Shooting at the Falling Sky

From the Good Government Department: I would argue, in relation to this news story, that if you launch a missile at something that is already careening towards Earth from space, you are not "shooting it down." You are just "shooting a missile at it" and possibly "exploding it into several smaller pieces that will fall in a wider radius than the original object would have."

Will it break apart in space and not enter the atmosphere? Or is this just something that seems like a really cool idea to President Bush? I guess you aren't entirely a lame duck if you can still launch missiles at stuff.