One Brick Short

Remember that satellite—the multi-million dollar, non-functioning piece of bus-sized debris our tax money paid for—that the Dep-o-Def boys wanted to shoot down? They done did it.

Good thing, too. That space-bound Greyhound otherwise would have burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere and the 1,000-pounds of solid rocket fuel could have, maybe, possibly, it’s not all that unlikely, caused a health hazard.

So, at approximately 10:26 p.m. last night, the USS Lake Erie “fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph.”

To shoot down the satellite, the Navy had to wait until it was at a relatively low altitude, so small chunks of the space bus will begin to re-enter the atmosphere immediately. Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days.

Of course, DoD boys will be standing by to protect the good folks of Planet Earth from the dangerous bits of the satellite, not to mention protect the secret parts of the satellite from the dangerous twits on Planet Earth.

After all, the nonfunctioning piece of space debris was a SPY satellite.