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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?
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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?
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 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.
...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...
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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