Russia Confirms Failed Missile Launch Caused Norway's Light Show 236
Ch_Omega writes "According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway Wednesday morning local time has been confirmed to be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that '...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine Dmitri Donskoy. Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occurred during the third stage.' There is also an article on this at The Daily Mail."
Back in the day... (Score:5, Interesting)
Testing missiles? (Score:1, Interesting)
So where was the missile supposed to go?
Just a test run and then crash into the sea?
No Fool (Score:1, Interesting)
At first Russia denied it, and then I knew it was true. But now that they've confirmed it, maybe there's more going on here than meets the eye...
Nuclear Armageddon or Computer Glich? (Score:3, Interesting)
So happy not to be living in the cold war. Today, I like to think it's harder for fictional missiles to start WW3. Fewer false positives. Of course, here the missile was actually launched...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [wikipedia.org]
Re:Placement (Score:5, Interesting)
Worse, Russia doesn't really have a lot of ice-free coastline, especially during the winter. And the few they do have can easily be blocked from the open sea by NATO countries.
It was one of the big issues during the cold wars, afaik even one of the core reasons for the Vietnam war.
Re:Placement (Score:5, Interesting)
North Vietnam was backed primarily by the Soviets, not the Chinese. In fact, shortly after the end of the Vietnam War, China and Vietnam got into a shooting match over the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia.
The Soviets needed more warm-water ports, and Vietnam was willing to provide this. This also put a significant portion of the world's shipping lanes within striking distance of Soviet forces. The domino theory may have been an overblown fear, but a significant base of operations in that part of the world is all that the USSR needed to make a serious nuisance in case things heated up.
Re:Well paint me surprised: (Score:2, Interesting)
What I want to know is can we hire them for the 4th of july?
Re:Well paint me surprised: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well paint me surprised: (Score:2, Interesting)
as far as I know being able to launch a missile while the sub is submerged would be a huge leap forward in the nuclear arms race.
This video [youtube.com] seems to show underwater missile launches have been done for quite a while now...
In France, all ICBMs are actually SLBM (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile) since all the land-based missile launchers have been dismantled in the late 90s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Force_(France) [wikipedia.org] I don't remember a test ending in a huge spinning spiral though. If this is a secret program, I guess they're doing it wrong...
Underwater launches (Score:2, Interesting)
While reading through suprisingly ignorant comments on _new_ tech of launching an ICMB from submerged position (this is slashdot, we are all supposed to be armchair warriors with underdeveloped muscle tissue and oversized brains filled with data on weaponry we would never, ever see unless its on youtube) and replies of ppl putting the record straight I just want to add this little nugget of information here:
In 199something (don't remember, but it was a crappy year in Russia - lost of bad news, the story got lost and resurfaced only in 2002 I think) Russian submarine has successfully launched ITS ENTIRE PAYLOAD in quick succession (as in several seconds between missiles) from submerged position - quite a feat of technology as well as personel training, since when launching more than one ICBM in quick succession one must take into account subs' weight change after the first missile leaves (it begins to surface), uneven wight distribution as pumps begin to fill ballast tanks with water to compensate just when the second missile fires, actual RECOIL begins to matter too - it's not much of a problem when you fire just once, but it becomes one if the sub's being shaken just as another missile is attmepting its launch..
So all in all - ICBMS from under water = old news.
Cheers
Re:A missile that hypnotizes you (Score:3, Interesting)
Is swirly thing above or below orange?
Re:At least it wasnt a nuke plant going up... (Score:2, Interesting)