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Russia tests a missile designed to take out satellites

According to one press report tonight, Russia has successfully tested a new anti-satellite missile designed to destroy orbiting satellites.

There are a lot of unknowns here, including the fact that the report provides little information, including any data to explain how they know that it is an anti-satellite missile.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

23 comments

  • Alex

    I understand completely that Russia develops such capabilities in order to defend itself against present aggressions, which originate from US empire.

  • Wayne

    Alex:
    Say What? “US Empire.”
    How many people DID Russia murder in the last century?
    (Is that fake wax Stalin body still on display in Red Square?

  • Wodun

    The thing about weapons is they can be used as offense or defense. There is very little chance of the USA invading Russia or even directly engaging them in Ukraine or Syria. We are obligated to respond if Russia attacks a NATO ally. The only time Russia would only have to defend itself, is during it own aggression.

    These weapons could be used by Russia in wars of aggression and not just against the USA.

  • Edward

    Alex,
    I am confused.

    What present aggressions are there against Putin’s Soviet Union — er — Russia? Which of them originated from the US? And what makes you think that the US is an empire?

  • Dick Eagleson

    Alex,

    Empire. I do not think this word means what you think it means.

    If the U.S. was an actual empire there would be U.S. military governments running Iraq, Afghanistan and probably other places (Iran, Syria, Pakistan) as we ran Germany and Japan for 10 years following WW2 (or do you prefer “Great Patriotic War?”) and we wouldn’t be making any near-term plans to turn the running of these places back over to their manifestly unfit natives.

    If the U.S. was an empire on the Roman model, there would already be an eight-lane highway stretching from Damascus to Islamabad by way of Baghdad, Teheran and Kabul. Every ten yards along both sides of that highway would be a wooden cross. On each cross, the mummified, skeletal remains of two jihadis would be nailed, back-to-back. The mummies would only be removed when all the crosses were filled and room had to be made for fresh jihadis to achieve martyrdom.

    Russia used to be a sizable empire. The Soviet Union expanded the old Russian Empire considerably before imploding. Even post-Soviet-implosion, Russia is still a modest empire of sorts. True to form, Putin is trying his best to put the old Russian – and perhaps even the old Soviet – empire back together. He’s gotten very little and paid a high price for his efforts. As with the old Soviet Union during the Cold War, the thing to do with Russia is contain it and let it rot. Once the U.S. has a real President again, I suspect he will find no shortage of the formerly colonized in Eastern Europe eager to assist such a project.

  • Alex

    Dick: Be aware, USA “is running” Germay and Japan even at present time. The USA represents a modern form of Empire, which owns/controls a significant number of puppet states wordwide, without need of a massive installation of troops aboard. For the purpose of action as hegemon, the USA controls sea, air space and space worldwide. In addition, fast response forces are available, weapon storages worldwide are sustained. The US empire owns about 900 military base wordwide, compared to less as foreign 10 bases, which own Russia. I did not even talk about financial and cultural dominantion by USA.

    Please review this video, which may quite instructive for you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYnUzB-vX8o

    Stratfor speech: “100 years US attack on German-Russian alliance ” March 2015

  • Wayne

    Dick Eagleson:
    Beautiful comments.

    Alex: We had to save you all from Hitler. Holy cow– talk about making a deal with the Devil himself. (Komrade Stalin Chief of Misery)
    National Socialists Vs. International Communists.
    (FDR’s administration–heavily infiltrated by Communists, fellow-traveler’s & useful-idiots.)
    Now, Russia is run by oligarchical, psychopathic-gangsters, with nuclear weapons. Or, as John McCain noted, “A gas-station, with a Country attached to it.” (What technology, didn’t you steal from us?)

    Somehow the United States dominates the entire World??

    Highly suggest you check out– http://www.thepeoplescube.com

  • Wayne

    Alex:
    Watched that video link you posted. Don’t know in what context he’s speaking & unfamiliar with the speaker so I am downloading more of his stuff to watch.
    (given the whole aggressive socialist/communist stuff in the last century, on it’s face I’m not seeing a problem with keeping Germany from aligning with Russia, against the United States.

    I’ll confine my comments to:
    As Dick noted: “Empire. I do not think this word means what you think it means.”

    The USA isn’t & has never been perfect, but when it comes to “Empire,” we are at the bottom of the list as far as offenders or conductors of such.

    Russia/Soviet Union/Federation– you guys have little to brag about, in the last century. Little.
    –The whole world is trying desperately to break into the United States, not escape from it.
    –When a Trump says “Decimate X, and take their Resources.” That’s not really Who The USA Is or Has Been, historically. It does however resonate with a segment of our population.

  • Edward

    Alex,
    Your examples need some work. If the US is an empire, then it is the worst-run empire in history. What you call an empire looks much more like a group of trading partners than a group of nations controlled and ruled by one.

    1) The United States has bases around the world with the permission of the host countries, not against their wishes.

    2) If we are “running” Germany and Japan, we are terrible at being an empire. For instance, they vote against the US at the UN too often to be under US control.

    3) Apparently, the US must be a benevolent Empire, in that she allows even her foes to sail the oceans of the world despite having total control. She even lets pirates freely hijack ships near the African coast.

    Since the real evidence the speaker gives, in the link you provided, of global oceanic control is that nobody gets to invade the US, that really only means that the US has control over its own shores. Also, the flood of illegal immigrants invading the US seems to invalidate the speaker’s claim that “they don’t get to invade us.” Mexico is doing a fine job of it, and they are even influencing US politics. Please note how La Raza hosts protests and riots throughout the US, as some of Mr. Zimmerman’s recent posts show.

    Indeed, there are plenty of countries that are being invaded, which would mean that Islam is an empire. There are plenty of countries that are not being invaded, but that does not make each of them empires.

    Being requested by the UN to be the major peacekeeper of the world, “the world’s policeman,” is not evidence of empire by the US. It is evidence of empire by the United Nations, unless you believe all policemen to be emperors (perhaps in your country they are corrupt enough to be considered so). That the US does the bidding of the UN, not the other way around, belies your opinion.

    Indeed, because UN law supersedes US law, it is clear that the UN is the empire controlling the US.

    4) The speaker recommends a policy that the US does not employ. Obviously, the US is not doing what it should to ensure that it is the empire that you think it is.

    5) The speaker suggests that Russia is using the Ukraine as a buffer zone. This shows that it is Russia, not the US, that is the empire.

    6) You will have to list the “puppet states” that the US supposedly owns or controls. I cannot think of a single one. I think you are confusing your opinions for facts.

    7) With such awesome control of space, why is it that the US relies upon Russia for access to the ISS? If the US has such awesome control of space, why do both China and Russia threaten satellites with missiles — the point of Mr. Zimmerman’s post. It looks to me that either Russia or China, at a whim, could eliminate this supposed control. The speaker’s example of naval control tells us that control requires a more robust ability to prevent others from defeating that control.

    8) Financial or cultural domination is not evidence of empire. It is evidence that the peoples other countries appreciate and desire the goods and services that the US offers for sale, that the US has a large economy born of the freedoms that her population enjoyed. It is evidence that the peoples of other countries appreciate and desire the freedoms that the people of the US enjoyed.

    Since the US embraces and celebrates multiple cultures, under your evidence it is the US that is the controlled country.

    9) The speaker tells us that Germany is “enormously economically powerful,” but you do not consider them to be an empire — you consider them as part of a US empire. So much for financial domination as evidence of empire.

    10) If the US is an empire, why did it let the Philippines go so willingly? Why did they let the Philippines shut down their naval base (see item 1, above)?

    In summary: you seem to have confused the concept of empire with the concepts of alliance, trade, military strength, doing the bidding of the UN, and the desire to freely embrace another country’s liberty and cultures.

  • Alex: As you know, I agree with you that the United States’ foreign policy in the past half century is open to a lot of valid criticism. However, I think you have weakened your argument by overstating it. The U.S. might have made bad mistakes in its relations with other nations since World War II, but it has never committed these mistakes in an effort to establish an empire. If anything, its failures in the last few decades have been due to stupidity, indecisiveness, and a failure to honor the principles for which the nation stands, not a desire for power.

    Back in 2002 I spent six weeks in Moscow, interviewing cosmonauts, engineers, and scientists as part of my research into my book Leaving Earth. In one case, I spent an evening in the apartment of one of those scientists, Galina Nechitailo, who with her husband had spent years doing plant research on the Soviet Union’s Salyut space stations. During that evening our conversation ranged far and wide. At one point it turned to the U.S. and its ideas of freedom, law, and personal responsibility. Galina expressed some of the same complaints about the U.S. as you have.

    I answered her much as Edward and Wayne have answered you here, in this comment thread. However, I added one more point. The U.S. was not founded as a nation for the purpose of controlling territory, as have all other past nations (and empires). Instead, it was founded, as a nation, to achieve certain fundamental ideals for those who lived within it, ideas best expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    I explained to Galina that these ideas apply to every human being on the globe, that they are not exclusively the property of any particular nation or place on Earth. I also explained that my love and loyalty to the United States was based on these ideas, not on the fact that it controlled the territory in which I was born and raised. I added, most forcefully, that should the United States no longer adhere to these principles, it would lose my loyalty and love. As John Kennedy once said, I stand for freedom, and will fight to the death any who try to squelch it.

    It was fascinating to watch the reaction of Galina to my remarks. I think I startled her with my unwaivering support of liberty, even at the expense of my own country. It seemed to me that she saw what I was saying as almost treason, something I think she had not expected from an American.

    Regardless, the United States is not an empire, and will likely never become one, because of its founding ideals. However, if it starts to abandon those ideals, or fails to honor them in everything it does as a nation, I think it will soon collapse, because the idea of power and rule does not fit with the idea of the United States.

    Sadly, I think in the past two decades we are seeing the beginnings of that collapse, illustrated in part by some of the failures you and I both recognize it has committed in foreign policy in the past half century.

  • Garry

    Some great stuff in these comments, but I don’t think we should be telling our Russian friend that we saved his country from Hitler. Given that the Russian casualties on the Eastern Front dwarfed our total casualties from the entire war, I think it’s fair to say that Russia bore the brunt of the war against Hitler, certainly in comparison to the United States (Japan is a whole other matter).

    The rest of the comments I agree with 100%, and I wouldn’t want any Russian to fail to see those truths because of an unthoughtful take on the war against Hitler.

    We came into our own on the world stage, because basically we had the only intact means of production left in the world. This we used to rebuild our former enemies, as well as western Europe and other places. Ask yourself what Japan, Germany, Russia, or almost any other country would have done with that monopoly, and you’ll have a better appreciation of some of the good the United States has done in the past 70 years.

  • Wayne

    Garry:

    I’d quibble with you ref: “we saved them from Hitler,” (‘cuz I said it) without the massive amounts of equipment WE shipped to the soviets, they would have lost.
    No “unthoughtful take” about it and I do not apologize at all.

    As for casualties—Stalin had been busily (frantically) killing his own people (and military) for the previous 20 years. Personally, I’m not too much concerned with how many international-communists were killed by national-socialists or vice-versa. It obviously wasn’t enough of them.

    “Great Patriotic War,” what a load of commie agitprop. Stalin conspired with Hitler to carve up Poland and then wiped out the Polish Intelligentsia. Then, when his buddy and Komrade in world domination Hitler, turned on him, Stalin demanded we save his psychopathic-ass & his pathetic gulag of a country.

  • Garry

    Wayne,

    You’re more emphasis on what Stalin did, I’m putting more emphasis on what the Russian people experienced. I can’t argue with your account of what happened; my point is that it’s not as relevant as what the Russian people went through. At the very least we can say that Hitler’s actions reinforced the evil Stalin visited on his own people, which dwarfs in scale what the American people went through.

  • Wayne

    Garry:
    I understand your point, in part.
    Personally–not too much concerned with how many of their people died (at all); I have a dead Uncle in France & one in the Pacific, that’s plenty for me.
    That aside– personally, “the only good communist, is a dead communist.” And I would extend that to Muslim jihad i’s as well. The sooner we own up to that, the better it will be for all concerned.

  • Edward

    If we are going to get into topics that predate the end of WWII, I would like to weigh in on the Mexican-American war.

    In a time when the spoils of war included all land captured and in the surrender terms, at the end of the Mexican-American war the United States only retained those territories in which Mexico had previously invited Americans to settle.

    The United States had captured Mexico City and territory to the south, and was perhaps the first nation to return captured territory to the conquered nation, when the border was drawn at the Rio Grande — where Americans had previously revolted against Mexican tyranny — rather than drawn at the Yucatan Peninsula.

    Again, not actions of an empire but of a people favoring liberty over empire.

    I agree with Robert. The traditional attraction of people to the United States had been its liberty — the freedom to be as prosperous as possible: to each according to his productivity. Unfortunately, it seems to me that in recent decades the attraction has changed to the free stuff one gets from being on the government dole: to each according to his need.

    BTW: California (or Alto California) was not won through war but was ceded by Mexico to anyone who would take her, as her governance had become too expensive for Mexico to afford. The US and the British were in competition for her, but the US’s ship planted her flag first. Many of the former Mexican citizens in California were eager to become Americans.

    Alex,
    I have replied to your comments about using LH2 for booster rockets:
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/orbital-atk-introduces-a-new-rocket/#comment-893740

  • Wayne

    Edward: Interesting history factoids.
    (personally, I support Manifest Destiny & the Monroe Doctrine, but that’s a whole other ball of yarn.)

    Gerry: I don’t want to come off as a complete, un-caring, war-mongering, nativist. –Not meaning to personally attack our Russian commenter. Yes, there is a difference between the civilian population & the People In Charge, anywhere. And therein a conundrum is encountered, big-time.

    Alex: Enjoy your science factoids. Disagree with some of your historical-interpretations & conclusions.

    Repetitive, but my only real point is we are last on the list for Empire-Building throughout the World. It’s just against a Core Founding Value. (The whole “avoid foreign entanglements,” thing.)
    –Mr. Z pretty much covered it all.
    Yes, some of our Leader’s have & did stray from our Principle’s & the further they strayed, the more stupid-stuff they did, in our name.
    Unfortunately, I think we are now in a very real & dangerous Place in History right now, and it’s going to be nasty getting ourselves out of it. We didn’t start it but I fear we no longer have the Will to end it. (Internally or Externally.)

  • Garry

    Wayne – no worries; if nothing else, you provided me one of those surreal moments that I find highly entertaining – a former Marine combat arms officer (me) preaches peace, love, and understanding, while (if I recall correctly) a former psychologist says something along the lines of “crank up the Enola Gay.” At least that’s the cartoon version in my mind.

    I believe that when someone is at war with us (as is the case now), we should do all necessary to defeat them. Once the surrender happens, then we should be careful to differentiate between the leaders and the people, holding all accountable, but trying to help them build a better society, with more freedom and less oppression and corruption.

    Sadly, World War Two is the last example we have of our country carrying out this two-part process; you can’t really do the second part before completing the first part (defeat the enemy), and we’ve largely failed at the first part.

  • “I believe that when someone is at war with us (as is the case now), we should do all necessary to defeat them. Once the surrender happens, then we should be careful to differentiate between the leaders and the people, holding all accountable, but trying to help them build a better society, with more freedom and less oppression and corruption.”

    Gary: I can’t imagine I’ve ever read a more succinct and precise description of the American philosophy of war, first articulated by Lincoln in his second inaugural address.

    In the first part, we follow Grant and Sherman (and later Eisenhower), who showed that you have to be relentless and brutal in war. No retreat, no compromise, total victory is the only goal. In the second part we follow innumerable philosophers and religious icons to show mercy and justice to the defeated.

  • Wayne

    Garry:
    No worries from my end. (We’ve touched on elements of “War” in prior posts.) I really do dislike being the “let’s kill huge amounts of them” Guy, but I truly believe that ship has already sailed. (And I’m sick & tired, and done with, apologizing for every thing we’ve ever done in history, good, bad, or indifferent.)
    It’s no longer a matter of If, it is just a matter of When & How.
    Totally repetitive– but when a political and/or religious ideology chants “Death to America” on a daily basis, I’m going to advocate we believe them & introduce them to our ability to remove them from the Earth. (And that includes the commies, wherever they are or whatever they have transmogrified into.) We no longer have the luxury of “minding our own business” behind two oceans.
    Our Leader’s have done stupid-stuff, in our name, –fully granted. We didn’t however, start all this crap-o-la, but we are the only ones who can end it, if we choose to do so.

  • Wayne

    Abraham Lincoln
    Second Inaugural Address
    Saturday, March 4, 1865
    (http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html)

    “Fellow-Countrymen:
    AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 1

    On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. 2

    One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

    Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” 3

    With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ” 4

  • Garry

    Mr. Z – Thank you for your kind words, but please note the spelling of my name, Garry, not Gary (Mom never was a good speller).

    I point it out because another poster named Gary commented in the thread just above this one, High speed Falcon 9 stage camera view, and I’d like to avoid confusion.

  • Garry,

    My apologizes. I hadn’t even noticed the difference.

  • Garry

    No worries, I’ve been called much worse, occasionally even in print.

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