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Soviet Space Battle Station Images Published
An anonymous reader writes "Images of the Soviet Union's laser space battle station Skif and its prototype Polyus have been published on the web. Polyus-Skif was the Soviet response to the American 'Star Wars' program of the 1980s. The Polyus was launched in May 1987 but a faulty sensor caused it to de-orbit into the South Pacific. More information can be found at Encyclopedia Astronautica."
...yes, I would pretend this as well ;-)
here, just in case that one gets Slashdotted. It's already starting to look beat-up.
Interesting comments.
And they said that movie with Clint Eastwood in space was farfethced. Hah!
*ahem*
We do have a cowboy in office, don't we?
I'd bid at least $50 bucks for it on eBay
War Stars You!!
:p
What it had to be said.. at least it's out the way now
What ifn dem turrizts got hold of dat? They'd shoot lasors right at our testic^H^H^H^H^H^Hgon^H^H^Hballs and we wouldn't have a goll durn chance. Better tell Senator Frist it's A-OK to appropriate 300 mill for that Star Wars whatjamagig even if it don't work! Gosh!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
... it's a moon.
...we'd just have to get George Lucas to go back and edit it so that their space station fired first.
~BSHome of the EULA shirt
This will not bode well for us geeks! Does anybody have a laser proof tin foil hat I can borrow??
Taco Bell could have put a big target out in the South Pacific and if it hit it we would have all won free tacos!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Is that just scientist speak for CRASHED? Damn, you guys think you can make poo-poo smell like roses with words can't you? The damn thing crashed into the ocean, it didn't de-orbit. Its like a salesman saying he didn't get the account because the customer de-bought the product.
That's a nice euphism for crash and burn.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
In Democraticic America, a de-orbit into the South Pacific causes faulty sensor.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
Thunderbirds 1 is go!
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
That's because SKIF is an acronym. It stands for "Super Killer Ignito-Flash".
The rumor is that it crashed into the ocean because of a sensor failure. The truth is it suicided because they gave it a really sucky name.
Gorbachev had just come to power and wanted to make peace overtures to the West. A giant space battle station was not going to help this endeavour so a deliberate "launch failure" would be the simplest and easiest way of getting rid of the darn thing and shutting down the program.
Unlikely. I prefer the conspiracy theory that says that a US battle station destroyed it on its way up. The Soviet Union collapsed when its leadership realized what had happened, and what the implications are. US battle stations have also been disabling European and Japanese probes to Mars lately, so there must be something on Mars that we are not allowed to see. It all makes sense to me.
The Space Shuttles and the ISS are just red herrings.
That sucker is impressive!