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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."
I think there's probably a big difference between making a rocket which can reach escape velocity and being able to target a specific location thousands of miles away.
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
Thank you.
John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962
839*929
iran doesnt invade any country actively, but they invade them through the religious terorrist organizations they fund. hezbollah, hamas, ibda-c, numerous groups trying to invade pakistan, afghanistan are just a few.
much more annoying and dangerous.
Read radical news here
The mark of a civilised mind would be to celebrate this achievement. Those gripped by tribal paranoia, searching for ways to disparage the Iranians should take a good look at themselves (I'm mainly looking at you now Americans). Relax, I've played football with some Iranian guys seen for myself in the shower, their dicks are not significantly bigger than the average Western male.
I think there's probably a big difference between making a rocket which can reach escape velocity and being able to target a specific location thousands of miles away.
There is. In reality, this is more akin to Sputnik than an ICBM.
Nevertheless, we and the Soviets started like this, and it didn't take many years before both we and they had intercontinental capability in weapons delivery. Furthermore, the Iranians (and everyone else interested in near-space) have the advantage of knowing what can be accomplished. We and the Russians did not, and spent a lot of time and money figuring that out.
They also don't have to come up with anything akin to a Saturn V or Energia heavy-lift booster to become a real threat, if they want to be. Why they'd want to be on the U.S. and Soviet target list is beyond me though. Being a nuclear power today (even a nuclear superpower) is risky business, no matter how you slice it.
Honestly, I'm not really all that worried about this: a cruise missile is a lot cheaper to develop and deploy than an ICBM, and damn near as deadly.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If it's as simple as all that, why is there a list equally as long, of countries that were unsuccessful? I think calling it routine is naive.
I have never heard of a ballistic missile that could not be tracked back to its point of origin. That means if Iran ever launches a missile as a weapon it'll be her last.
Here in the States, we spend our resources on making sure that everyone can get TV reception and we spend money on lawsuits so that "Intelligent Design" can be taught in science class. In developing countries, science, engineering and medicine are a kid's dream career. Here, it's being famous for some reason - usually for getting drunk and doing outrageous things.
Iran isn't the only country doing this.
I can see where this AC is coming from. Iran seems to be doing a good job these last few years, but people still give them a bad rap. This isn't the first headline I've seen with something positive about Iran. If anyone actually bothers reading a bio, you'll see that Ahmadinejad has been doing a really nice job compared to his predecessors. For example, he reestablished relations with the US after 30 years of the silent treatment. That sounds like a step in the right direction to me.
I just hope the intelligent, calm, undiscriminating folk on slashdot can give Iran a chance. Both of them.
Iraq: Invaded another country, didn't have powerful friends.
North Korea: Hasn't invaded another country since the 1950s, has powerful friends in Russia and China, and has enough conventional artillary already positioned to flatten Seoul within an hour.
Nukes aren't the only reason for the current situation.
Dear Sir,
I understand your request for mobilization, I understand that the Western world is in great peril. Please be assured of my everlasting support to your cause against these 1500 years (or 3000 years or something...) old enemies. I would be glad to help but I am currently too busy digging some trenches to protect me from our neighbors. See, my nation is fighting since 1000 years (or 2000 or whatever) against the Germanic people. Our feud is so old that I think reconciliation may prove impossible. All we can do is arm for war.
Please be assured of my deepest sympathy
A French guy.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
It's not a very difficult engineering problem.
Riiiight... That's why the term "rocket scientist" is used as a synonym for intelligence - because the engineering is so easy anyone can do it...
Oh wait, it requires expertise in (per wikipedia) fluid mechanics, structural mechanics, orbital mechanics, flight dynamics, physics, mathematics, control engineering, materials science, aeroelasticity, avionics, reliability engineering, noise control, and flight testing among other domains. Yeah, real easy.
that hasn't made threats to wipe neighbors off the map, allowed criminals within it's own population to overrun foreign embassies and supplied terrorist groups with financial support/weapons.
Just to be clear, are you talking about Iran or the US here?
Recall that is came out that Nixon was buying weapons in China and sending them through Russia to Afghani "freedom fighters". The same guys we call "insurgants" today. And that was 30 years ago. It didnt stop happening, they just cover it up better these days. Cept for Col. North who got caught.
Need Mercedes parts ?
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?
Because the former can go from "mere deterrent" to "enemy city exploding" in an hour, can't be countered without even more advanced technology, and gives you deterrence value for decades. The latter can go from "act of war that we'd better hope nobody discovers" to "enemy port city exploding" in days, doesn't work well if the enemy is on heightened enough alert to search or blockade approaching vans and ships, can't be demonstrated without actually committing an act of war, and so is relatively useless as a deterrent. Vans may be the delivery system of choice for terrorists planning surprise attacks, but nations hoping to commit other acts of war without reprisal are going to want nuclear weapons that can be effectively brandished without being used.
Not that I'm accusing Iran of plotting wars; the same deterrence tactics for a nation that wants to get away with an invasion apply even more strongly one that is just afraid of being invaded.
No army before WW2 eh? So how did we fight world war one? How did we fight the civil war? How did we fight all those wars before then?
We had a policy to stay out of European affairs but we damn sure had an army. We changed that policy after being dragged into two world wars and seeing the tragic loss of life they caused.
Sure, we do have a lot of bases worldwide but many of them are because of defensive treaties. For example our bases in Japan are there for defensive purposes and were used for reconstruction of Japan after the war, same with Germany.
Also, a lot of them are holdovers from the cold war in which we prevented the soviets from taking over Europe. Or do all you Europeans want to be praising the soviet motherland?
I'm Canadian, and I feel the same way about GW.
Maybe we should just go with "Politicians of any form should not be allowed to control weapons of any form."
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
It explains why the US didn't invade North Vietnam, or bomb China in the 50s, or make a real attempt at invading Cuba. It's why neither side pushed too far in 1973.
To quote Mr. Slade again:
When a country first acquires nuclear weapons it does so out of a very accurate perception that possession of nukes fundamentally changes it relationships with other powers. What nuclear weapons buy for a New Nuclear Power (NNP) is the fact that once the country in question has nuclear weapons, it cannot be beaten. It can be defeated, that is it can be prevented from achieving certain goals or stopped from following certain courses of action, but it cannot be beaten. It will never have enemy tanks moving down the streets of its capital, it will never have its national treasures looted and its citizens forced into servitude. The enemy will be destroyed by nuclear attack first. A potential enemy knows that so will not push the situation to the point where our NNP is on the verge of being beaten. In effect, the effect of acquiring nuclear weapons is that the owning country has set limits on any conflict in which it is involved. This is such an immensely attractive option that states find it irresistible.
Only later do they realize the problem. Nuclear weapons are so immensely destructive that they mean a country can be totally destroyed by their use. Although our NNP cannot be beaten by an enemy it can be destroyed by that enemy. Although a beaten country can pick itself up and recover, the chances of a country devastated by nuclear strikes doing the same are virtually non-existant. [This needs some elaboration. Given the likely scale and effects of a nuclear attack, its most unlikely that the everybody will be killed. There will be survivors and they will rebuild a society but it will have nothing in common with what was there before. So, to all intents and purposes, once a society initiates a nuclear exchange its gone forever]. Once this basic factor has been absorbed, the NNP makes a fundamental realization that will influence every move it makes from this point onwards. If it does nothing, its effectively invincible. If, however, it does something, there is a serious risk that it will initiate a chain of events that will eventually lead to a nuclear holocaust. The result of that terrifying realization is strategic paralysis.
With that appreciation of strategic paralysis comes an even worse problem. A non-nuclear country has a wide range of options for its forces. Although its actions may incur a risk of being beaten they do not court destruction. Thus, a non-nuclear nation can afford to take risks of a calculated nature. However, a nuclear-equipped nation has to consider the risk that actions by its conventional forces will lead to a situation where it may have to use its nuclear forces with the resulting holocaust. Therefore, not only are its strategic nuclear options restricted by its possession of nuclear weapons, so are its tactical and operational options. So we add tactical and operational paralysis to the strategic variety. This is why we see such a tremendous emphasis on the mechanics of decision making in nuclear powers. Every decision has to be thought through, not for one step or the step after but for six, seven or eight steps down the line.
We can see this in the events of the 1960s and 1970s, especially surrounding the Vietnam War. Every so often, the question gets asked "How could the US have won in Vietnam?" with a series of replies that include invading the North, extending the bombing to China and other dramatic escalations of the conflict. Now, it should be obvious why such suggestions could not, in the real world, be contemplated. The risk of ending up in a nuclear war was too great. For another example, note how the presence of nuclear weapons restricted and limited the tactical and operational options available to both sides in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In effect neither side could push the war to a final conclusion because to do so would bring down nuclear
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Respect. The USA does not treat countries without nukes with the same kind of respect as they do otherwise.
US:"Iraq, you have nukes and we must stop you immediately."
Iraq:"No we don't. Look, inspect all you like."
[Iraq is invaded]
US:"North Korea, you have nukes and we must stop you immediately."
North Korea:"Damned right we do. What are you going to do about it?"
[North Korea is ignored]
The ______ Agenda
That list is so redudant, A) every thing on the list is a subset of mathematics
I am an engineer and if you think engineering is nothing more than a subset of mathematics you don't understand engineering. There are many aspects to engineering that have nothing whatsoever to do with mathematics. With a little poetic license math could rightly be called the language of engineering but that does not make engineering a sub domain of mathematics. Math is indispensable to the study and practice of science and engineering but don't ever confuse the the tool with the discipline.
how many new countries have we annexed in the past couple of decades
Nicaraugua, Panama, and in 03 the CIA tried to overthrow Chavez./p>
Ok, that brings the count to zero. Got any more? (Oddly enough, this list doesn't include any of your suggestions.)
This for a country that had no army before WWII.
LOL. Seeing nonsense like this modded up to +5 really turns me off to reading slashdot comments anymore. Metamods, are you reading this?
So how did we fight world war one? How did we fight the civil war? How did we fight all those wars before then?
By drafting civilians into a temporary army for a specific war, as opposed to hiring them for a government career in a standing army.
No army before WW2 eh? So how did we fight world war one? How did we fight the civil war? How did we fight all those wars before then? We had a policy to stay out of European affairs but we damn sure had an army. We changed that policy after being dragged into two world wars and seeing the tragic loss of life they caused. Sure, we do have a lot of bases worldwide but many of them are because of defensive treaties. For example our bases in Japan are there for defensive purposes and were used for reconstruction of Japan after the war, same with Germany. Also, a lot of them are holdovers from the cold war in which we prevented the soviets from taking over Europe. Or do all you Europeans want to be praising the soviet motherland?
What gp meant was we had no large standing army. At the end of each conflict before the Second World War, units were disbanded back to a peacetime force level. After the Second World War we did not continue this routine, but built up forces in Europe and Asia to maintain deterrence against the Soviets - even though we were in peacetime. Eisenhower had the foresight to warn against the rising Military-Industrial complex forming in the US, but we didn't care because the Commies were going to come get us in our sleep and we had to be ready. Since the Soviets don't exist to produce that fear anymore, we had to scramble for something else to hang on to. Towelheads and terrorists are now the reason for a large standing army and continuous military operations to feed the machine. And they're all going to get nukes and make us all Muslims and kill us. Thus we extend our military influence further abroad. Whether we claim to own the territories we are in or not is irrelevant, we have military presence that allows us to influence other nations to our will. Do me a favor and try to point out the nearest foreign military base on US soil. When your military is extended throughout the world but the rest of the world is not extended in your own nation, you are an empire, whether you have territorial claims or not.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Do we really have to turn this into a discussion of nuclear weapons? Can't we just accept this at face value -- a very difficult technical achievement made all the more impressive for occurring in a country that's under international sanctions designed to prevent, among other things, advancements in the field of rocketry?
Yes, nuclear missile technology is closely related to satellite launch technology. Yes, future iterations of this could potentially be adapted into payload delivery systems. Yes, Iran has been provocative in the past. But they're not doing offensive missile tests. They're not doing war games. They're not trying to be provocative here -- they launched a satellite, not a bomb. A satellite called Hope. This isn't a message to the world screaming, "Fear Us!". This is a message to the world asking, "Respect Us."
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Really, grow up. War isn't a game.
I think it is maybe perceived more so by the USA as the majority of their citizens have not experienced a modern war on their own mainland territory. For many people in other countries the experience of war is more direct and people are less likely to be so gung-ho about it. Mainland USA was untouched in the major conflicts of the twentieth century. While terrible events were unfolding the lights were on in Main Street, small town America and you could walk down that street eating ice cream as if nothing was happening. I honestly believe this has given Americans a profoundly different idea of what a war is from the majority of the rest of the world.
Don't talk lightly of wars, they are certainly not games.
This notion that we must intervene in any government we don't like is exactly why we're in the position we're in now with the Middle East.
We don't like Mossadeq, we intervene to overthrow him, despite his being democratically elected. Khomeini replaces our hand-picked Shah, so we support Saddam Hussein in his ridiculously unjust war against Iran.
This is the most obvious example; but we've been through this in a half-dozen South American countries as well. We have no sense of time in this country. We don't take the long view of anything, anything at all.
And by the way, I do remember the Cold War. I've done a duck and cover drill. I've been afraid of the Russians. We acted with more measure and reason when we worried about the killing the planet. As it is now, we'll do anything if it just involves killing regionally.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Except, you know, all that territory we took from Indian nations. And from Mexico. And from the Kingdom of Hawaii, though that was covert activity backed up by U.S. military forces rather than all-out war.
But you don't have to make an area a state: you can make it a U.S. territory, like we did in the Philippines, though we decided they were more trouble then they were worth. We still have the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Mariana Islands.
Generally, though, we're preferred the neocolonial approach: you can run your own affairs so long as your governance is compatible with U.S. economic interests. You get in the way, you get toppled. A lot less trouble than running things directly.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Yes, because it's applicable technology (as you later admit).
Given Iran's recent history of sabre-rattling, I don't see why we can't be skeptical.
I don't really see what the name of the satellite has to do with the fact that Iran has proven it is fast approaching the capability to launch payloads. Whether those payloads will be for peaceful or wartime purposes remains to be seen. However, given President Ahmadinejad's statements over the last couple of years, I think it's important to take this demonstration and its purpose with a healthy dose of suspicion.
He who has no
Of course you can't let it slide, because I'm certain you believe everything they do is exclusively for peaceful purposes. Just like other launches they've done.
I don't recall mentioning Israel in my post. Odd.
It would be fantastic if my point would have been taken at face value. Iran's President has been making a variety of strong statements for quite some time now, and I'm not going to enumerate through a healthy list when Google can provide more than enough articles to illustrate my point. The simple truth to the matter is that Iran's strong words and sabre-rattling imply that we need to take the purposes of this launch with a healthy dose of skepticism. Is that too much to ask?
I wasn't debating what bearing the US' history has had on Iran's statements as of late. I'm simply pointing out that their statements are indicative of ulterior motives with regards to demonstrations like this launch.
He who has no
> Of course you can't let it slide, because I'm certain you believe everything they do is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. Let me clarify, I don't believe everything they do is for peaceful purposes, just like I don't believe everything WE do is for peaceful purposes.
> I'm not going to enumerate through a healthy list when Google can provide more than enough articles to illustrate my point
I would like you to actually point me to the text of any speech of Ahmadinejad's where he threatens any state with military action. Just one. Most of the articles you speak of are basically recycling the whole "Iran is evil/wipe us off the mat" meme and most of it based not on Ahmadinejad's rhetoric, but on our politician's rhetoric. i.e. no different to the whole "US is evil" meme that pervades most of the rest of the world (and with a similar level of evidence to back it up).
How different are Ahmadinejad's speeches regarding the US from say, Reagan's speech about the "evil empire" (USSR)?
> their statements are indicative of ulterior motives
Indeed. Same applies to our guys too.
Ever looked at how much of our electricity is generated from oil? A tiny percentage. Why? Because oil is very expensive per unit energy. It's always better to sell it and make your power another way. It'd probably be cheaper for them to sell their oil and import coal from halfway around the world than to burn the oil (certainly last summer it would have been; not so sure now).
That's not to say that Iran *doesn't* want to have nuclear weapons. But there's a completely rational explanation to not want to burn oil for power. If gold burned, would you suggest that gold-rich nations burn their gold for power?
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.