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Two fascinating theories from the comment section @ Wapo -> "A large stationary target like a rocket is a simple shot for a sniper with a 50 cal rifle from a m
by aresant 10y ago
Two fascinating theories from the comment section @ Wapo ->
"A large stationary target like a rocket is a simple shot for a sniper with a 50 cal rifle from a mile away. . . It was something discussed 30+ years ago: to have Special Forces snipers punch holes in the missiles on mobile launchers that would not be discovered until preparing for launch. Instead of destroying the system the enemy would have wasted time and effort moving to a launch location only to find out that they were incapable of launching."
and
"What the article doesn't mention is that ULA buys its engines from Russia and is a vital part of the Russian rocket program. As a part of ULA's activities, there are Russian engineers with military training in the country legally right now. "
- alexro 10y agoWhen in doubt blame Putin
- FLUX-YOU 10y agoJust eyeballing it, it's about 600-700 ft from the center of the pad to the tree line, so perfectly doable -- would cameras have been watching the tree line? If someone had shot from the top of a roof or something, I'd think cameras would have caught him leaving/hiding. It would be very, very obvious they shouldn't be there. Leaving before anyone could notice you would be a bit more of a problem.
- api 10y agoIn my experience security is often not as good as people think it is in general, especially when large orgs are involved. Look into all the cases of anti nuke activists sneaking into nuke plants for example, or the endless cyber security compromises of large companies and governments. A place like the Cape is tough because you have many, many contractors and commercial users along with multiple civilian and military fed personnel and even academics. It's likely full of people trying to get their work done, not playing "if you see something say something." How secure is the Cape? Anyone got any experience?
- niccaluim 10y agoWhen I was there I was taken into the VAB with a group. The SRBs for the next Shuttle launch were there. Nobody else was in there. "Security" consisted of a guy asking if I had any lighters or matches.
- R_haterade 10y ago>>Leaving before anyone could notice you would be a bit more of a problem. So you sit. Hope they don't have dogs, wait for dark, then exfiltrate. Hell, there are even ways to counteract dogs. How many former snipers do you think there are in civilian life? How many smart rednecks who can shoot well enough to hit a rocket-sized target at 300 yards? (hell, I'm in that category...) Somewhere in the union of those two sets, there may exist somebody with sufficient motivation to pull something like this, and enough spare time to prepare well enough to succeed. I'm not saying that this is what happened, but I am saying that it's far from impossible.
- Natsu 10y agoIt takes about 4-5 seconds from the noise to the explosion. Wouldn't that be a pretty slow bullet? I wonder how much evidence of such a thing would be left after an explosion, too.
- nine_k 10y agoThe bullet may have caused a failure that lead to an explosion a few seconds later.
- CamperBob2 10y agoIn which case, hopefully someone has run the video through a Eulerian magnification process ( http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/ http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/ ). A bullet hitting the rocket would cause ripples in the sheet metal that ought to be visible.
- Eridrus 10y agoIt seems like hitting it directly is feasible, about would this not cause both entry & exit holes? I don't know how detailed the telemetry is/how damaged the tank is, but it seems like it would result in a slightly different failure than a single puncture.
- FLUX-YOU 10y agoI want to say there wouldn't be an exit hole if it met a bunch of liquid after entering. I think it would just disintegrate but there's not a lot of videos of guys shooting rounds into LOX/RP-1.
- jonknee 10y ago> there's not a lot of videos of guys shooting rounds into LOX/RP-1 What a job that would be--Elon tells you to get a slo-mo camera and start target shooting LOX at sniper distances "for research".
- burfog 10y agoMany "non flammable" things burn in LOX. A recently-deformed bullet is hot. I expect it would burn fiercely.
- dingaling 10y agoRaufoss in Norway produce specialist explosive anti-materiel 12.7mm rounds that would be suitable, but they don't sell to civilians or even police forces.
- R_haterade 10y agoSteel-core 7.62x54 would probably do it well enough. And you can buy that by the case, cheap. All you would really have to do is get fuel dripping out along the surface to a point where it would ignite from heat from the engine exhaust.
- wbl 10y ago
- dingaling 10y agoOddly, the 'enemy' in that scenario was NATO. Mobile missiles like Pershing and GLCM were primary targets for the Soviet Spetsnaz and they has an array of specialist weapons for the task. Being a Pershing crewman was actually quite high-risk.
- dghughes 10y agoOn Netflix there is a documentary on the engines it's quite interesting. The engines were built just as the USSR was collapsing. The engines use a better grade materials and it uses a more efficient combined pumping system 20% better. The engines were supposed to be scrapped but one of the guys in management diverted them to a warehouse.
- travelton 10y agoDo you recall the name of the documentary?
- JshWright 10y ago"Cosmodrome"
- whistlerbrk 10y agoThe substance of the doc is good but it gets very repetitive and almost propaganda-esque toward the end
- basch 10y agowhat was the second one you mentioned?
- JshWright 10y agoThe same documentary with a different name ;) Never have twins, your brain is useless for quite some time afterwards...
- hluska 10y agoCongratulations on your little ones! We have one baby (she is almost 7 months old now) and my brain feels completely useless. I can't even imagine twins.
- CarVac 10y ago
- byebyetech 10y agoI hope next time SpaceX put some bullet detectors around the rocket. Although sniper could hit the rocket mid flight, where nothing much you can do I guess.
- brianwawok 10y agoDo bullet detectors exist? For this big of area? Also black ops would never do the same trick twice :)
- allannienhuis 10y agoShotspotter.com
- MertsA 10y agoI think it's fair to point out that shotspotter specifically has been criticized for being highly inaccurate in practice.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y agoThey're basically just microphones you set up around an area to triangulate the source of any gunshots by sound.
- topspin 10y agoSomething like a .50 BMG round has a large report and the flight time is just under 2 seconds at a mile, so anything recording audio in the neighborhood would pick up the distinct crack of a rifle prior to the pad explosion. Some of the noise can be suppressed with a big enough suppression device but the sonic boom is unavoidable. Subsonic ammo is simply not workable at these ranges; that's called 'artillery' and it doesn't have sufficient precision to ensure hitting the rocket. You can listen to the explosion here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6isMuPfxcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6isMuPfxcI I hear birds chirping. No rifles. update: yes, I know Elon mentioned the 'quieter bang' sound and it could well be related, but it doesn't sound anything like the crack of a rifle round.
- tankenmate 10y agoYou're right of course; except for one minor nit, the crack you hear is the sound of the bullet. The sound you hear from the rifle is a thump sound. Indeed most infantry soldiers are trained to estimate distance to a shooter by the delay between the crack sound above your head and the thump that follows; 3 seconds is approximately 1km or 1100 yards.
- elevensies 10y agoElon heard something: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/774153847371501569 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/774153847371501569 Although I also think sabotage such a weak theory.
- alanh 10y agoYes, that sound is clearly audible in this better version with synchronized audio https://youtu.be/maRTEzlSBLk?t=1m8s https://youtu.be/maRTEzlSBLk?t=1m8s
- sjtgraham 10y agoMusk: “Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off… May come from rocket or something else.”
- 10y ago
- masklinn 10y agoThe second comment makes very little sense, RD-180 is already being used as a political football (Russia made noise towards forbidding military payload uplifted with RD-180s, and Congress temporarily banned their use over Crimea in 2015) and USAF and ULA have started investigating replacement engines.
- mcguire 10y agoThere's an interesting, if a bit overdone documentary on Netflix called "Cosmodrome" concerning those Russian engines.
- CamperBob2 10y agoThe biggest problem with the lone-gunman theory is this: what if the rocket was hit in an area that didn't cause an immediate, violent explosion? If you hit the rocket at all, something will fail, very possibly in a manner that will either be noticed before launch or discovered by a subsequent investigation. A .50 caliber bullet hole with its edges facing inward will not be missed by investigators, if there's anything left to investigate at all. So, no. Nobody shot the rocket with a sniper rifle, because that would be stupid. They would be very likely to get caught, or to cause detectable damage that would obviously not be SpaceX's fault.