The Soviet MOL

[Winston]

Finally, a pending ability to repair and refuel our military satellites in orbit and inspect (and pehaps attach destruct devices on) those of others. Hopefully, those others won't have defensive armaments as did the actually fielded, vastly more capable (and equally as obsolete once fielded) Soviet version of our never-fielded MOL. Excellent PBS documentary on that below showing all kinds of footage never before seen prior to 2007 including an interview by a cosmonaut who actually used it in orbit and describes its operation.

Inside DARPA’s Mission to Send a Repair Robot to Geosynchronous Orbit
The RSGS spacecraft could visit and inspect dozens of satellites
8 Mar 2107

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace...o-send-a-repair-robot-to-geosynchronous-orbit

[video=youtube;waAm8IO8t2M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waAm8IO8t2M[/video]

 

[XolveJohn]

What a massive waste of money. They should have concentrated on unmanned spy sats, like the NRO did.

How were they supposed to identify where the targets were? A roadmap? Needed GPS.

The military messes a lot of things up. They insisted on enlarging the shuttle to carry bigger things for them, then when it blew up, they abandoned it.

Would not be surprised if they have secret nukes up there. And beam weapons. Its all gonna come down someday.

Now we are being told that Russia is burying underwater nukes by our shores. Better start looking for them!

 

[Mushtang]

Now we are being told that Russia is burying underwater nukes by our shores.

We are? First I've heard of this.

 

[Winston]

What a massive waste of money. They should have concentrated on unmanned spy sats, like the NRO did.

The advantages of the MOL when it was conceived over the unmanned sats is described in the film. However, by the time that the past-schedule MOL would have been orbited if it hadn't been cancelled, that deficiency had already been addressed. Same for the Soviets, but they managed to orbit their version to use it successfully only two times out of five crewing attempts.

 

[Winston]

We are? First I've heard of this.

Speculation in the wrong tense emitting from an orifice of the author of an interview of a Russian general who was asked about the Russian response to an increased US defense budget:

https://translate.google.com/transl...p://www.kp.ru/daily/26648/3668029/&edit-text=

The former chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, General Yuri Baluyevsky, is convinced "that the idea of ​​increasing the defense spending of Trump was suggested by the US military, who talk a lot about the power of the Russian army, realizing that this is an opportunity to get new money."

But how will Moscow react to the growing US military budget? Baluyevsky responds like this: "Russia will not compete with the US in defense spending. We have different weight categories. For us, the question is how to ensure the defense of Russia with less cost. I am sure: we have already found asymmetric answers. I do not see this as a big problem."

What is this mysterious "asymmetric answers", which our politicians and generals often say? Maybe it's a myth or just a beautiful phrase? No! Our asymmetric response is nuclear warheads, maneuvering in height and course, so that no computer can calculate their trajectory. Or here the Americans place their tanks, planes, battalions of special forces at the borders with Russia. And we silently "mined" the US coast with nuclear moles - moles (they buried themselves and "sleep" before the battle team).

Oh, I think I got loose. It is better to hold your tongue.

In short, we do have an "asymmetric" (and cheaper) response to the Americans.

 

[dhbarr]

Whether or not any country has actually done these things, many countries will broadly hint that they have. Of course, the consequences if one were to be discovered by a random civilian....

Rods from God is my personal fave. Go ahead and detect that barrage of now-maneuvering tungsten telephone poles, for all the good it will do.

 

[merlinfire]

I always found this interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3#On-board_gun

 

[Rex R]

the first 'armed' military airplanes (of WWI) were armed with handguns .
Rex