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Russian Official Implies Foul Play In Mars Probe Failure
Back in November, Russia launched the Phobos-Grunt probe on a mission to return a soil sample from Mars' largest moon. Sadly, the probe malfunctioned, and never left orbit. It's due to crash into the Indian Ocean this weekend. An anonymous reader points out some interesting comments from a Russian official, Vladimir Popovkin, who obliquely suggested that interference from other countries was a possible cause of the failure. Quoting:
"Mr. Popovkin’s remarks to the newspaper Izvestia were the first high-level suggestion of nefarious interference. A retired commander of Russia’s missile warning system had speculated in November that strong radar signals from installations in Alaska might have damaged the spacecraft. 'We don’t want to accuse anybody, but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now,' Mr. Popovkin said in the interview. 'The possibility they were used cannot be ruled out.' ... Mr. Popovkin did not directly implicate the United States in the interview. But he said 'the frequent failure of our space launches, which occur at a time when they are flying over the part of Earth not visible from Russia, where we do not see the spacecraft and do not receive telemetric information, are not clear to us,' an apparent reference to the Americas."
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
And 6% of the American poulation too.
Regrettably, the russians have gone back to that silly Cold War mentality. Their own propaganda tells them constantly that they are unique, superior to the others, and surrounded by vile enemies that miss no chance to do harm to russia. Recall that when their submarine Kursk exploded and sank, the first instinctive reaction of the regime and its propaganda was to blame a US sub for colliding with, and thus sinking, Kursk.
Right. Now, how did we manage to get the satellite to point it's solar panels away from the sun?
I thought the theory as to why the spacecraft is in a stable, albeit backwards, orientation was simple: there are enough air molecules in that orbit to apply pressure to the large solar panels, which causes drag and thus rotates the craft so the panels are towards the back. Just like a shuttlecock in badminton.
Better known as 318230.
HAARP is not a directional antenna that can point and "shoot down" a satellite. HAARP is an ionoshphere research program, that's why it only points straight up.
Secondly, if you can screw up a satellite with radar, then the said satellite will be completely fucked during the next major solar flare.
Thirdly, the OP idea is crazy because you can still see the sun and at least point the spacecraft in the right direction to the sun!!.
The bottom line is, there was major spacecraft malfunction. And it is not unique to this satellite. Russians have had malfunctions with Soyuz too, and that is something that is vital to ISS and US has contracted Russians to use Soyuz. Of course you could be for conspiracy theories that US destroyed its own space shuttles like Challenger.
utter bullshit, the research at HAARP is open, scientists come from around the world to conduct experiments there with no security clearance, public tours are given, you can go tour the HAARP facilities.
The problem is, tossing blame like this is the first refuge of incompetent government.
Except it's not the government, it's one politician. Surely whatever country you come from has a few politicians that make similarly ridiculous statements for domestic consumption. I know if you live in the US you will be under a constant barrage of such bullshit in the form of political attack ads. Similarly, what we have here is an obscure blow-hard trying to look appealing to Russian nationalists.
How long before the people have a (renewed) hate of the USA?
Any Russian who swallows this guy's story was already anti-US, just like the 'birthers' were anti-Obama long before they started denying his citizenship, or like 'truthers' were anti-Bush long before they started banging on about 'building 7'. In other words what we are looking at is common garden variety propaganda aimed directly at 'useful idiots', and Russia certainly doesn't have a monopoly on propaganda or idiots. None of this means I condone politicians spreading lies and half truths about anything, anywhere, but it's an unfortunate fact of life that propaganda has, and always will be, a primary tool of politics.
Now IF this was Putin making official speeches with this sort of crap in it, THEN your scenario might have legs. As it stands the GP's "post vodka blame game" is where I'd put my money.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.