...would want their classified military technology to fall into the wrong hands, there’s nothing conspiratorial about that.
Some have speculated that because USA 193’s solar array never deployed, that there was no solar array, and the satellite was powered by a reactor, and blah, blah, blah.
Big deal. The Russians flew nuclear powered RADAR SAT’s decades ago.

I believe that by targeting and apparently hitting the Hydrazine tank, we demonstrated that the SM-3 would not only intercept a ballistic missile, but actually hit and destroy the warhead directly.

In any event, I think you’re wrong when you blame NASA, this was clearly a military reconnaissance satellite.