By Gayle S. Putrich - Staff writerPosted : Thursday Feb 14, 2008 20:22:30 EST
The Navy will attempt to shoot down an unresponsive spy satellite before it enters the Earth’s atmosphere because of concerns that the rocket fuel on board could harm people when it crashes, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The Navy has been working on software modifications for three weeks and will deploy three Aegis-equipped ships to intercept the 5,000-pound National Reconnaissance Office imagery satellite somewhere in the northern hemisphere of the Pacific Ocean in the coming weeks, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Cartwright refused say which ships will be deployed or where they will go to fire. The Navy has three cruisers — the Shiloh, the Lake Erie and the Port Royal — equipped with ballistic missile defense capabilities, and 15 destroyers.
Cartwright said a “window of opportunity” for an attempt to shoot down the satellite with a ballistic missile will open in two to three days and is expected to last as long as seven to eight days. If the first shot misses, the Navy will have two backup missiles and as long as two days to make a decision on a second attempt. The goals are to destroy the hydrazine rocket fuel and to push the satellite on a trajectory to land in the ocean, Cartwright said.
“If we fire at the satellite, the worst is that we miss. If we graze the satellite, we’re still better off because we’ll bring it down sooner and more predictably,” he said. “The regret factor of not acting clearly outweighs the regret factors of acting.”
If it is not intercepted, the satellite is expected to hit the atmosphere sometime in early March. The path it would take as it tumbled through the atmosphere would be “very, very unpredictable and impossible to engage,” Cartwright said.
Read more here.
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Friday, February 15, 2008
Navy tasked with destroying satellite
Brief History of Navy Tattoos
The United States Navy has the longest and richest military tattoo tradition. The anchor symbol has become one of the most easily recognizable tattoos in the world. The sailors introduced the practice of tattooing to the other military branches in the early 1900's when they would return from voyages that had literally taken them around the world. As the sailors traveled to distant places and saw that the art of tattooing was alive and well, they began to create tattoos that represented who they were as a group.
These boxers feature a girl on an anchor with a 'U.S. Navy' ribbon on her resembling a classic navy tattoo and have a 'U.S. Navy' banner on the rear on a blue background.
U.S. Navy - Tattoo Girl boxer shorts
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
2009 Military Pay Raise Proposed
2009 Military Pay Raise Proposed President Bush's administration has released his 2009 National Defense budget request. The administration is requesting an across-the-board raise of 3.4 percent in basic pay for all military personnel. If approved, this pay raise will go into effect on January 1, 2009.
Here are some common examples of what a 3.4 percent pay increase would mean:
- An E-4 with more than three years of service now earns $1,949.10 per month; that would rise to $2,015.40 a month
- An E-7 with more than 10 years of service now earns $3,263.10 per month; that would rise to $3,374.10 per month.
- An O-3 with more than six years of service now earns $4,763.10 per month; that would rise to $4,925.10 per month.
View the pay charts here. (Navytimes.com)
