Slashdot Mirror
Russia Confirms Failed Missile Launch Caused Norway's Light Show
Ch_Omega writes "According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway Wednesday morning local time has been confirmed to be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that '...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine Dmitri Donskoy. Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occurred during the third stage.' There is also an article on this at The Daily Mail."
And all this time I seriously thought that it was some unimaginably interesting plot all about a russian missile program, underwater subs and secrecy beyond everyone's wildest imagination. Wait... what?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
There was once a time that Russia would have just kept schtum. How many UFO reports are due to similar failed firings prior to the end of the Cold War?
Sometimes, that really is what happens. Put a buoy out there, with a camera to record the missile reaching its target, or not. The delivery system and the detonation system are not necessarily joined-at-the-hip.
So happy not to be living in the cold war. Today, I like to think it's harder for fictional missiles to start WW3. Fewer false positives. Of course, here the missile was actually launched...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Because White Sea is free of ice year round. For that reason most major submarine bases and shipyards are located on its coast. Most of Russia's coastline is devoid of infrastructure needed to support naval operations or whatever they still have left.
It was happening at quite high altitude, visible from vast distance, so it wasn't really at the doorstep of Norway, probably.
Plus Russia doesn't have exactly that much of a coastline as the first glance at many typical maps would suggest - the northern regions are quite close to the north pole, so they end up heavily "distorted" in certain map projections.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It was supposed to detonate over the polar cap and melt it to shut up the global warming deniers.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
That was no danged failed launch of a missile. Has anyone seen the images? This reply by the Russians is a coverup. This event was far, far bigger in scope and influence. This event was viewed by people, there was no mention of a rocket or a missile, besides how could a device like a missile scribe a path in the sky like that, and then break off with a blue spiral? Ugh. These people must think we are so stupid. This is a spiritual event, not a rocket event. blackcrow.
Worse, Russia doesn't really have a lot of ice-free coastline, especially during the winter. And the few they do have can easily be blocked from the open sea by NATO countries.
It was one of the big issues during the cold wars, afaik even one of the core reasons for the Vietnam war.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Given the out of control spiral pattern maybe Vodka wasn't the best choice for rocket fuel even if it was greener.
This is a really cool new kind of fireworks. I've never seen one do this before.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
...Like in 1986 when it took radiation alarms going off in fucking SWEDEN before they admitted that they had literally nuked a city or two...
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/al_gore_caught_warming_globe_to
weinersmith
: X DUP 1+ . . ;
I thought Vietnam was mainly a China vs US gig?
Can't help with the reason for why it's relevant to USSR's coastal access, but in 196x China wasn't exactly in a position to sponsor a proxy war, having just taken a bit of a misguided jump. The proxy war was still between the USA and USSR.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
North Vietnam was backed primarily by the Soviets, not the Chinese. In fact, shortly after the end of the Vietnam War, China and Vietnam got into a shooting match over the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia.
The Soviets needed more warm-water ports, and Vietnam was willing to provide this. This also put a significant portion of the world's shipping lanes within striking distance of Soviet forces. The domino theory may have been an overblown fear, but a significant base of operations in that part of the world is all that the USSR needed to make a serious nuisance in case things heated up.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
You're not thinking of Korea maybe? North Korea and China were close buddies. North Vietnam was better friends with the Soviets, and never really got on well with China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
The tensions between Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge that led to Vietnam invading Cambodia was a chance for the Soviets and the Chinese to have a little war of their own.
Thye can even launch aircrafts from underwater aircraft carriers. When youtube asks you to confirm that you have a TOP SECRET security rating, you must answer yes to see video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clIUY0U0xAU
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Maybe they want to create a weapon that hypnotizes you. And once you are hypnotized they recruit you hahaha
Russia's coastline isn't that open when you look at it.
1. North - Covered with ice during most of the year, including now, so testing here is not an option.
2. East - Would take forever to get there from the sub bases on the west coast (You'd either have to go north and stay under the ice for weeks, or go south down the Atlantic, around Africa, and through the Indian ocean), so also not an option.
3. West - This is the coast of the Baltic sea (And it shares coasts with Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and maybe Norway (I forget where the Baltic ends and the Atlantic beings)), from which you can get to the Atlantic, which puts you right at the south-western coast of Norway, and just a bit northeast of the UK.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Imagine though how freaked out one would be walking outside and suddenly seeing a giant spinning spiral with a sci-fi-ish blue trail passing through the middle. Based on the youtube vids I saw, one could actually perceive the spinning motion.
And double freaked out if walking out of a movie theater after seeing a scary movie. That's just one goddam weird pattern.
Table-ized A.I.
So where was the missile supposed to go?
Just a test run and then crash into the sea?
Yes. At this point, they would be quite happy if it would at least do that properly. So far, there were 13 (known) tests, and 6 of them failed. Most importantly, the 2 tests preceding this one were failures. This for a weapon that was supposed to be in service 3 years ago originally, and at the beginning of this year was claimed to be fully operational by the end of it.
Since this is supposed to be the next-gen uber missile to replace the venerable Topol-M, is supposed to be able to penetrate "any defense" (it's MIRV with EM shielding, and ability to maneuver and fire decoys in flight if it's shot at), and since it's the first weapon of that kind developed entirely in modern post-Soviet Russia (not a design developed in USSR, and not a project inherited from USSR), its success was supposed to prove that Russia is "up off its knees", and ready to take on the big boys if needed, as in the good old times... And since it's been such an abject failure so far, needless to say that it serves as a good target for related jokes these days.
"Missile launch" is just a coverup.
Norway's version of "It was just a weather balloon".
Russia's just launching missiles from nuclear subs, that's all.
While reading through suprisingly ignorant comments on _new_ tech of launching an ICMB from submerged position (this is slashdot, we are all supposed to be armchair warriors with underdeveloped muscle tissue and oversized brains filled with data on weaponry we would never, ever see unless its on youtube) and replies of ppl putting the record straight I just want to add this little nugget of information here:
In 199something (don't remember, but it was a crappy year in Russia - lost of bad news, the story got lost and resurfaced only in 2002 I think) Russian submarine has successfully launched ITS ENTIRE PAYLOAD in quick succession (as in several seconds between missiles) from submerged position - quite a feat of technology as well as personel training, since when launching more than one ICBM in quick succession one must take into account subs' weight change after the first missile leaves (it begins to surface), uneven wight distribution as pumps begin to fill ballast tanks with water to compensate just when the second missile fires, actual RECOIL begins to matter too - it's not much of a problem when you fire just once, but it becomes one if the sub's being shaken just as another missile is attmepting its launch..
So all in all - ICBMS from under water = old news.
Cheers
The launch history of the Bulava is discussed here. It's worked a few times, but they've been having failures in minor components like explosive bolts. That indicates quality control problems in the supply chain, not design problems.
It's hard to restart an entire high-tech supply chain when there hasn't been any demand for years. The US lost the ability to build nuclear weapons for over a decade.
But this story is in the Daily Mail. Since I don't believe anything they say maybe Russia *hasn't* denied it?
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
Anyway, we'll just drink vodka with friends and continue feeding our own conspiracy theories saying that in fact this is just a big decoy for something Yuri made to control everyone's mind into believing that, in fact, the "t.A.T.u." girls ARE lesbians!
It's quite obvious when given some thought. Consider the following:
You are at a party relaxing and enjoying yourself. At some point you lose track of your surroundings and time. When you come to, you remember being junk-kicked in your man business some 180 times. You're pretty sure in was someone you met at the party by the name of Ivan Jnkkckr. After a bit of investigative work you track down Ivan's number from another guest that attended the party. Ivan denies junk-kicking you in your man business.
After further investigation and conversations with other party attendees, you come into possession of some cellphone video. The videos show quite Ivan's foot spinning in a spiral pattern while junk-kicking you in your man business some 180 times. You confront Ivan Jnkkckr with multiple videos showing from multiple angles the relentless assault on your now decimated nuts. Ivan then promply admits that he spiral junk-kicked your nuts.
Obviously Ivan knew he had junk-kicked your man business; he just needed the video evidence to compel him to come clean.
Sure, that's what the Government and their Illuminati masters want you to believe. So you're wearing roughly a metallic hemisphere on your head, right? Sure, it reflects mind control rays coming from upwards and back, but what about rays coming from the front, hmm? Right, those get reflected and focused, like by a telescope mirror, inside your brain. And do you think that the proliferation of WiFi hotspots and police radars and whatnot at ground level is just a coincidence? Hmm? Wake up, people! ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
at first after world war 2 there was an idealism in the air that marxism/ communism would result in cooperation between russia and china. but this quickly fell victim to the usual imperialistic instincts of such vast empires. there were massive military buildups along the chinese-russian border, over stupid petty disagreements like tiny useless islands in the amur river (border between russia and manchuria). american intelligence got wind of this and sensed an opportunity: the tension between russia and china was one of the reasons nixon's about face on china and sudden seeking of warm relations with china at the time made so much strategic sense: drive a wedge between powerful enemies of the usa
so when vietnam aligned itself with russia, it was sort of china's version of the united states' experience with cuba: a tiny southern country right on its border having the audacity to fall the influence of a powerful enemy. in fact, after the vietnam war, china had its own version of the bay of pigs (on a much larger scale): china and vietnam went to war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
100,000 vietnamese civilians were killed by the chinese in that 1979-1980 war. but the chinese lost this war badly, and chinese propaganda has pretty much covered the whole event up and erased the war from chinese history books. because it was embarrassing how badly china lost. to this day, chinese veterans of that war are officially shunned and denied benefits or even recognition
you have to admire the vietnamese: they kicked out a major colonial power, the french. then they took on a world superpower, the americans. and finished it off by repulsing the regional power, china. in one long sustained 30-40 year very bloody struggle, the vietnamese kicked everyone's asses
vietnam deserves much respect, they have suffered heavily for their rightful independence
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Most likely into Okhotsk..."
Isn't that where they make kid's bib overalls?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Cold War ends, Global Warming Starts?
Don't worry, its just the Russians in the fight to stop Global Warm...erm Climate Change.