Slashdot Mirror
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 ;-)
I especially like this picture, which seems to almost be a spy shot froma James Bond movie, or as one of the posters commented, "Looks very Thunderbirds-ish."
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
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?
Why iss this photo up on the Latvian army's website? anybody find any other goodies there?
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
Comments at the website (yes I RTFA) say it wasn't a faulty sensor but a software error which caused the Polyus to turn 360 instead of 180 degree upon reaching orbit, and it boosted itself back into the atmosphere. Oops!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
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.
Skif just seems like a particularly wimpy name for a "laser space battle station". Maybe it's just me...
>Isn't it great that that dictatorship spent itself into bankruptcy?
On a completely unrelated note Bush just signed a bill putting the US 800 BILLION in debt.
Yeah, no kidding.
I wonder whether 40 years from now I'll be slumped in an old brown armchair eating applesauce and watching the Discovery Channel as space-archeolgists investigate the latest peice of crap we found floating around in low orbit (that noone had a record of being up there.)
Someone had to do it.
... it's a moon.
From now on anyone anyone complaining about an application crashing will be totally ignored. Our systems are way too sophisticated and cultured to do anything less than de-orbit, and even if they did decide to de-orbit it would be from nothing less than a very great height indeed.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
...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!
Leads one to ponder about the relative computing powess against the counterpart in those times.
Just how far the computing differences were, considering that a probable computation error caused the machine to orbit incorrectly.
Sunset over the lake, cool mist over the bridge; A leave upon the ripples, the snow reflects its glow.
Soviet propaganda did a really good job of pumping up their apparent strength, but their economy was in dire straits since the mid-1970s. By the time Carter and Reagan had maneuvered the US into backing Iraq vs. the nominally Soviet supported Iran, the Soviets were already well on their way to bankruptcy. The Star Wars program and the resultant Soviet reaction to it probably only hastened the demise of the country by a year at most, according to many economists.
mmmm... i'm thinking it was the protoss...
workin on Mars mission."
/. interview?
A most interesting comment from the guy who provided the photos.
Perhaps he woudl be willing submit to a
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Isn't it great that that dictatorship spent itself into bankruptcy?
.4 trillion dollar deficit and growing. Which country are you talking about?
Hmm, George W Bush, a
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
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.
You know the jerky that didn't put in a redundent sensor is probably still at the Siberian Front serving up Borcshe to the soldiers....
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
But I am just wondering how much of it actually was developed to anywhere near a working state. The vehicle that crashed was only a mock up so I am thinking this may have just been a bit of sabre rattling by thr Russians in the direction of the US.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Thanks for this info. Very very interesting, especially for me, I'm very interested in the Soviet space programme - maybe because it was so secret.
That rendering shot .. was that done in '85, or is it a newly-generated AutoCAD shot? Seems quite slick to me ..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
...just imagine what the USA might just have up there right now.
It's a Bagel.
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
There is a theory the lunch failure was intentional.
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.
As I said, it's nothing more than a theory I've heard articulated. I've no idea how much credability or plausibility it has.
Funny that the History Channel ran a show last night on disasters in the Soviet space program. What was very interesting was some seriously devistating disasters that the world at large never knew about until years after the wall came down. One was really impressive, the rocket exploded on the pad killing over 150 people and burning for hours. In another the rocket began to launch, but flipped sideways and dropped. The damage to the launch facility was so bad it took two years to get in back into usable shape. All the while Khrushchev was mocking the US efforts as backwards and offering assistance to a "backwards" nation. Meanwhile covering up their mega-disasters. So it makes you wonder what "really" happened to this thing.
but I could be wrong.
Blaze a trail to the New World
not informative. Click the link.
One thing i can tell you - Energia Corp now workin on Mars mission.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Ya know, the Bush administration really fascinates me. It really shows that although the Cold War is over, the USA hasn't lost its Cold War modes of thought. We're spending so much money and pulling so many dumb stunts in part because we seem to think that we're still standing off against some monolithic enemy that spans 10 time zones. (And yes, I mean to say "we." Don't forget who vote him in.)
I mean, this is the administration that was honestly pushing for the ballistic missile defense shield. And I think that this idea that the only way to make sure a country isn't going to stab us in the back is to make sure it is a republic comes straight out of a 15 years obsolete line of thinking that says that anything that isn't a democracy is going to be much more vulnerable to falling into the USSR's camp.
You step back for a moment, and it almost looks like the USA is some poor traumatized vet who still sometimes sees visions of a battlefield from long in the past and dives under tables to take cover from imaginary grenades and the like. Only you can't take time to feel sorry for him, because for all his raving lunacy, he's still the guy holding the biggest gun in the room.
Old ideas don't disappear, they simply shift.
stuff
Even while it was an awfully managed country, economically, the Russians pulled out some impressive engenieering feats, specially in the field of aeronautics. In the cold war days, it was all about conquering space, for some reason, and the USSR was right there - neck to neck with the USA. And they had the military power indeed, so they were, arguably, powerful.
If anything, the fall of the USSR saddened me for that very reason. It seems the true technological progress comes in times of war, even when it's a "cold" one.
Wel, yes please, just increment the number ;).
http://www.army.lv/photos/3987.jpg
Jeez,
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
"The Polyus was launched in May 1987 but a faulty sensor caused it to de-orbit into the South Pacific."
A lot of us call that "Crashing."
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
considering the time & a probable computation error
./ ... "Seems as though the Genesis spacecraft was able to launch from earth, travel through space, avoid aliens, and cruise back into the atmosphere to be caught by stunt pilots waiting patiently with their helicopters. Alas, the brakes didn't work because a sensor was designed upside down.
from
With all the advanced technology, nothing similar or remotedly comparable happens in the new millenium.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Wonder if they ever recovered anything?
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
No member of the Reagan or Bush administrations ever admitted or revealed publicly any knowledge of Polyus. The US Navy has made no statements about any attempts to investigate the wreckage of Polyus, which lies on the floor of the South Pacific.
For some reason the phrase "been there, done that" comes to mind.
Considering the amount of money spent on SDI, I can't imagine the US not going to great lengths to try to salvage the wreck in order to see what countermeasures the USSR was working on.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I mean, this is the administration that was honestly pushing for the ballistic missile defense shield.
Because its not like there are countries with nuclear weapons on ballistic launchers out there, or anything.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
If it wasn't for the very democratic China, the US couldn't grow any deficit at all - sense the irony of that...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Fortunately the launched satellite only had scientific equipment on board (or so they claim).
And I think that this idea that the only way to make sure a country isn't going to stab us in the back is to make sure it is a republic comes straight out of a 15 years obsolete line of thinking that says that anything that isn't a democracy is going to be much more vulnerable to falling into the USSR's camp.
The thinking seemed to be that what you really wanted was a good old fascist dictatorship. The US was more than happy to help destabilse democratic socialist governments, or ally with fascist regimes that overthrew them (e.g. Iran, Argentina, Chile).
Yes. A previous poster mentioned a large rocket prototype exploding on the launchpad and killing 150 people. That rocket was supposed to do the same job as the saturn rocket, but failed due to vibration problems ( I think it had 11 engines ). Energia is the rocket that they wanted to build in the 1960's. Its a fantastic design. It can loft Buran into space, or just a giant container, so it can lift quite a bit more than the shuttle could. If the russians can ever fund a major mars mission, Energia can launch just about anything they can think of.
I wonder if you would have thought the same if they started a nuclear war back in the 60's or 80's...
Maybe technological progress comes in times of war - yet people who forge that progress have to be born someday and have a chance to educate themselves.
With war around you - that's pretty tough...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
and only its booster fell into the sea.
Suppose it's really still up there?
But its orbit is decaying...
We'd have to get Eastwood and friends to go get it back into a safe orbit....
Waitaminit. Wasn't that in a movie a few years ago?
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
"Sorry. No Refunds."
Agreed the Energia is the best design out there at current, I keep hearing people talk about re-building the Saturn V program , WHY ? Yes it was good, but the Energia is much better for the same given role (and a heck of a lot shorter too:)
I agree - but 'regular wars' are not so technologically advancing. I never see African countries come up with great new weaponry because of their wars. Instead, they tend to head of in the complete opposite direction (chopping of heads instead of using bullets etc...), whereas our 'luxorious wars' permit us to actually invent stuff while we fend off the enemy at a distance.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I agree that the Russians are truly remarkable weaponsmiths however back in 46/47 when the UK actually led the world in aeronautics, Avro *gave* the Soviets the Nene jet engine to fit in the first Soviet fighter. Ah, those were the days!
If it was up to me, the MOD (UK Ministry Of Defence) would buy only German or Russian weaponry. Espeicially German subs as ours seem to catch fire a lot.
The CIA made sure they upped the ante by over-estimating the size and capability of the Soviet threat, although this was probably a mirror op.
h
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Not this time. The treaty forbade launching armed craft, but although this thing was slated as a weapons platform, the first unit was sent up without armaments, and no others went up because the project was scrapped with the fall of the Soviet Union.
Virg
Ballistic missile defense makes alot more sense today than it did during the Soviet era.
The Soviets had something like 12,000 warheads pointed at the US. A ballistic missile system that intercepted 98% of them (which is nothing like the actual ABM system being tested) would still leave two hundred or more nuclear detonations in the US.
If you consider the current threats from relatively poor states in the Middle East, North Korea or China, ballistic missile defence makes a hell of alot more sense. Even China only has a couple hundred ICBMs, and a credibile defence renders those launchers obsolete.
The popular notion that the demise of the Soviet Union has resulted in nuclear weapons going away is a dangerous illusion.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
How much use would that ballistic missle defense shield have been against our own aircraft? Oops, none at all! Damn.
How much use would that ballistic missle defense shield have been against a dirty bomb? Oops, none again! Hmm.
How much... hopefully you see the point. Many of the tactics of terrorist warfare do not make use of major weapons or missles and rockets. Not only does that tie them into one area, but that requires an infrastructure on the order of an entire nation to support and build. That is usually not something terrorists generally have the support of.
If terrorists strike again, then they are likely to make use of the loose security we have within our free society. Fertilizer bombs, dirty bombs (throw nuclear fissionable material all over the place), grab a few more planes, etc. We have enough 'non-standard' armaments within the US that they hardly have to even consider building their own, they just have to buy or steal it from within the US. (Now, this is not to say we should be ever fearful of the next joe that wants to take our lives, meerly to be aware of the reality of the situation.)
Now I ask you, what use is a ballistic missle defense shield when the threat to human life comes from inside that shield? If your answer is none, why should we invest billions in something that is not likely to be used?
Let's not forget the Robot Governor!
It's very interesting that this thing has ???-2 written on the side of it - Mir 2.
Bob
The problem with throwing an ICBM into the air, is that everyone will know where it came from, and you'll have them coming right back at you.
Build a weapon inside the country you want to attack, set it off, never claim responsibility. Then no one knows who did or how to get them back for it.
These types of threats are a lot more scary than China or North Korea throwing nukes around. They know we'll just throw some back at them. When we don't know who attacked us; or it wasn't a country, but a small group of people scattered around the earth, it's a lot harder to take any kind of retaliatory action.
What?
you mean with "president and congress"?
What?
"Now I ask you, what use is a ballistic missle defense shield when the threat to human life comes from inside that shield? If your answer is none, why should we invest billions in something that is not likely to be used?"
....I think this might be a reasonable answer. And while what you say about finding bomb material within the target is valid, smuggling a nuke is not as easy as it may seem.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
> You don't think that it's possible to intentionally sabotage an aircraft or spaceship by messing with its instrumentation?
Your miss is in your reasoning for sabotage. Catmeat said Gorbachev wanted to prevent a big space battle station from getting in the way of his overtures to the West, but the article stated that the first SKIF didn't have any weapons, it had scientific instruments, which is what Sai Babu meant by "instrumented". His argument is that there was no politically beneficial reason to order a non-combat-capable SKIF destroyed, and therefore it was more likely an accidental error.
Virg
lol, these are the same pictures I actually doctored up for a friend two years ago in photoshop. We added the satellite images to the base booster images for a proposed game prelude. Funny to seem someone running with them like they were real. I wonder how many slashdotters will get sucked into this one.
I still have the layer psd files if you want to see them. rotflmao!!!
Hmm, George W Bush, a .4 trillion dollar deficit and growing. Which country are you talking about?
You made a funny!
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
That's not going to work with this article, is it?
"the Russians pulled out some impressive engenieering feats, specially in the field of aeronautics"
Alas, photographic technology doesn't seem to have been a priority. Half the pictures I've seen of the Russian space program look like they could be shots of the Loch Ness Monster.
There is a theory the lunch failure was intentional. There is nothing I hate more than lunch failure.
you had me at #!
No accident, that. The strategy is known as "arm the enemy to death." If your economy can support a faster arms race than the other guy's for longer, you win.
Glad to see everyone's sense of humor is alive and well.
Please help metamoderate.
The designation 'MNP-2' can be seen on the side of the booster rockets in some of the photos. MNP is the Russian 'Mir', or 'peace'. Why would 'peace' be on this machinery? Sarcasm? Camoflauge? (after all, you would expect something like 'KillBot' on the side of a combat vehicle) Simple re-use of boosters from the Mir program? Or maybe hoax? ;-)
why isn't it?
"all about conquering space, for some reason."
Yes. Remove crew capsule; attach MIRV bus. Or do engine research for peaceful purposes, have engine knowledge for any other purposes. See the reason? Both sides got a lot of understanding and hardware that were useful for things other than planting the flag and collecting rocks.
And yes, the Soviet Union's science and technology people were darned good, and still to be respected no matter where the borders are drawn today.
I would have posted this earlier, but slashdot wasn't letting me post, so imagine this had been posted about 3 hours ago.
Am I the only person here is is opposed to the weaponization of space?
It costs too much, it's useless, and I doubt anyone else will feel safer at night knowing that there are space based missiles just above them waiting to go off.
George Bush at the trigger also isn't much better.
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
That sucker is impressive!
So why are we still running?
Play Command HQ online
Ha! This congress won't take piss with Cheney's say so.
Play Command HQ online
(sorry, it's my first Soviet Russia joke. Also my last)
would buy only German or Russian weaponry
Hmmm...you mean like the Torpedo's in the Kursk, which used a technology the Navy stopped using as the risk of explosion of the propulsion system was too great ?
As for the sub fire, there is no final cause released yet, although there is some evidence of a second fire being caused by an oxygen canister igniting.
Be afraid, very afraid.
Stock schmock, give me cash.
assuming that:
a) they all were fired
b) all those fired actually left the silos
c) all those actually launched were accurate to their targets (a scenario that has never, for obvious reasons, been tested)
d) that there was no fratricide between incoming missiles (again, never really been tested)
e) all the warheads actually fire as programmed
f) none were held back for a possible second strike
g) all those that get through a-f are targeted at different locations
In the immortal words of Gen. Buck Turgidson:
"I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed up, but 10-20 million tops, depending on the breaks."
The actual number doesn't really matter... the idea is that it is an unacceptably large number.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Does anybody have a laser proof tin foil hat I can borrow?
An extra layer, shiny side out, ought to do it. : )
You can't take the sky from me...
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Well, to be fair the Russians do have that other torpedo that works a tad better :)
MNP is the Russian 'Mir', or 'peace'. Why would 'peace' be on this machinery? Sarcasm? Camoflauge?
First of all: "camouflage"
Secondly: Si vis pace, para bellum.
Thirdly: This is too... too much. I'm leaning on the hoax thesis.
You can't take the sky from me...
Somehow I don't see this as being a problem for our current administration - Bush would just launch against whatever targets popped into his head (Iran, North Korea, California - you know, the axis of evil). God'll sort them out afterwards.
The problem with throwing an ICBM into the air, is that everyone will know where it came from, and you'll have them coming right back at you.
Build a weapon inside the country you want to attack
Or sneak it real near to the country you want to blow up, like with a submarine, see? And you asplode that country with no place to track the missile back to then its own waters.
Of course, it won't be all that hard to find out who's got subs with nukes in 'em, but the whole "tracking the launch" thing is null and void.
You can't take the sky from me...
Correct. 1 is an unacceptably large number.
Kruschev said 'We will bury you', NOT 'We will crush you'. The gist of the statement was that the stable soviet emptire would be around long after capitolism died under the weight of itself. Clearly he put too much stock in the long term survival of his government, but its not the same thing as claiming he wanted to dominate the west.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
In addition to aerospace, they made some amazing breakthroughs in submarine design as well, which cost them an unbelievable fortune.
The US certainly had the quiet sub well before they did, but by the time the Soviets brought a quiet sub out to play, it was leaps and bounds better than ours. Thankfully they were never able to afford to build too many of them.
Check out www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com/flash/ Hopefully China hasn't seen this one yet. SlashN
Is Wily Coyote trying to eat the Road Runner or just have sex with it?So why are we still running?
That strategy is known as "arm yourself to death."
But seriously, the "strategy" of "arming your enemies to death" presupposes that the Soviets are nice and rational people who will choose surrender over Armageddon. I hear nobody suggest that we should arm Osama to death.
Money isnt real, its all fake, the central banks can make as much as they want, currently at 5-7% of outstanding 'cash' out there is made each year out of thin air. Thats where russia failed, it wasnt internationally liquid enough, but the question is, did russia 'fail' on purpose to make USA think it was 'down' when it really was centralizing more and being more internaionally friendly. Whos to know if the whole cold war thing was a fake.
TOO MANY SECRETS!! make us live in a 'fake' world of illusions.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This is the second most illogical statement that American believe in (first place still belongs to the invisible omnipotent man in the sky, who invented moral and ethics, like Al Gore invented the Internet).
Even the linked articles show enough evidence to conclude that until the moment of USSR dissolution, the last things its government had to worry about is the amount of money (that they printed -- no FR and a pyramid of crooks), manpower (that was, according to the same "economists" under-used), or natural resources (that USSR exported). USSR government was scared shitless by the first economic recession in the post-WWII history, and being incompetent, it decided to do a complete overhaul of the economy, along with some political changes that made sense at the moment.
Since US is now in a deeper recession than one USSR had in 80's, I guess, we will see, how US government, lead by Bush who is even dumber than Gorbachev, will handle the same situation.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler.
Prove it, dumbass. All credible data shows otherwise.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Even while it was an awfully managed country, economically, the Russians pulled out some impressive engenieering feats, specially in the field of aeronautics.
Do you think the US would fare better with a centrally planned economy?
The economic growth statistics of the Soviet Union are impressive by international standards. The Soviet Union "collapsed" with a much bigger economy than it started with. What really happened is more complicated than that. Soviet leadership lost confidence in the future and was no longer willing to turn on the people on behalf of the revolution.
So the U.S. is in a recession? Deeper than the USSR in the 1980's?! Please take an econ class and prompty shut the fuck up about subjects you obviously have no command of.
the radioactive elements within the nuke can be detected via non invasive tests.
One of the worst nightmares of the cold war was the possibility of building a fusion bomb without a fission bomb to act as a primer for the fusion element, because such a bomb would have been virtually undetectable.
Think "diplomatic luggage " here. We're talking about the possible decapitation of a government, simply by detonating such a device in the capital city. Luckily it seems that such a device was never proofed.
Going back to the main topic, I always thought that Fractional Orbit Bombing system had been outlawed by the SALT treaties.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Well, my whole point was that this defense system is only effective against things that are shot into the air, have a stable trajectory, and are in the air long enough to realize it's something we need to shoot down.
It's so easy to circumvent such a defense system, that it's almost pointless to build it.
What?
I hate this misconception - the treaty that is constantly referred to only bans WMD in space (though it was originally written with only nuclear in mind, many contend that the wording extends its applicability to all WMDs). Conventional weapons are still fine, as evidenced by history: the Soviet Salyut space station had a 20mm automatic cannon on it which they tested in space. As well, the escape Soyuz on board the ISS contains a .22 pistol in case it lands in the wilderness (this was suggested by the russians because an older soviet soyuz mission had problems when the cosmonauts were unable to leave the capsul until the recovery team arrived several hours later because wolves surrounded the landing site).
/., the only two countries to sign that treaty were the US and the USSR, one of which no longer exists - does the treaty still have force?
I'm sure there are other examples of weapons in space - the point being that only nukes and WMDs are prohibited.
P.S. As pointed out before on
While the USSR was already on the way out due to the failings of numerous things (It wasn't just the Soviet economy, mainly it was that the people were simply tired of the Soviet loonies. The Soviet economy could have lasted a lot longer given that it was based on an active imagination and not an actual market), they certainly managed a number of fascinating things technically, such as the Energia rocket and Buran and the Venera venus landers.
Mainly though, this Polyus battle station shows what a waste the SDI initiative was in the first place, and more importantly, for today's world of Texas cowboys, what a waste the missile defense shield is. The huge amount of money wasted on lunatic plans to conquer space is easily countered with comparitively cheap countermeasure, be they a space based laser battlestation (why does the US think that China could not build one itself, with the same lack of hoo haa that the Russians had?) or a manouvering warhead.
But those big defense companies need to justify their existences, employees salaries, and profits, don't they?
On a completely unrelated note Bush just signed a bill putting the US 800 BILLION in debt.
Uh, I think you misspelled 8 trillion. Another 800 billion to the huge debt run up by Reagan and Bush Sr. Clinton left Bush with a surplus and a plan to pay off the debt. Bush cut taxes for the rich and borrowed 800 billion to pay for the tax cuts for his friends.
If you want lower taxes, you should demand higher taxes. carying a debt means that you are paying 25% more than you have to just to cover interest. Pay it off now, save a lot in the long run.
Learn to love Alaska
Baathist propaganda did a really good job of pumping up the apparent strength of the Iraqi arsenal too. Or a really bad job, depending on how you look at it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
http://www.army.lv/photos/3996.jpg
Looks like something from The Thunderbirds!
I'm not totally sure where you got your world history lessons from, but Iraq was the Soviet ally and Iran was the U.S. ally. For the Iran-Iraq war it was pretty much a field test of Soviet weapons vs. American weapons, with Iran possessing many U.S. made weapons bought primarily by the Shah.
Keep in mind that before 1979 Iran had a very strong working relationship with the USA. Most major multi-national companies had some sort of branch office in Iran, and there was substantial "westernizing" activities like radio stations playing American music, shopping malls, and even missionaries from American churches running around converting people to Christianity. I personally know some people who were civilians working in Iran when the U.S. embassy was sacked, and they have some very interesting stories about how they got out of the country...some by the skin of their teeth.
Iraq has been largely equiped with Soviet equipment including MiG aircraft and Russian built tanks that were even used in the Iraq war, with many Russian RPGs that are still being used against the U.S. Army even today. Saddam Hussein also had several pictures of Stalin around his palaces, and considered Stalin to be his "hero" of what a good leader should be like. Saddam did a pretty good job of following his example, didn't he?
I will admit that during the Reagan administration there were some minor attempts to become friendlier to Iraq, but to call Iraq a U.S.-backed country totally misses the mark. Up until the fall of the Berlin Wall were there substantial number of Soviet advisors in Iraq, and Iraq was always influenced by Soviet policy much more than American. Keep in mind that there was an East German embassy in Iraqi occupied Kuwait, to give a historical timeline to events in Soviet Russia. And clearly Iraq after the Gulf War was never a U.S. client state by any stretch of the imagination.
Soviet Russia did try to support Iran, but keep in mind that while the USA was the "Great Satan", the USSR was called and considered the "Lesser Satan", according to the Iranian government under Kohmenni, and to kill a Soviet soldier was just as worthy as killing an American. While somewhat diminished, Iran still has this same attitude, even about the Russian Republic.
Mir-2 should have been the successor of the science station MIR. Parts of it are incorparated into the ISS. Mir-2 has nothing to do with this "battle station" Polyus.
Funny thing right now is that much of the border isn't well guarded. For example, Oregon has miles upon miles of coastline that anyone can come ashore on, carrying whatever they like, and there are not nearly enough highway patrol members around to watch it all. Once it is within the borders, while it is still detectable fairly easily, most materials can be shipped around without too much of a hassle.
Besides, it doesn't even have to be anything fancy like Plutonium or Uranium. It could be sufficient quantities of radioactive dye or other such materials. All it has to do is be radioactive and be in sufficient quantities to cause illness over a wide area. Dirty bombs don't actually make nuclear explosions.
It's so easy to circumvent such a defense system
...ok, maybe just his initials.
It never occurred to me that this is a defense system. I had a vision of a russian general writing his name in giant burning letters (only visible from space) across Boston...
I was thinking "offense", see.
You can't take the sky from me...
I was referring to George Bush's attempts to implement Reagan's Star Wars plan.
What?
If you read further, I said German submarines. And probably torpedoes. The last decent torpedo the UK produced was the Mk8 for WW2. The RN used Mk 8s to sink the Belgrano.
Since the 2WW, Brit torpedoes have been expensive and unreliable: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTBR_PostWWII.htm We - or at least Marconi or Plessey or whoever the du jour incompetents were - seem to have a problem producing the things.
In 1984, we'd spent 5 billion on the Tigerfish, Spearfish and Stingray and that's *before* the "get it right" consolidation programs of the 90s. And that's to get it up to success rate of 80%. Umm. I'd like my money back and Marconi/Plessey hung out to dry, thankyou.
At least we had the sense to buy US cruise missles.
I'd go for Russian aeronautical engineering *any* day.
I have to go now. My keyword usage has probably set off alarm bells somewhere...
h.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Are you sure it's not the missing 'personnal' part of the secret Goldorak project?
I remember a show aired once on either History or Discovery channel, i can't recall, about the developement of nuclear subs in the cold war.
Basically, the US wanted to learn about how the Russian subs were built, so they sent a spy wearing shoes with sticky soils, so small metal fragments would return with the spy, undetected. They found that the hull of their subs was made mostly of titanium alloy. US oness were made of steel, welded by hand, by a crew that had to work in very difficult conditions - working in constricted spaces and sometimes having to check their weld joints with mirrors. They thought titanium was too expensive and very difficult, if not impossible, to weld correctly.
Turns out the Russians had built a special hangar with pressurized gas that allowed the metal to be welded. They actualy developed a new metal welding techinque just to build those hulls, which of course had a resistance unseen at the time.
Also, check my link, a few parent posts above, about their supercavitating torpedoes, which they have working right now. Those travel underwater at 10m/sec, and for a sub it would be like dodging a bullet.
Yes, those guys are a force to be reckoned with.
http://www.militaryphotos.net.nyud.net:8090/forums /viewtopic.php?t=30510
And speaking of people, amazing how not one photo has a single person in it. Giant boosters, complex machinery, huge manufacturing centers... And no one single person. Not even independent ground vehicals.
And yeah, it does look like the Thunderbirds. If I stare long enough, I could swear I see the strings.
I'm calling BS Flag, 30 yard line. It may be legit, but somebody is gonna have to do better than those photographs.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Cool. Your right, I was thinking vaguely about the type designation, which my brain translated into 11 engines. Thanks for the extra info.
I lived in USSR then, and I am in US now, so I certainly can make comparison much better than propaganda workers that write your "economy" classes.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
GDP can be manipulated easier than Enron accounting, and the current government looks quite proficient in this form of art.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Following that show was a very interesting program on Siberia last night... did anyone happen to catch it as well?
If I ain't married by the age of 30 (7 more years) I'm gonna fly to Siberia and pick myself up a 14 year old wife and bring her back to the US! Siberian women are HOT!
Libertas in infinitum
Yes, he is (he isn't dead yet). And he definitely wasn't any smarter in 80's than he is now. Also he had shitty education, no understanding of economy (less than all his predecessors, Khruschev and Brezhnev included, Chernenko excluded), used his own retarded-sounding pronunication of various words, and was eager to leap ahead when it suited his understanding of ideology without doing any analysis... Hey, wait! Bush can be described in exactly the same terms! US has a bright future, indeed.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
People aren't irrational, regardless of what you might like to believe. Islamic militants have very good and ligitimate reasons for what they do
I notice you make this assertion yet provide no such reasons. Because there aren't any.
Suicide is irrational; it is intentionally removing yourself from the gene pool from that point on. While this is a good thing in some people's cases, it's exceptional rude to remove other people because of your own screwed up politics.
His remark may depend on a couple of things:
1. Do you include figures from before WW2? This would include the 'Kulaks' who starved or were sent to Gulags in the 30s. AFAIK there are no accurate figures for this.
2. Do you include figures for Russian soldiers who died through mismanagement?
I personally don't know if either of these figures would be large enough to have an effect.
meh
im certainly no expert - but some of the images seem to me a little suspect.
this isint to say i doubt its possible
First of all, a person who writes "GULAG" in plural has no business discussing Russian history. This is as bad as "rumors on the internets".
"Kulaks" were sent to exile and prison camps, and that definitely was one of the worst things Stalin did, however their numbers at any time were around a million-something people, of whom less than half a million died before WWII -- and that includes natural mortality among the exiled. Still horrible, but hardly Hitler's scale, where count was in tens of millions.
I understand that some "historians" are eager to pin all WWII deaths on Stalin, however this is just stupid. It was Nazi war, Hitler was the aggressor, and it was German military that attacked USSR, after conquering Europe, so every soldier who died in a battle, and every civilian killed on the occupied territory by Nazi was his responsibility. Without Nazi, those people would live, and this is what matters.
It's also worth to be mentioned that Hitler's victims weren't all Jewish, so numbers that are mentioned as Holocaust statistics are not the total count, as some people want to present them. The number of USSR citizens alone, killed in WWII is somewhere around 27 millions, this is far beyond the scale of "jewish-only" version of Holocaust.
Stalin can be accused of being incompetent in handling of defense, but it does not make him a butcher -- other things do. Hatred toward Stalin is not based on the number of his victims, it's based on the fact that those were the very people that he was supposed to protect (or be allied with, in case of Poland), on the lies that his government used to support that, and on his hypocrisy, and atmosphere of fear that he used to achieve his goals. Hitler is less impressive -- merely a very honest, consistent racist pig, grown to a scale that can't be understood without seeing it, but despite being such a trivial person from the modern point of view, he is many, many times more of a butcher than Stalin ever was.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Actually, we might. With Iran and North Korea wanting to sell meterial on the black market (let the terrorist do their bidding 2nd party), launching a first-strike against them would NOT be out of the question. Hell, even the Clinton administration had plans in place for a nuclear attack on N. Korea as a backup plan.
The point being, peaceful negotiations should always be your first choice. But when push comes to shove, military tactics should brought to the table as well.
Life is not for the lazy.
About the treaty still having force, I think Russia legally assumed the rights and responsibilities of the USSR. I can't google up anything very authoritative, but a number of sites have statements like this:
The Russian Federation continues, as from 24 December 1991, the membership of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the United Nations and maintains, as from that date, full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations and multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
First of all, a person who writes "GULAG" in plural has no business discussing Russian history. This is as bad as "rumors on the internets".
Thanks for the correction. I am aware that this refers to a geographical locality, rather than a general word used to describe a labour camp (even though it used that way).
"Kulaks" were sent to exile and prison camps, and that definitely was one of the worst things Stalin did, however their numbers at any time were around a million-something people, of whom less than half a million died before WWII -- and that includes natural mortality among the exiled. Still horrible, but hardly Hitler's scale, where count was in tens of millions.
You missed one of the points there: starvation. The decisions of Stalin caused widescale stavation in the country. There are no figures for how many people starved at this time, but the number could well be signifigant (millions).
I understand that some "historians" are eager to pin all WWII deaths on Stalin, however this is just stupid. It was Nazi war, Hitler was the aggressor, and it was German military that attacked USSR, after conquering Europe, so every soldier who died in a battle, and every civilian killed on the occupied territory by Nazi was his responsibility. Without Nazi, those people would live, and this is what matters.
Agreed.
It's also worth to be mentioned that Hitler's victims weren't all Jewish, so numbers that are mentioned as Holocaust statistics are not the total count, as some people want to present them. The number of USSR citizens alone, killed in WWII is somewhere around 27 millions, this is far beyond the scale of "jewish-only" version of Holocaust.
I am well aware of German history during and around WW2.
Stalin can be accused of being incompetent in handling of defense, but it does not make him a butcher -- other things do. Hatred toward Stalin is not based on the number of his victims, it's based on the fact that those were the very people that he was supposed to protect (or be allied with, in case of Poland), on the lies that his government used to support that, and on his hypocrisy, and atmosphere of fear that he used to achieve his goals. Hitler is less impressive -- merely a very honest, consistent racist pig, grown to a scale that can't be understood without seeing it, but despite being such a trivial person from the modern point of view, he is many, many times more of a butcher than Stalin ever was.
I think that the various purges also contribute to the hatred of Stalin. Much of Hitler's destructive energy was devoted to external enemies, Stalin devoted a lot energy to internal 'enemies'. (Note that I said most, I am aware that there were plenty of Germans in concentration camps). I guess I am re-hashing your point though, these were people he was supposed to protect.
meh
Thanks for the correction. I am aware that this refers to a geographical locality, rather than a general word used to describe a labour camp (even though it used that way).
GULAG is not a geographical locality, and anyone who think that, is ignorant enough to have no right to discuss those things. Shut up until you learn something.
You missed one of the points there: starvation. The decisions of Stalin caused widescale stavation in the country. There are no figures for how many people starved at this time, but the number could well be signifigant (millions).
Starvation only happened in one region, so it could not possibly be an intentional result of consistent policy. Similar things happened in other countries many times over the history, and no one considers them equal to mass murder.
I am well aware of German history during and around WW2.
Either, you are not, or you are really bad at math.
Much of Hitler's destructive energy was devoted to external enemies
Much of Hitler's destructive energy was devoted to attacking countries that weren't Germany's enemies in the first place (like, say, USSR), however Hitler definitely did not distinguish between people of "lesser race" who lived within and outside Germany. It's just modern Americans consider racism to be a lesser evil than the image of the Communist enemy that their propaganda painted over half a century.
Stalin devoted a lot energy to internal 'enemies'. (Note that I said most, I am aware that there were plenty of Germans in concentration camps). I guess I am re-hashing your point though, these were people he was supposed to protect.
In other words, you are fully aware that Hitler outdid Stalin in every kind of butchery and genocide, yet you choose to ignore it because it does not support things that your propaganda was telling you, with no base in fact, for a few decades. Way to go.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
have anything substantial or are you just being a monkey.
No, just the numbers published and agreed to by the Republican congress. They said it was a surplus. So, are you calling the Republicans liars?
Learn to love Alaska
At what point did I say that I thought Stalin was a worse butcher than Hitler? I think you actually need to read my comments rather than spouting off. But thanks for the (further) correction on GULAG. I clearly do not have any right to discuss such things until I do have a better understanding. As for propogande, I have never lived in the US, so I have been spared that to some extent.
meh
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.