

Using Fios from Verizon, it's possible to currently download several episodes of a TV show at approximately 5 megabits per second, or 625 kilobytes per second.

A 44-minute 640x360 (not high-definition) episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that my colleague Declan McCullagh downloaded via iTunes is 510MB.

"It requires 193 kilobytes per second to watch live, which is easily doable on Fios barring network congestion," McCullagh points out. (Levels of compression or a change from the H.264 video codec will have different results of course.)

Comcast customers--and there are far more of them than Fios customers--today have speeds that vary widely, but 187 kilobytes per second in real-world tests is a good estimate. Assuming a one-hour high-definition TV show (with commercials) is around 5GB, that requires 1,388,888 kilobytes per second or 1.38 megabytes per second to watch.

So Fios is about halfway there about at best, and Comcast's 100 megabit per second connection, which it promised at CES would be a reality by 2009, could pull it off.

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Over the last few months, we’ve had quite a debate in the comments here about the relative merits of Blu-ray, HD DVD and standard DVD discs. Some argue we don’t need discs at all because we’ll all be able to download movies. And others have suggested that the price of memory chips is falling so fast that we might still buy movies in stores, but they may come loaded on U.S.B. memory sticks or the sort of SD memory cards that go in digital cameras.
Yesterday, for example, Ken wrote this:
Flash drives are a very convenient and no-moving-parts alternative that is likely to make CDs/DVDs obsolete once price and capacity come down. Any data burned onto a disk is just as easily written to and stored on a flash drive. Not to mention the smaller size.
This got me wondering if this was indeed true. The thought that you could add programming to a television, cellphone or computer, just sticking a tiny card in a slot seems attractive. As luck would have it, an e-mail arrived from a publicist for Micron Technology’s Lexar Media unit, headlined “Working on a flash memory story?”
Soon thereafter, I was on the phone with Mark Adams, Micron’s vice president for digital media who runs Lexar.
We chatted for a minute about Lexar. And it became quickly clear that flash memory is a terrible business. Riding the memory card corollary of Moore’s law, you can give your customers four times more storage at the same price every 18 months. Your reward: margins that you need a microscope to see. Lexar, after losing ground as a result of patent battles, has clawed its way to No. 2 market share, he said. One help: a deal to sell memory under the Kodak brand in Wal-Mart.
Then to my pressing question: Could the racks of DVDs at Best Buy be replaced by racks of boxes containing movies on chips?
Not any time soon. Flash prices are falling. But not so much that you would want to have every movie you buy on a separate card. A standard DVD costs under 50 cents to manufacture and holds up to up to 9 gigabytes. It’s still expensive to make a Blu-ray disk, but the cost is still under $2, according to industry experts. Blu-ray discs hold up to 50 gigabytes.
Today flash memory chips cost about $2.50 a gigabyte. So a solid state version of even a standard DVD would be prohibitive. The cost will fall to $1 a gigabyte in a few years, but that is still is at least 10 times more than a disc of the same capacity.
But why sell movies on rewritable memory? Isn’t there a write-once technology that would be cheaper. Yes, Mr. Adams said, but not enough cheaper to make this work. (The technology is called one time programmable, or O.T.P. memory.)
Mr. Adams said there is another model that might work. Customers buy reusable flash memory devices and fill them up with movies at Kiosks in stores.
I’m not so sure this has a whole lot of appeal.
The argument goes that it still takes several hours to download a movie at current home broadband speeds, so getting a refill of movies at a store on the way home from work, say, may save time.
There is something appealing to people about buying a box that contains a three dimensional object inside with a label on it. (Why do people buy software in boxes when the same titles can be downloaded?) If you are just downloading at a store, why not just do it at home.
But there is a technological problem here too: The controllers on flash memory cards just aren’t fast enough. And it easily could take more than an hour to load a movie onto a flash card even on a kiosk. There is a lot of effort in the industry, he said, to create faster controllers, but they are not here yet.
Bottom line: As much as it seems like flash memory is getting so cheap, it will come free in cereal boxes, it’s not going to be cost competitive with discs for years. And by that time, the technological, business and social problems of downloading movies are likely to be solved.