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Sunday, August 20, 2023

Why Nuclear War With Russia May Not Turn Out as Badly As Feared

8/20/23 Hindustani Times:
"Luna 25 crashes: Russian space agency announced on Sunday that an initial analysis of the moon lander indicates that a difference between the planned and actual propulsion manoeuvre caused the spacecraft to move into an unintended orbit. This ultimately led to the spacecraft colliding with the moon's surface and being lost."
There is substantial overlap between Russian military and space programs.  In conjunction with the general incompetence of the Russian military over the last year, I see why some people think much of the Russian ICBM and SLBM fleet might not launch, might not go where aimed, or might fail to explode.  I would not want to make policy decisions based on such assumptions but the results might be less destructive than assumed.

One reader reminded me of a couple similar NASA screwups.  NASA is not quite as tied to the military as the Russian space agency, if I understand correctly.


1 comment:

  1. We lost at least 1 Mars rover due to stupidity like that. I wouldn't make policy decisions about the US military based on NASA.

    Also, nuclear missiles are so easy that North Korea has them. Maybe not ICBMs, and not MIRVed. Nuclear weapons were a research project in the 1940s. State of the art tech in the '50s and '60s, and an industry in the 1970s. What you are saying is that present-day Russia can't replicate 1970s tech. Maybe they can't, but I wouldn't be the country on it.

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