Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012
Silly Season: Russia Accuses the U.S. of a Secret Mars Plot
By Jeffrey Kluger
Oh Russia, you used to do paranoia so much better. The Evil Empire got its name in part because of its nasty post–World War II habit of gathering up little, nearby countries — countries that didn't strictly want to be gathered up — in order to build a buffer on its western flank. That was un-neighborly, but at least understandable. You try living next to Germany for the first half of the 20th century and see if you don't double-lock the door.
But the Cold War is over, Germany's been housebroken, and there's less need than ever to see hostile foreigners lurking behind every bush. You wouldn't have known that this week, however, listening to Vladimir Popovkin, director of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
It's been a bad couple of months for Roscosmos, ever since an ambitious Russian Mars probe was launched on Nov. 9, headed to the Martian moon Phobos to collect and return a sample of extraterrestrial rock and soil. The ship, named Phobos-Grunt (or Ground) fell a wee bit short of its target, never making it out of Earth's orbit after an upper stage booster failed. Now, as all things stranded in low Earth orbit must, the probe is headed home, set to re-enter the atmosphere and break apart sometime between Jan. 14 and 16. The best estimate so far is that the precise moment of impact will be 1:18 p.m., Moscow time, on Jan. 15, and the precise place will be the Indian Ocean. (See "Can Russia Fix Its Crippled Mars Probe in Time?")
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In announcing this news on Tuesday, however, Popovkin couldn't resist deflecting the blame for the mission's failure, suggesting — with an exquisite lack of subtlety — that the mission may have been sabotaged by another country (America, we're looking at you) using an antisatellite weapon. "We don't want to accuse anybody," Popovkin said, accusing somebody, "but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now." In case you were wondering, that's Russian for "I'm just sayin'."
The loss of Phobos-Grunt is equally big for space science as a whole. A sample return mission has been in NASA's long-term plans for years, but budget constraints have caused the agency to postpone the project repeatedly. Space watchers in both the U.S. and Russia were rooting for this mission to succeed — as was China, which had a small Martian orbiter riding along. All of that will crash and burn — literally — within a few days. Traveling to Mars has always been a very, very hard thing to do, and it will continue to be. You don't need an imaginary U.S. plot to make that so.
Murmur says: My only commentary is that I find the possibility of space based weapons being raised by Time Magazine an interesting point to consider
- Find this article at:
- http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...104251,00.html
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Originally Posted by murmur
