Did the US sabotage Russia's Phobos-Grunt? (My Take: ...No)

[SamCashion]

I personally don't believe it, but I thought the conspiracy buffs might get a kick out of this Pravda article:

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/30-11-2011/119787-phobos_ground-0/

I go over to Pravda every once in a while. Pretty entertaining. It's comforting to know that other countries have just as unreliable and sensationalist-prone tabloid-esque media as ours. Wait, actually, no, that's not a good thing at all...

[Mellow]

yeah, err nice article, but I'm in the 'no' camp. The whole pravda.ru site does still lean towards the West being somewhat to blame for a lot of things.

[Space Chimp]

Interesting 'take' by Pravda.

The thing is we can't protest or get too snarky, lest the Russian authorities take offense and bump up the price for a ride to the ISS. :rolleyes:

[SamCashion]

yeah, err nice article, but I'm in the 'no' camp. The whole pravda.ru site does still lean towards the West being somewhat to blame for a lot of things.

Yeah I just think it's ridiculous. I find it fascinating that Pravda still exists, albeit in the form of an online tabloid.



Interesting 'take' by Pravda.

The thing is we can't protest or get too snarky, lest the Russian authorities take offense and bump up the price for a ride to the ISS. :rolleyes:

HA! You sir, are clever..

[Garrison]

Ridiculous; why would the X37-B use its EMP gun on P-G when there are all those Russian military satellites for target practice? Hmmm, maybe that's too much information, where's my neuralizer?

[NEOWatcher]

Interesting 'take' by Pravda.
I agree.
"We can't even maintain our own communications system, so it must be sabotage".

[SamCashion]

I agree.
"We can't even maintain our own communications system, so it must be sabotage".

I honestly doubt that they even believe it themselves. It's most likely just rhetoric, blaming the US for one of the few things it doesn't deserve to be blamed for.

[Van Rijn]

Interesting 'take' by Pravda.

The thing is we can't protest or get too snarky, lest the Russian authorities take offense and bump up the price for a ride to the ISS. :rolleyes:

Yes, and apply that to the idea itself: Even if there was some inclination to do something this ridiculous, it would be monumentally stupid, because if they found out they certainly would take offence, and no more rides to the ISS.

[Space Chimp]

I honestly doubt that they even believe it themselves. It's most likely just rhetoric, blaming the US for one of the few things it doesn't deserve to be blamed for.

Without going too much into politics it reminds me a bit of the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster where NATO was initially blamed.

[Swift]

I honestly doubt that they even believe it themselves. It's most likely just rhetoric, blaming the US for one of the few things it doesn't deserve to be blamed for.
Careful, let's not get too political, particularly on what is close to a joke thread. Thanks,

[SamCashion]

Careful, let's not get too political, particularly on what is close to a joke thread. Thanks,

Oh, sorry Swift. I hadn't considered the implications of what I was saying:P I'ma not do that anymore.

[NEOWatcher]

I honestly doubt that they even believe it themselves.
It depends on your "they".
I don't think that even Pravda believes it. I think they believe thier job is to make it look that way. Anything to make a buck.

[Garrison]

I suspect these claims may have been inspired by the suggestion from the Russian president that those 'guilty' of causing the failure of P-G might face prosecution. Trying to offload the blame on to the US makes a sort of sense for the Roscosmos people if some of them think they might be looking at jail time.

[Donnie B.]

I think it's absurd to threaten criminal prosecution for the P-G failure, unless someone deliberately sabotaged it (a highly unlikely scenario). But of course it's purely political posturing anyway.

[Van Rijn]

I think it's absurd to threaten criminal prosecution for the P-G failure, unless someone deliberately sabotaged it (a highly unlikely scenario). But of course it's purely political posturing anyway.

Yes, one of their big problems was apparently that most of the subject matter experts that used to work on interplanetary probes had retired, much of their institutional memory gone, so it was easy to miss things. Imagine what this would do the morale of people who honestly gave their best, or people considering whether they would want to get into this field. Almost certainly it will lead to more retirement and fewer applicants. Next time they try another mission like this, it will be even more likely to fail.

[vonmazur]

I guess that Occam's Razor is prohibited in Russia as well!!

Dale