North Korean satellite 'tumbling out of control,' US officials say

[Poll_Blind]

4. Interesting question. I think the folks at NORAD are probably trying to get...

...an idea what's going to happen to the object as we speak. However, there was a situation in the last few years with a Russian satellite which was also in a degrading orbit and also out of control and even our best estimates were something like an 8-12+ hour window- which basically meant about the best we could do was guess which side of the planet it would likely come down on and that was it.

Also, you can't really "shoot something down" that's in orbit. Not like in the airplane sense.

Unless the North Koreans are willing to talk about what's in the satellite, breaking it up into smaller pieces through some sort of explosion could only cause more problems. I think we have things in space and on the ground which can blind satellites but I'm not even sure we'd try to take it out with a missile if it was coming down over our territory: It's probably safer to keep it in one big chunk than break it up into many chunks while that high up.

PB