The Navy will attempt to shoot down a disabled 5,000-pound spy satellite in the next couple of days before it crashes to Earth.  I’m going to say this is probably not going to go well:

The operation will be carried out from a Navy ship that will fire a missile modified for the task, which resembles shooting down a ballistic missile warhead as it begins to re-enter the atmosphere.

President Bush ordered the military to try to pick off the satellite because “there was a possibility of death or injury to human beings beyond that associated with the fall of satellites and other space object normally, if we can use that word,” a deputy national security adviser, James Jeffrey, said.

The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, of the Marine Corps, said “a window of opportunity” to pick off the satellite before it enters Earth’s atmosphere will open in the next three or four days and last for seven or eight days. If the first shot misses, there should be time for a second attempt before the satellite enters the atmosphere, when it would be “next to impossible” to score a hit because of atmospheric disturbances, the general said.

If the satellite is not intercepted, it will tumble out of control into the atmosphere in early March, he said.

Considering our track record (see here and here) on shooting objects out of the air I’m going to guess it’s even harder to shoot an object out of space.  This isn’t the first time a man made object has fallen from the sky with the possibly of killing us, Skylab fell to Earth but there was still a little control of the vessel before reentry.  The seriousness of this situation is due to the toxic fuel on board and lack of navigational control of this satellite.

At least we know the Chinese were able to shoot one out of Space early last year.

As some of you know I have a complete and utter disdain for the Lotus Notes application which I firmly believe was coded by the hands of Satan. We’ll if you’ve been following the White House email scandal where allegedly there were millions of emails that have been lost during the run up to the Iraq invasion and through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina you’ll be pleased to know the reason for this historical loss is due to my old nemesis: Lotus Notes.

White House spokes person Dana Perino when today asked about the missing emails:

From the White House spokes person Dana Perino when asked about the missing emails:

But there was a conversion sometime between 2002 and 2003 to convert people that were using Lotus Notes when we first arrived to Microsoft Outlook. And I know that the tech people worked to get us all transferred over. We had to save our Word documents and all to make sure that they weren’t lost in that transition.

I don’t have a specific number for you. Again, I wouldn’t rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we’ll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

She goes on to say that the White House was using Lotus Notes up until 2002; I’m not sure if this means the Clinton White House was also using Notes but it’s safe to assume. My point in all of this is I actually believe it. If there was ever a situation where you would loose 5 million emails Lotus Notes would be a major player. Hell, I personally lost at least a million using that patched together, secondhand piece of shit program. I wouldn’t be surprised if the engineers that developed Notes weren’t former NASA engineers because they both have a complete dedication to Wingin’ It.

Lotus Notes – Worst Program Ever.