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Iran Has Put a Satellite Into Orbit
Dekortage writes "'Dear Iranian nation, your children have placed the first indigenous satellite into orbit,' announced Iran's President Ahmadinejad yesterday. The satellite, named Omid ('hope'), was launched to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Video shown on Iranian television shows a Safir-2 rocket rising into the sky, as a follow-up to a test firing last August."
from cnn:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/03/iran.satellite/index.html
"The United States has confirmed that Iran launched a low-earth orbit satellite on Monday night, two U.S. officials told CNN's Barbara Starr. "
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
"Acting up"? *Sigh* Why do I respond to trolls?
Go read a bit of modern Iranian history, before you fall back on stereotypes of Islam-vs-the-rest-of-the-world. If it hadn't been for our meddling (oh, overthrowing governments, oil grabs etc--none of this is controversial), Iran would not be in confrontation with us today. Twenty years after the revolution, they tried peace overtures, but Bush decided instead to dub them an "Axis of Evil" (wow, thank god our era of world-as-cartoon presidents is over). I can't understand your claim of Iran expanding its values into Israel.
We have no right to overthrow other people's governments, and even less right to act surprised when they get pissed over it. And speaking of Israel: when they behave all might is right, others are going to try to acquire might to counter that.
Lies about crimes
To that end, I suppose that those who would argue that strategic missile defense cannot be built, or that militarization of space should be avoided, or that Iran is not a threat, need to rethink that.
Strategic missile defense is a waste of money and effort, equivalent to airport metal detectors. They're security theater - if successful, they may prevent an attack from that vector, but their real value lies in making the citizens feel safer and deterring attempts along that one vector.
Problem is, there are so many other vectors that are easier - millions if not billions of shipping containers enter the US each year entirely uninspected. Why mess with a launch and guidance system able to withstand launch and reentry stresses when you could just build a Fat Man and put it in the back of a van?
Want a scarier idea? Say we do start inspecting all the shipping containers to enter the country... where would we do it? Probably dockside in major coastal cities, so even if we do happen to check the right container, a simple deadman switch would still make for a successful attack.
Defense is not the solution, and security theater is just a waste.
Was being lazy...after digging a little
"Two objects from the launch, likely the Omid satellite and part of its booster, are circling Earth in oval-shaped orbits.
The orbits range in altitude from low points of 153 miles to high points of 235 miles and 273 miles. The orbital inclination is 55.5 degrees, according to U.S. military tracking data."
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sfn-090203-iran-satellite-launch.html
You should try getting the story right at least. Accuracy is a basic requirement for being taken seriously. You aren't even close.
The Soviets (Russians) had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Immediately afterwards, Carter (not Nixon) approved sending arms to the insurgents within the country. This policy was continued by the Reagan Administration. The Soviets withdrew in 1989 with their tails between their legs. This was all above-board, the US made no bones about opposing this and arming the insurgents.
The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua was aligned with Moscow and Havana which was unacceptable to most people in the US. From the instant that the Sandinista regime was in power (1977), there was a homegrown insurgency against the communist-dominated regime. The US began assisting the insurgents shortly thereafter. However, some Massachusetts and NYC Democrat types managed to get a set of amendments collectively called the Boland Amendment tacked onto some other bills which specifically instructed the DoD, CIA and ultimately the rest of the US Government to cease supporting the Contras. In this context, the Iran-Contra Affair occurred. Finally, we get to Ollie North.
I recommend reading the talk page on the Contras. The disagreements there, while profound, are also enlightening to show how much politics affect remembrance of the past.
Sheesh, kids these days. No one remembers the Cold War.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Apollo 11 ran on an insanely sucky chip
Apollo 11 (and all the others) actually ran on a shitload of NOR gates, the single chip CPU not having been invented yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
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"There is. In reality, this is more akin to Sputnik than an ICBM."
Sputnik was launched with an ICBM -an R-7 to be exact.
Sig this!
Apples and oranges. An accidental bombing under the fog of war hardly compares to overrunning a foreign embassy and holding the people therein hostage for over a year.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Really? When exactly did this happen, in the lead up to the last invasion? UN inspectors were in Iraq only days before the US invaded and only left because the UN told them to get the hell out before the US started dropping high-explosives on their heads. Hans Blix was telling the UN Security Council flat out that Iraq was complying with the inspections and essentially pleaded for more time to complete the inspections before the US decided that Iraq had WMD. The US ignored all of that and invaded anyway.
Some people have fucking short memories.