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Northrop Grumman, Not SpaceX, Reported To Be at Fault For Loss of Top-Secret Zuma Satellite (cnbc.com)

Northrop Grumman built and operated the components that failed during the controversial January launch of the U.S. spy satellite known as Zuma, WSJ reported over the weekend. From a report: Two independent investigations, made up of federal and industry officials, pointed to Northrop's payload adapter as the cause of the satellite's loss, the report said, citing people familiar with the probes. The payload adapter is a key part of deploying a satellite in orbit, connecting the satellite to the upper stage of a rocket. Zuma is believed to have cost around $3.5 billion to develop, according to the report. The satellite was funded through a process that received a lesser degree of oversight from Congress compared with similar national security-related satellites, industry officials said.

70 comments

  1. $.50 for every man woman and child by Arzaboa · · Score: 1

    That's an amazing amount of money put into a satellite. We weren't all told this, but had this made it into orbit, all wars would have been declared over, and it would have put an end to hunger.

    --
    One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

    1. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It was a false flag op, the real launch was at Vandenberg at 3am with black helicopters circling. The fake launch was on a sound stage used for the moon landing.

      And apparently the satellite has stealth technology so that nobody knows it's up there. All telescopes have been modified.

      And vitamins really do work.

    2. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by AHuxley · · Score: 0

      The sales pitch?
      A satellite that can move around in space.
      That can see past clouds and look deep into bunkers.
      So well designed that people looking up cant see and plot the spy satellite at night.
      Its everything every past generation of US spy satellite was sold on in one new satellite.
      Improved and fast. With solar and nuclear power and big space harpoon for defence.
      Its got paint that astronomers cant see at night. A mission patch to confuse astrologers.
      A bona fide spy satellite.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      We weren't all told this, but had this made it into orbit, all wars would have been declared over, and it would have put an end to hunger.

      It was amazing tech. Once a day as it flew over each city, it would launch enough cheeseburgers on parachutes to provide one burger per person per day. They even had a website - taken down soon after the failure, unfortunately - which allowed you to customize your burger.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      I know that US radar tracks lots of stuff in orbit. Other countries must do the same. Do we have any indications from them whether or not an appropriately sized object appeared in an orbit consistent with Zuma a the right time?

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    5. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's possible, but it would be just about the stupidest way to go about deploying a "secret" satellite possible. First off the biggest issue is that secret/stealth satellites probably aren't possible with current technology, it is likely disturbingly difficult to hide a satellite. If you shield for optical it would make it stand out like a beacon in IR, shielding for IR would make it visible to radar, shielding for radar would make it stand out in optical/IR. Secondly when you're doing something secret you tend to try NOT do draw massive amounts of attention to it, which this was the exact opposite of. Anyone with a scrap of intelligence would have done one of two things, either immediately claimed after launch "the satellite has failed and reentered the atmosphere, no further comment is possible due to the national security nature of the mission" or launched a dummy satellite along with the secret satellite and detached the two of them hours/days later when the attention had died down.

    6. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not in orbit so they will never find it there. FWIW, I hope that it was an RTG powered EM drive sent to catch up with 'Oumuamua

    7. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Zuma has never been discussed in depth or any photographs released, so for all we know Zuma could be of a stealth design, which coupled with orbital changes after deployment may make it very very hard to spot from the ground (you would be relying on optical observation only)...

    8. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know that US radar tracks lots of stuff in orbit. Other countries must do the same.

      Surprisingly no other country tracks the entire sphere. Some countries track a portion, and most not at all.

      No other country has both the budget and the will.

    9. Re: $.50 for every man woman and child by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      Why do people even entertain these silly theories. We know soaceflight is a lossy enterprise because it involves firing stuff at ball tearing speed at the sky attached to a tube filled with bombs. If they wanted a secretive launch theyâ(TM)d have found a back channel commercial launch on a less press worthy platform. This was an entire stack of stuff that was mostly experimental tech. Of course theyâ(TM)ll lose payloads and regularly too

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    10. Re: $.50 for every man woman and child by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Secretive mission to investigate crab shape ship unearthed on mars.

      Hopefully theyâ(TM)ll realise If they encounter minbari that opening the gunports is a friendly gesture, and to stay away from those cats who own the crab ships.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    11. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by quenda · · Score: 1

      You could paint it black to hide from amateur optical observers, but what kind of stealth could hide a large satellite in low orbit from other states with radar and infra-red observation?
      It'd have to either hide on the moon, or in place of a known existing satellite that it swallows, with stealth making it look smaller.

      But the chances of a $3bil project staying that secret from other states? Zero.

    12. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Smidge204 · · Score: 1

      My guess is it was a box full of used pinball machine parts, and the "accident" was to cover up having stolen a few billion dollars and not have to explain why the new satellite didn't work.

      Just as crazy, but not quite as dumb.
      =Smidge=

    13. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes! Slightly less crazy, the cash was not stolen but went in part to black ops, in part to research in subjects such as how to remote-hack or in-situ hack popular satellite buses, in part on autonomous submarine drones to counter Russia in this developing theatre...3 billion allegedly going up in smoke enables to pour money in other even more secret ventures...

    14. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oumuamua

      Can we just call it Rama?

    15. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Christian+Smith · · Score: 1

      You could paint it black to hide from amateur optical observers, but what kind of stealth could hide a large satellite in low orbit from other states with radar and infra-red observation?
      It'd have to either hide on the moon, or in place of a known existing satellite that it swallows, with stealth making it look smaller.

      But the chances of a $3bil project staying that secret from other states? Zero.

      You wouldn't want to paint it black, it'd absorb huge amounts of radiation when in sunlight that would result in heating that would be difficult to manage.

      PS. Not a satellite nor even a rocket scientist, so the above is conjecture only.

    16. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by crypticedge · · Score: 1

      The military has had solutions for the later two for decades. Look up agm-129 (ACM)

      That missile has design features that solve both. I would know, I've had my hands in them. Optical observation would be the hardest to solve, due to the black paint creating heat that prevents the other tech from working to solve the heat issue properly.

    17. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by Rei · · Score: 1

      Burma Shave.

      --
      I will pull over this spaceship right now!
    18. Re: $.50 for every man woman and child by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Or you could call it the 'Black Knight,' which that pederast got the idea from.p Holy shit, those books did turn stupid, though...

    19. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by quenda · · Score: 1

      That missile has design features that solve both.

      I believe the cruise missile relies on air for cooling, and low flight for avoiding radar, neither of which are helpful for a satellite.
      Much easier to spot something against space than against terrain. It is big too. Stealth can only reduce the radar reflection so much.
      And by infra-red I mean long-wave emissions.

      If the satellite was boosted into a distant orbit, that would be harder, but likely not useful for a spy satellite.

    20. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      Nah, Zuma was an oversized paperweight with an onboard package meant to blow up the rocket. The actual money went to fund the government's secret underground network of ultra-high-tech cities constructed with black budget funding. They needed to say where the money went.

    21. Re:$.50 for every man woman and child by TimSSG · · Score: 1

      You could paint it black to hide from amateur optical observers, but what kind of stealth could hide a large satellite in low orbit from other states with radar and infra-red observation? It'd have to either hide on the moon, or in place of a known existing satellite that it swallows, with stealth making it look smaller.

      But the chances of a $3bil project staying that secret from other states? Zero.

      You wouldn't want to paint it black, it'd absorb huge amounts of radiation when in sunlight that would result in heating that would be difficult to manage.

      PS. Not a satellite nor even a rocket scientist, so the above is conjecture only.

      Yeah, painting it black will not good from collecting heat point of view (It would collect a lot of heat). But, black would radiate the heat better than silver like most satellites. And, that combination should make it easy to find using heat/infra-red detectors in space or on the ground. Almost, have to have an shroud that flips between silver and black. Silver for the side towards the Sun and black towards the Earth. But, it would still likely be detectable by other satellites above it in orbit. Tim S.

    22. Re: $.50 for every man woman and child by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      Why do people even entertain these silly theories.

      http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077...

      Yeah... I have no idea why people might think that a spy agency might try to use subterfuge to hide their operations... wild, crazy, silly idea.

  2. Now this is the rate of Elon Musk stories I expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ElonMuskDot has been slacking a bit recently, glad weâ(TM)re getting back on track.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by mykepredko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I suspect that it doesn't matter how much SpaceX complains, it's going to be very difficult beating a Beltway pro like Northrop-Grumman in who gets the ultimate blame in Washington.

    If I could bet on things, Northrop-Grumman would get another $3.5B to replicate Zuma and SpaceX will have to undergo an extensive Air Force review of the Falcon 9, the fairing, their launch procedures and aspects of their design.

    1. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by bobstreo · · Score: 2

      I suspect that it doesn't matter how much SpaceX complains, it's going to be very difficult beating a Beltway pro like Northrop-Grumman in who gets the ultimate blame in Washington.

      If I could bet on things, Northrop-Grumman would get another $3.5B to replicate Zuma and SpaceX will have to undergo an extensive Air Force review of the Falcon 9, the fairing, their launch procedures and aspects of their design.

      I'm sure someone along the way had some kind of insurance on this. The 3.5 Billion was for R&D and construction. It probably wouldn't cost that much to construct another one, it's only construction costs...

    2. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by mykepredko · · Score: 2

      Launch insurance is common - payload insurance (especially for classified payloads where insurance companies can't see the payload), not so much.

      I would expect that the original technology used for the first Zuma will be superseded by newer, better components which means that there will be a substantial redesign which will cost at least $3.5B.

      When you've been selling to the US Government since before WWII, you know how things work in your favour.

    3. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

      superseded by newer, better components

      Oh, you wanted a payload adapter that actually works? That'll be extra.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Insightful

      SpaceX made it clear on day one that their vehicle performed "nominally", as they say, and nobody credible has been contradicting them. The inquiry is normal for this sort of failure. And the Air Force gave them 290 Million for launching 3 more GPS satellites last month, without waiting for the results of this inquiry.

    5. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't consider Northrop-Grumman to be professional since they were unable to produce a working system. In science as well as most of life, results count!

    6. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US Government "self-insures." That means they will just pay for a replacement.

    7. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure someone along the way had some kind of insurance on this. The 3.5 Billion was for R&D and construction. It probably wouldn't cost that much to construct another one, it's only construction costs...

      "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" - S.R. Hadden, Contact

    8. Re: Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      May be what you call Ad Hoc is actually Agile and Dev Ops?

    9. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Kjella · · Score: 1

      SpaceX made it clear on day one that their vehicle performed "nominally"

      There's a few essential rules to damage control, don't make statements you'll have to backtrack on, get favorable facts out there as quick as possible and if you got a lightning rod to redirect the attention do it. The funny thing is that those often tell you the rest of the picture of what's not being said. If SpaceX didn't know the reason and there was any chance they were implicated they'd say they were investigating. Saying they performed nominally = we know exactly who and what screwed up and it wasn't us. For example, if a self driving car crashed in manual mode they'd rush to tell you it was in manual mode. If they're not saying anything, it was probably in self driving mode.

      For example, when Uber released the dash cam footage of their safety driver did they really need to do that? It was pretty much throwing her under the bus in public media. But hey, she wasn't paying very well attention so let people rant about that - because sloppy employees are everywhere - and take attention away from the fact that without it the video would end on the inside view of mowing down a pedestrian without even trying to brake. Damage control is the art of misdirection, you can't stop people from raging but the mob is rather fickle and it only takes a nudge or two to change the focus and narrative.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    10. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      I thought the general rule was:don't backtrack just spend more on your PR. It's not as if the Patriot missiles or the F35 suddenly stopped selling.

    11. Re: Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agile is great for things that don't have a million pounds of explosives. Agile is Trumpworthy for things that have to work right the first time, like space launch. My money is on a buried report 2 years from now that NG got inaccurate or incomplete data from SpaceX.

    12. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why build one, when you can build two for twice the cost?

    13. Re:Blame Bypasses Beltway Bandits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was pretty much throwing her under the bus in public media.

      Too soon, dude. Too soon.

  5. Re: Space EX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Huh?

  6. Re: Space EX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just wanted to say space EX, leave me alone.

  7. Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I once worked for a company that got bought out by Northrop Grumman during the Bush Jr. years. The company I worked for built many of these satellites and had a really good reputation at the time of the hostile takeover. Northrop Grumman at the time had a long history of failures and making ships that were not even sea-worthy let alone battle hardened. Northrop did things like have all of the ship's computers tied to one Windows NT 3.51 server and that server would always crash and corrupt everything including ship guidance with no manual backup systems, so the ships would just be adrift at sea and have to be towed back to port. When Northrop Grumman took over, they screwed all of us over and went out of their way to get rid of all of the good engineers. Their management was very greedy and very hostile towards all of us. We were pretty much all replaced with "their people" and outsourced labor. Yes, US government military contractor work paid for by the American tax dollar has been extensively outsourced to foreign countries en mass by Northrop Grumman. Now the programs I worked on are complete failures under their control when before those very same programs were going great.

    Really I would be surprised if Northrop Grumman made anything that actually worked. The greed at the top levels and bumbling incompetence everywhere including top levels means they are destined to fail at everything. You go through contract by contract and all you see are delay after delay, failure after failure with huge sums of taxpayer money going to their vertical monopoly on defense or more accurately the super wealthy at the top in a nationally sponsored welfare for the rich and politically connected, especially those who have been connected to the Bush'es.

    1. Re:Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by Salvage · · Score: 1

      Obviously, if they're getting contract after contract, they are succeeding at one thing.

      If that's their only success, that's their only expertise, and not what they claim for expertise.

      Unfortunately, it seems a lot of companies over there are good at only one thing these days. And one that one thing never lines up with their marketing.

      --
      T. M. Pederson
      "Lies, Damn Lies, and Documentation"
    2. Re:Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Similar experience here. I worked on an NG program that they struggled to get their product out the door and they flat out lied to the government about when they would be done. When I ran the numbers and told senior management when they would likely finish, they threatened me with physical harm if I told DCMA. Needless to say I left at the soonest opportunity. NG was the only top 3 defense contractor at the time to have so many cost plus contracts and still be losing money... malfeasance at its finest. I've worked at a lot of places, and that place was by far the worst due to the incompetence and dishonesty of senior management.

    3. Re:Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I never worked for Northrop-Grumman, but I did once work for another large defense contractor, Rockwell-Collins. When I got there we had unusually onerous time reporting requirements, which I thought was odd. It turned out that it was part of a settlement negotiated with the government shortly before I arrived; they had been ripping off the Space Shuttle programme by, whenever any unrelated project went overbudget, just billing all their work to the Shuttle programme because it was "Cost Plus", no limit on the number of hours.

      We worked in an area directly across the hall from their top-secret secured area called the "SCIF". Also, there was no copier in our area. Rockwell's latest buzzword had become "LEAN", and as part of a "Lean initiative" they had gotten rid of a bunch of copiers. My coworkers informed me that this was cyclic and had happened many times - first some manager comes and removes all the copiers to be "lean", then another comes and puts them back for "efficiency", and both managers justify their existence. But not to worry - they had helpfully put up a sign showing us how to get to the nearest copier - we were just supposed to walk out of our area, across the hall... and into the SCIF to use their copier. You know, the area that no documents enter or leave? Yeah, I'm sure they'd just love us walking up to the huge, constant-buzz-when-open, thick steel blast doors under constant security camera monitoring, and bang on the doors shouting, "Hey, can we come in and make some copies?"

      I got the strong impression that dysfunction was the name of the game of these companies. They'd hire good engineers (by paying them very well), but the management looked like the Peter Principle played out to the extreme.

    4. Re:Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      Northrop Grumman continues to get contracts because they are an established name and are able to make promises to the Gov at a lower price than their competitors. Then they are able to recoup costs on rent and maintenance. Just look at the beginnings of the B-2. A plane with a $70 billion price tag that the government DOESN'T OWN. They rent from Northrop, and pay them for upkeep and replacement parts.

    5. Re:Northrop Grumman (ine)quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "going great" means burning through cash and desperate to find a buyer to stave off bankruptcy. NG came in and trimmed the fat to turn things around.

  8. $3.5 billion to develop include a lot of NRE by Kevoco · · Score: 1

    NRE = Non-Recoverable Engineering expense
    While it will cost a significant chunk of change to build another and launch it, it will not be anywhere near $3.5B

    1. Re:$3.5 billion to develop include a lot of NRE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That really depends what was on the satellite. a new Satellite could be anything from $500m to $3B depending on exactly what its intended use was. Just because it is expensive and secret doesn't necessarily mean the majority was spent on development.

    2. Re:$3.5 billion to develop include a lot of NRE by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It was $1B for the new satellite, $1B in profit, and $1.5B in kickbacks to the politicians. The replacement is going to cost the government $4B even though it will only be $0.5B to build. The cost savings and extra billing will be split evening between profit taking and kickbacks.

    3. Re:$3.5 billion to develop include a lot of NRE by Snotnose · · Score: 1

      CSB time. Back in the 80s I wrote some software for NASA that ran on our piece of test equipment (a telemetry analyzer). Part of the contract was to train them on how to use it so I flew to Cocoa Beach. Went to Cape Canaveral to do my 30 minute training (it was easy to use software), met our contact Dave. He asked where the box was. I said we shipped it a couple weeks ago. We went off to their shipping and receiving where I immediately saw our box. Dave talked to the guy, he said it wasn't a complete shipment. Showed us the invoice that listed our box, power cord, keyboard, yadda yadda, and 1 each NRE. Which of course was the special software in the box. S&R guy couldn't be bothered to tell either Dave, the recipient, or us, the sender, about the missing piece. It was about noon, Dave told us to take off because it was going to take the rest of the day to get the thing out of S&R.

      The entire trip was like that. 5 days, every day first thing we find a problem and head back to the hotel for the day while it gets taken care of.

      It was kind of a bummer. My co-worker and I wanted to spend a couple days at Disney World, figuring the training would take an hour at most. By the time friday had rolled around we'd both just about maxed out our credit cards (remember, we were in our early 20s), had already spent quality time at a laundromat, and were pretty sick of each other.

      Still haven't made it to Disney World.

    4. Re:$3.5 billion to develop include a lot of NRE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to be mean but it sounds like you wasted 5 days not going to Disney World/Land. If you were essentially going back to the hotel every morning (and fairly early by the sound of it) you could have easily hopped over to Disney World/Land (~1hr away)

  9. Northrop Grumman by Trogre · · Score: 1

    Sounds like their CEO is a bit of a goose.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  10. What can $3.5 billion buy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Yes, US government military contractor work paid for by the American tax dollar has been extensively outsourced to foreign countries en mass by Northrop Grumman.

    For USD 3.5 Billion, they sure could buy a lot of outsourced labor in foreign countries

    Why is there no prosecution?

    1. Re:What can $3.5 billion buy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is there no prosecution?

      Bwhahahahahahahahaha....

  11. Re:As always, the cynic in me rises to the challen by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not entirely sure whether you're trolling, or if you genuinely believe the uninformed jetsam you wrote there.

    Failed yet again by my local main-stream media. I dont recall any coverage of the event, but i guess thats to be expected from a group of conglomerate advertisers

    Well, of all the failures among news outlets, it was reported twice before on that awful "Slashdot" site. One of those even linked CNN as a source, but they're hardly mainstream, are they? There was, of course, also coverage on Fox News, which in turn links to coverage on the Wall Street Journal. On the other coast, the LA Times also ran a Bloomberg-syndicated story.

    thanks to the sausage-factory machinations of our federal government, im sure we'll never be privy to so much as a general idea of what this satellite was designed to do

    Well, let's go gather a few facts, and guess. First, its contract details are all secret, which strongly implies it's for military purposes. It was aimed for low-earth orbit at 51 degrees inclination, which would put it over many places of military significance. Indeed, a more knowledgeable source theorizes it's for space-based radar, which would certainly be in accordance with recent US military doctrine of "get more pictures, engage from further away, and use fewer people".

    Flint Michigan looks set to go another year without clean water

    ...which has absolutely nothing to do with spaceflight, or the military, or anything related to this discussion. Not only are the military branches and intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from assisting Flint, the restoration efforts are already underway and progressing as expected. What the fearmongers like yourself conveniently ignore is that essentially Flint has had to rebuild its entire water system due to the years of neglect, and as of last year, the vast majority of test samples are clean. There's still work to be done, but the situation is no longer a failure of government.

    Congress brand oversight. ... Well it wasnt as prevalent for this 3.5 billion dollar satellite

    Which is perfectly normal for classified projects, regardless of where they go. Since part of OPSEC is to minimize dispersal of classified information, there are bipartisan committees that debate classified projects in great detail, and their unclassified comments are usually distributed to the other congresspeople.

    it did such a bang-up job of everything from the timely restoration of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina

    ...which isn't in Congress's authority, since once the national emergency has passed, the authority goes back to the state per the Tenth Amendment...

    to ensuring healthcare for our veterans is the best in the world

    ...which isn't mandated by any law, or even really practical, and still not directly under Congress's authority, being wholly delegated to the Veterans Health Administration, itself wholly under the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is itself organized under the Executive branch under the President...

    one can on

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  12. It was doomed from the start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was doomed to end up being constructed by a dodgy government contractor the moment they decided to call it "Zuma".

  13. Muskzuma's revenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone got sick after $3.5 Billion went up in...a vacuum.

  14. At least that's what they're saying by cmaurand · · Score: 1

    Call me paranoid and a conspiracy theorist (rarely, but when it comes things in space world governments are very duplicitous). But launch it and tell people it's lost. place blame, meanwhile the satellite goes back to being a secret.

    1. Re:At least that's what they're saying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Call me paranoid and a conspiracy theorist (rarely, but when it comes things in space world governments are very duplicitous). But launch it and tell people it's lost. place blame, meanwhile the satellite goes back to being a secret.

      This would fool all of about zero people who track satellites. Did you see the radar images that Fraunhofer FHR produced of China's Tiangong-1 space station coming down? See China's Falling Space Station in These Radar Images . This is with technology that is available to a civilian group, imagine the radar imaging equipment that Russia and China likely have to track this sort of thing. Ever hear of ICBM warning systems? Yeah, you'd be able to track a spy satellite no problem.

  15. That was the Weakest Link - Goodbye! by TexasDiaz · · Score: 1

    Isn't that how it usually goes? $3.5 Billion satellite, taken out by a $5,000 part that likely cost someone $500 to make out of $50 worth of actual raw materials.

  16. WARNING : MEMETIC HAZARD by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Live video feed from the aliens onboard Oumuamua.
    Apparently it's some sort of attack.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  17. *giggle* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, I know it's not polite to laugh at you. But still , *snicker*

    1. Re:*giggle* by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      This is what ignorance looks like.

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