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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."
You want to fuck with us, fine. Build your own rocket, yankees.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... Phobos Grunt? We all know what happens on Phobos when you get a grunt up there. IDDQD, Russia, IDDQD!
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Russia should just admit to its failures, and move on. From what I've read, Russia's high-technology infrastructure is held together with band-aids® and chewing gum. They should concentrate upon repairing their space exploration foundation, then make the attempts to explore Mars.
Most likely, someone came back in a time machine to sabotage the launch to prevent the return of samples to Earth that are contaminated with Martian Hemmorhagic Fever and save billions of people.
And with that goes blaming everyone except yourself for your public failures.
When science from another country fails, it is still a tragedy to the US. We are not in a cold war any more - the loss of a sattelite, or a probe, is a huge loss for everyone. Russia may be upset but unfortunately it would not be in US interests to intentionally destroy a probe that we cannot ourselves replicate (due to lack of funds or lack of interest.)
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Maybe this also account for the 20 feet of snow Alaska is getting too.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Whenever one is dealing with sending rockets to Mars, particularly Phobos, once has to take into account some pretty basic facts about Phobos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos
Once you deal with that, then you can start blaming Eskimos in North America for downing your rocket.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Laughable. (Apparently, so is their space program)
Well it's not like their joke of a space program put up the first satellite in orbit, the first man (and woman) in space, the first person to orbit the earth, the first moon probe, the first Mars probe, the first Venus probe, or the first space station--or are currently the only country in the world with the capability of launching humans into space. They're SUCH a joke! Let's all laugh at their weak-ass space program. Ha ha ha.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
One of my co-workers is Russian, and he still keeps in touch with friends and family back home. We've been discussing the recent anti-government protests in Moscow, and he says that the government-controlled media (which includes all of TV and radio, and many of the newspapers) has gone into overdrive accusing the U.S. for being behind almost everything that's currently going wrong in Russia. In his words, "Blaming America is all they have left."
Implying that the U.S. is responsible for their spacecraft failure is just part of that game. Russia has been launching spacecraft for decades, and it is silly to think that they didn't learn how to deal with contingencies such as deliberate jamming long ago.
Russian President Medvedev threatened to prosecute those responsible for the space failures. No surprise that the individuals in question are now looking to blame someone else.
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.
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
that was exactly the case. the moment revolution happened in russia, the leader of the FREE world, great britain, landed with 18 other 'free' countries to suppress the 'rebellion' of the people and reinstate tzar and aristocracy in russia.
when they failed, they withdrew their military forces, and this time started to fund the white russians (Royalists) with arms and gold. to kill their own countrymen. when they were beaten too, they started to set up alliances and surround the country, leading to the cold war. the only intermediate pause was in between 2 world wars, and that was thanks to nazis.
Read radical news here
Maintaining perfectly fixed position (storms aside) isn't difficult. Manouvering thrusters can turn to thrust in any direction. Just throw in a GPS receiver and you can stay in place to within a couple of meters easily.
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.
I doubt Putin has much to do with it. Conspiracy theories have always been very popular in that part of the world. It's unusual to see a publich official spouting off in that manner, but it's not particularly surprising either.
The problem with your arguments is that you give the US too much credit. Yes, the US secret services have had lots of involvement in orchestrating stuff in the past, but it seems you are taking it to a "no revolution happens without the US behind it". That's very irrational IMHO. I'm from a country in which the US has meddled in the past and pressed for regime changes, sometimes succesfully. But here people make the same mistake. They think that just because the US has tried and succeeded at *some* regime changes, then it has to be behind *every* regime change/revolution. I think its very counterproductive to think like that, as its a way to perpetuate the myth of North American invencibility.
Fail at anything = Blame America.
Offer up some kind of evidence or we'll just respond that actually it was your mother.
That's right... your mom. There's just as much evidence backing that... eg none.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Let's take a closer look at this list:
1) Sputnik 1 (first satellite): 1957
2) Yuri Gagarin (first man in space, first orbit): 1961
3) Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space): 1963
4) Luna 2 (first [successful] moon probe): 1959
5) According to Wikipedia, every Soviet Mars mission prior to Mariner 4 (first Mars fly-by [US]) failed.
6) According to Wikipedia, every Soviet Venus mission prior to Mariner 2 (first Venus fly-by [US]) failed.
7) Salyut 1 (first space station): 1971
So other than their currently operating Soyuz craft, the most recent entry on your list is over 40 years old. I understand the point you were trying to make, but you have to keep in mind that things change, and the current Soviet space program is not nearly as noteworthy as the space program you described.
They share the glory of launching humans into space with China at the moment. On the other hand, Russians don't have a good track record of creating a brand new design for a while. Kliper is dead, their shuttle did one flight and they haven't managed to design a single human-rated spacecraft since Soyuz and that was in 1960s. Sad fact: Both Russia and Western countries have stagnated.
Well what do you expect? WWII ended 66 years ago; all of their Germans must be dead by now, so there's no one around to design new stuff.