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No conspiracy is needed. The whole thing is very unlikely, but if true I'd say the most probable actor would be a lone disgruntled employee or other nutbar wit
by api 10y ago
No conspiracy is needed.
The whole thing is very unlikely, but if true I'd say the most probable actor would be a lone disgruntled employee or other nutbar with a gun. It would fall in alongside the epidemic of lone nut shootings over the past year only the victim this time was a rocket.
I'd guess the requisite kind of gun and ammo could easily be obtained from among all the military surplus and other serious kit available on the gun show circuit.
- XorNot 10y agoThis is an oddly victimless crime though. If you know enough to do it, then you know the pad is clear. It's almost exactly the type of stupid Putin might go in for if it felt deniable. Conversely there have been telescope lenses that needed to be bullet proofed in transit to stop idiots shooting at them too.
- justinclift 10y agoSpacecom - the owners of the destroyed payload satellite - probably don't feel it was a victimless crime.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 10y agoI know you mean that 'nobody died', which is great, but the loss of a 200 million dollar satellite, a 50 million dollar launch vehicle (both representing tens of thousands of person-hours of work), and several further person-hours of time wastage investigating this incident, and months of delays in future launches... all this could hardly be called 'victimless'.