I'll take a pack of spy-satellite talls, no filter... box.

Something of interest has caught my attention amidst this whole "renegade satellite" ordeal.

For those of you who fail to keep up with current events, a United States spy satellite has been in a decaying orbit around Earth. It is dead in the water, so to speak, and can not be controlled. The United States government has decided that they wish to shoot destroy it in orbit... not because it's a spy satellite and may pose a threat to national security and not because it will most likely land in an ocean (seeing as how over 70% of the Earth's surface is water) and most definitely not because we want to test out some new defense options. No, the government wants to destroy the satellite before it enters our atmosphere because they fear for the health safety of Earth's inhabitants.

You see, according to Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey, there is 1,000 pounds of a chemical propellant called "hydrazine" which could potentially kill anyone who comes in contact with it directly, and cause serious health issues for anyone around it.

I don't doubt that there is 1,000 pounds of hydrazine aboard the satellite. What I have a problem with is the government's fondness of double standards.

What they plan to do is shoot down the satellite with a missle because it contains hydrazine. Using that same logic, one might come to the assumption that the United States government would also then shoot cigarette companies with missles seeing as cigarettes also contain hydrazine.

What's that? They didn't tell you that on the news?

Hydrazine is one of many known carcinogens in cigarettes. For the daft among us, a carcinogen is a cancer-causing agent. Unfortunately, due to shotty business practices, it is unknown exactly how many (and what kind of) chemicals are in cigarettes.

Fact: The typical cigarette contains about 31.5 ng of hydrazine. There is three times this amount detected in second-hand smoke.

Sure, that my not be a lot... but if you think about all the cigarettes you smoke in a lifetime it adds up.

A few things have me upset about this being their excuse to destroy the satellite, especially now that it may appear their only reason for doing so is to test a weapons system designed to destroy enemy communications satellites:

1) The chemical degrades rapidly. A half life in the air can last anywhere between 10 minutes to a few hours, with concentrations in other media ranging up to a few weeks. Bioconcentration can occur, but the odds of biomagnification via the food chain is very unlikely. Oxidation occurs more rapidly in water enviornments and even faster in soil.

2) Approximately 16,452 pounds of hydrazine was released into the air in 1993 by United States manufacturing and processing plants. Judging by the rate of personal consumption and the rise of manufacturing demand since 1993 could only suggest that this number is much higher in recent years. Unfortunately, 1993 is the latest statistic I can find regarding hydrazine's release into the air by United States plants.

3) Approximately 784 pounds of hydrazine was released into the water in 1993 by United States manufacturing and processing plants. This is about 4.5% of the total enviornmental releases. An additional 423 pounds were released via underground injection.


So not only are government officials worried about a chemical that degrades at a high rate, but they also allow the release of thousands of pounds of it into the enviroment every year. Oh, and they let you put it in your lungs and spread it to those who don't smoke via second-hand smoke.

I'm curious to see how much hydrazine is used to propell the missle to the satellite to get the job done...

So, I ask a simple question: Why not blow up the cigarette companies and various manufacturing plants who put this dangerous chemical in the environment every day as well?

Let's be real honest here: does it make sense to worry so much about the health impact of coming in contact with hydrazine when it's allowed to be absorbed into the lungs of millions of people on a daily basis? If you ask me, 50 plus years of existing in small quantities yet given continual exposure is drastically worse than one occurance of a large amount that only exists for (at most) a few weeks... especially when the large amount may not even be in an inhabited ecosystem.

All I'm saying is don't hide behind some cover of being concerned for the American people's health when there are a million and one other reasons why you would want to destroy this satellite. Just be honest. I get enough bull shit from women, I don't need it from my government as well.

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For more information on hydrazine, Government Toxic Profile
For more on the satellite press releases and a list of chemicals in cigarettes, feel free to google search, I'm not your information bitch.