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'Satan' Missile Now Launches Satellites

Posted by simoniker on from the orbital dept.

colonist writes "The Russian intercontinental ballistic missile known to NATO as SS-18 Satan was converted to a launch vehicle (called Dnepr) and is now launching American communications satellites for profit. 'The giant rocket boasted up to 10 Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs, each of which would have a carried a hydrogen bomb thermonuclear warhead to incinerate a different North American or Western European city. Even more terrifying, some of them were believed to have been fitted with aerosol warheads to spray smallpox virus over their U.S. targets.' However: 'With the Space Shuttle still grounded, the new generation of American boosters still being developed, and demand for reliable launching rockets building up around the world, the prospect of having a huge already-constructed supply of giant boosters built by the most experienced and reliable rocket engineers on earth has been embraced around the world.'"

8 of 538 comments (clear)

  1. Careful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's hope they load the right payload. Nothing like accidentally sending up a bunch of hydrogen bombs!

    1. Re:Careful! by networkBoy · · Score: 4, Funny


      UP is not what worries me ;) -nB

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  2. We called our MIRV MX missle The Peacekeeper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...and detonating a hydrogen bomb was renamed Freedom Fusion.

  3. Oh, for Pete's sake.. by LordPixie · · Score: 5, Funny

    Must every slashdot article mention MicroSoft in the headline ?!?


    --LordPixie

  4. Re:Smallpox worse then fusion bomb? WTF! by kahei · · Score: 3, Funny


    They do -- you just have to be given a 'weak' version of the bomb, and you build up immunity.

    At least, nobody has ever complained of _not_ building up immunity.

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  5. Re:SS-18 Satan by JosKarith · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Riding to heaven on Satan's mighty thruster..."

    Please, please, please God I don't care which fundie says it but please let the world have that soundbyte to cherish foever.

    --
    'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
  6. Re:Not the first post by Big+Nothing · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I also seem to remember the vaccine being a HUGE pain in the ass, and many soldiers complaining about the care it took and getting sick because of it."

    To paraphrase grandparent post:

    While you're chewing on an H-bomb, I'll try to manage coping with the smallpox vaccine.

    --
    SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
  7. Re:Not the first post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I also seem to remember the vaccine being a HUGE pain in the ass, and many soldiers complaining about the care it took and getting sick because of it.

    If it was a pain in the ass, then the doctor administered the vaccine to the wrong part of the body.