[HN Gopher] Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Is Redrawing the Geopol...
___________________________________________________________________
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Is Redrawing the Geopolitics of Space
- ISS
Author : News-Dog
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-03-12 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| hdivider wrote:
| Extreme scifi-level scenario: could the Russians commandeer the
| ISS and use it as an impactor weapon on US or Allied soil? My
| guess not; super hard to do, and impact doesn't release that much
| energy anyway. Any space expert opinion?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| That would probably have the worst cost/impact ratio of any
| weapon ever. They might as well build catapults that launch
| bricks of gold at the enemy.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Not really. If that were to happen we'd be at the point of
| nukes anyway.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| ISS has many components with different drag ratios and would
| break up unpredictably upon entering the atmosphere, making it
| impossible to aim reliably.
|
| This is a big part of the difficulty in decommission planning
| for the ISS in general.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Even Science can't resist to publish about politics.
| krzyk wrote:
| War is not politics. Politics is argument in parliament.
| rsfern wrote:
| This is Nature...
|
| But seriously, what science to fund is political, and I hardly
| think this topic is out of scope for an editorial in a venue
| where science policy matters so much to the audience
| dannywarner wrote:
| Good reasons the future of space should be private companies. We
| need more SpaceXes and not more state-sponsored.
| tgv wrote:
| You mean: the state pouring more money in private companies?
| aaron695 wrote:
| 99_00 wrote:
| The next super power will be whoever dominates space.
|
| It's too bad the west a d Russia can't combine tech and expo to
| ensure that China doesn't dominant space. At least the harder
| road is still an option if we choose to take it.
| jdrc wrote:
| > whoever dominates space
|
| Because?
| modzu wrote:
| the politics of this is very sad. there isn't a single country on
| earth whose politics are "correct". but cooperation is always,
| always better than division. turning off instruments because they
| were made in another country? its insane. what does that
| accomplish? science, and in particular all the sciences related
| to space, must transcend that. i mean, these countries blowing
| each other up, they sell each other the weapons.. but we cant
| share a telescope? :(
| bitcharmer wrote:
| Opinions like yours always baffled me. You probably think that
| taking away McDonald's from an average Russian is somehow
| unfair and accomplishes nothing, right?
|
| The whole point of this huge exercise in global isolation of an
| aggressor country is to change that whole country's behaviour
| and deter others from doing the same. And before you say it's
| Putin - no, it's not. It's him and the millions who
| wholeheartedly support him.
|
| Since we can't invade Russia to stop the aggression this is the
| next best thing we got.
|
| I can't put it in words any simpler than this.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| It isn't a question of political nuance, Russia is murdering an
| entire nation. With no cooperative option currently existing to
| end it. I am heartened that the world is resisting on as many
| non violent fronts as possible.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _It isn 't a question of political nuance,_
|
| Here is what the crew of the international space station was
| doing one day after US ground forces entered Iraq:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/news/station/2003/iss03.
| ..
| jdrc wrote:
| Maybe it should be retired early
| dmosley wrote:
| Post-Installation Disabling. It's like John Deere for space
| parts...
|
| "And a German astronomy team, led by the Max Planck Institute for
| Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, switched off a German-built
| instrument on the Russian astronomical observatory Spektr-RG
| halfway through its planned observations."
|
| Does anyone else find this rather concerning, and in some ways
| quite petty? I realize people are taking hard lines on these
| events. So don't sell them any more, but switching off post-
| install? Perhaps they do some sort of processing for the data? I
| have no idea. The article is quite vague.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| deepsun wrote:
| I am from autocratic country Belarus, and over years I
| actually came up with, maybe unpopular, opinion that it is
| good to forcefully impose democracy on other countries.
| Please do it on my native country.
|
| Because after some point, autocratic government goes against
| people's will, and can even resemble occupation of its own
| nation. Like literally 3% of the population repress the other
| 97%. All means of overturning the government and are
| violently suppressed at their roots.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| Has forcefully imposing democracy ever worked anywhere? I
| can't think of single example that turned out okay.
| dkyc wrote:
| Germany? I'm very grateful for that operation.
| digisign wrote:
| Germany and Japan after WWII, can't think of any others
| since however.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The problem is they can't invade your government, which is
| an idea, they can only invade your neighborhood, a place.
| Look what is happening to Ukraine or what happened in Iraq,
| that is what war is like there's nothing democratic about
| it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The problem with this is democracy is hard. The history of
| it succeeding amidst a people who didn't fight for it is
| poor.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Please do it on my native country."
|
| And what would you say if your family gets blown to bits in
| the process? They already "saved" for example Iraq with
| hundreds of thousands dead, unknown amount of maimed /
| starved / displaced / otherwise ruined and with not much
| different state of affairs for the average folk in the end.
| You think that barely surviving farmer gives a shit whether
| they allowed to scream "our president is a dick" on central
| square?
| krzyk wrote:
| Cool, have you ever lived under despotic regime?
|
| It is nice to say that if you live in a country where you
| have freedom.
| FpUser wrote:
| I was born in USSR and lived and worked there until I've
| moved to Canada in 1992. While I and many others hated
| various restrictions on freedoms I know from the
| experience that the majority of the population was mostly
| concerned about living standard.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I have lived under autocracy as well as democracy. There
| is no difference. I realized democracy is not black magic
| that solves all the problems. Many people think autocracy
| just converted to corrupt bureaucracy. And, the
| corruption has increased and spread more rapidly.
|
| Democracy is better due to freedom. But, there is no such
| big influence on poor man's life, unless there is a
| radical change like we see in South Korea.
| krzyk wrote:
| OK.
|
| I have lived also under a somehow despotic regime (a
| "light" version, Eastern Europe) and as a child it was
| quite strange for me that adults said differerent things
| in "kitchen" and in the open.
|
| Also fun fact, each citizen was allowed to buy only
| limited amount of certain "things". E.g. one coffee per
| person (I was standing in a queue as a child to have one
| more coffee bag for my family) - meat was given not for
| money but for a piece of paper (rest of the meat was
| sold/gifted to our big brother Russia).
|
| In democracy I can complaint about prices of food (which
| I can buy for money, not some allowance) and can complain
| about current rulers. I can complain about Russia - this
| was not allowed earlier.
|
| And I can learn English in school (if would be born a
| year earlier the only option was Russian).
|
| In my country there was a radical change in poor man's
| life when switching to democracy. (of course there were
| complainers - basically those that were subsidies by the
| previous regime, mostly farmers I presume)
| laurent92 wrote:
| Almost everyone would choose freedom over anything else,
| even if it costs their death. Ukrainians do.
| throttledagain2 wrote:
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Almost everyone would choose freedom over anything
| else, even if it costs their death.
|
| The history of tyrannical governments suggests that not
| "almost everyone" would choose that. Franklin's famous
| quote wouldn't be noteworthy if trading essential liberty
| for even temporary safety wasn't the common choice of
| most people through most of history.
| cute_boi wrote:
| This is a false statement. People value quality life and
| happy life. If your statement was true, there would be no
| autocracy.
|
| Ukrainians do because they got support from the EU, as
| well as the US. If they stopped supporting, you know ....
| And, it is good that the EU and US are supporting
| Ukrainians. And, I hope the EU will support other
| countries, that are victims of the US.
| dmosley wrote:
| *History has entered the chat
|
| I am officially asking for source material to back your
| "almost everyone" assertion.
| dmosley wrote:
| I can't agree enough about invasions being bad. You
| acknowledge the issue with the US so I'll abstain from Pot-
| Kettle analogies. Although, I would ask that your awareness
| of current conflicts the US is engaged in actually become
| part of your radar. If what you claim you want to happen you
| truly want to happen, you would acknowledge that those
| negative repercussions should be happening right now because
| we have never stopped violently interfering in other
| countries and their affairs. We're literally dropping bombs
| as I type this. So check your false pearl-clutching and
| feigned concessions.
|
| I'm not 'pretending' to be concerned about the telescope. I
| am absolutely concerned about the progress of things that
| work to unite us instead of dividing us. Based on your
| previous comment you should be as well.
|
| Thanks for just avoiding the issue I raised and attacking me
| though. Functional discourse at it finest here on HackerNews.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| I find ambushing another country and killing thousands rather
| concerning and in some ways quite petty.
| laurent92 wrote:
| The ISS was built to prove we could collaborate scientifically
| across nations despite wars.
|
| Today, Germany has proven they can't.
| krzyk wrote:
| Despite differences, not despite wars.
| user-the-name wrote:
| T-A wrote:
| It should perhaps be mentioned that Spektr-RG is not on the
| ISS, it's in a halo orbit around L2 (like Webb):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spektr-RG
| cygx wrote:
| It's not as if the Germans just sold the Russians some
| instruments they then decided to switch off after the fact:
|
| This was an ongoing joint mission where the Max Planck
| institute was responsible for parts of the ground support - see
| https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2315138 for some of the details.
| zupa-hu wrote:
| TL;DR: nothing happened, speculates that things could happen.
|
| What a waste of time to read it.
| lxe wrote:
| > ESA is looking for a new ride for its ExoMars rover mission,
| after its launch aboard a Russian rocket this year was
| cancelled.
|
| Did you read the article?
| [deleted]
| dmosley wrote:
| Germany turned off instruments being used on a joint project
| that si currently at Lagrange 2. This in turn resulted in
| Russia shutting down the project completely.
|
| This is hardly "nothing happened". Perhaps you should have
| "wasted time" and read it...
|
| more info on the above that was in fact mentioned in the OP
| article.
| https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_stops_deliveries_o...
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Hard to imagine the Russian space programme recovering from this
| war.
|
| Collaboration with NASA and the other non-China space agencies
| was the only way to keep the domestic Russian programme going.
| Going it alone in a future of North Korea-like economic /
| technological / political / financial isolation? I guess it is
| possible but hard to see it right now. Sad end for a country that
| has done so much for human space exploration
| mateo1 wrote:
| They don't lack expertise but they will be lacking money and
| access to some specialised components and assemblies in the
| future. That said I doubt they're going to abandon their space
| program. I guess their launch platforms will remain stagnant
| and focus R&D money on things that are vital for them, like
| anything related to the new nuclear weapons race.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Hard to imagine the Russian space programme recovering from
| this war.
|
| The Russian space program never recovered from the fall of the
| Soviet Union. The sanctions and international outrage
| surrounding the Ukraine invasion, combined with the development
| of less expensive launch options that relieved everyone's
| reliance on the Soyuz launch platform, mean everyone can stop
| propping the whole thing up.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| > the ISS has generally managed to stay out of Earth-bound
| politics -- but the Ukraine conflict could change that
|
| I guess it depends on what "generally" means, but the Ukrainian
| conflict already changed that in 2014 AFAIK:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/crimea-catc...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-12 23:01 UTC)