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Lunik: The CIA’s plot to steal a Soviet satellite (2021)
- dang 3y agoRelated - others? How the CIA Stole a Soviet Satellite - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8083605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8083605 - July 2014 (1 comment)
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoLooks like the comment in that post has a link with a bad redirect. This appears to have the intended content: https://orbitalfocus.uk/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php https://orbitalfocus.uk/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php (in my case, it redirected to https://orbitalfocus.uk/of.php/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php https://orbitalfocus.uk/of.php/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php which I manually changed to the seemingly correct URL).
- dang 3y agoOk, I've added https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37328027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37328027. Thanks!
- messe 3y agohttps://archive.ph/th6xF https://archive.ph/th6xF
- Tee3993 3y ago> If they got things wrong, Scott warned that “World War III could begin,” CIA has great tradition with taking this sort of risks. But over decades they got way more reckless, and way less smart!!
- rvba 3y agoDanG do you check if comments like this arent made by Russian propagandists? Because this sounds like something from the "strong and weak at the same time" playbook.
- earthboundkid 3y agoThey started as evil and dumb, and they've stayed that way. Abolish the CIA.
- Sakos 3y agoWhy do people always talk about CIA as if it existed in a vacuum? The KGB were at least as ruthless and I can't imagine how badly everything would've gone without the CIA or other intelligence services on our side. Even now we have enemies which justify the continued existence of these agencies.
- mopenstein 3y agoSimpsons did it! https://youtu.be/xSVqLHghLpw https://youtu.be/xSVqLHghLpw
- marcusverus 3y agoInteresting point. What are some specific instances in which the CIA saved us from the Soviet menace?
- assbuttbuttass 3y agoThe other guys have an unaccountable, unelected, and unconstitutional secret police, so we need one too!
- earthboundkid 3y agoYou’re confusing the CIA with an intelligence agency. It is not now nor has ever been an intelligence agency. There are various other departments that do intelligence. The CIA was founded with the mission of letting the Dulles brothers conduct secret wars, and it remains true to that vision even now. There’s no excuse for it.
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- localplume 3y ago
- roughly 3y agoGambler's ruin where the prize is nuclear holocaust does attract a certain type
- dylan604 3y agoLet's pick up an entire sunken submarine with a claw from the surface by attaching to the center of the boat instead of something applying more even pressure. It's like there was nobody in the room that had ever played the claw vending machine game and saw the futility of it. "The smartest guys in the room" seems apropos
- vesrah 3y agoI thought this happened because the claw was pretty heavily damaged during deployment, only a small bit of it was actually able to grip.
- waste_monk 3y ago>It's like there was nobody in the room that had ever played the claw vending machine game and saw the futility of it The claw games are deliberately designed to hit a certain payout ratio (e.g. only 1:15 or so, configurable by the operator, attempts will have the claw clamp tightly enough to retrieve a prize). I would assume the CIA did not include this feature on their claw.
- dylan604 3y agoor did they?? they were able to bring the boat up off the floor tantalizingly to make them thing they were going to raise it at some ridiculous rate of ascent only for the boat to split. they too got fooled by the claw. their parents were out of quarters, so they couldn't try again
- NikkiA 3y agoThe machines can force a loss, but they can't force a win. If you're unlucky you're unlucky and the machine will make it up by not forcing losses later with someone with more luck and skill. Statistics give enough opportunity to not need to rig every game, and they only need to achieve a ratio over a long run, usually millions of plays ('we' always ran to 3 million plays as our statistical target, but that was fruit machines, aka slots).
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- jandrese 3y agoAmazing that one crisis that nearly gave away the operation is nobody had experience backing up a trailer.
- wil421 3y agoI like the part about having to eat only oatmeal leading up to the heist. Quite a few operations have been ruined by the runs it seems.
- hhh 3y agoThere is a long history of controlling diets before missions, and providing very specific foods for these missions to not upset the stomach. See an MRE from the U-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZuEGAsO4CA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZuEGAsO4CA
- jacquesm 3y agoAnd lots of road trips too. I'm pretty careful what I eat prior to a long ride.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoI used to do an annual 12km run (I hate running, hence the distance not being particularly noteworthy, except if one hates running), and so paranoid was I about needing to take a dump on the way, during, or on the way back, I'd sort out my, uhhh, schedule for the week prior, to ensure that it was all taken care of early in the morning before the run. I'm also aware that the human body is generally smart enough to "clam up" during physical activity, so it was probably redundant effort, but it was somewhat of an enjoyably weird thing to try and control / predict / schedule. Additionally, I have _that_ reaction to drinking coffee, so bringing it on in the event of a potential timing issue was relatively simple.
- mustacheemperor 3y agoSeems an appropriate time to mention a very different Cold War intelligence heist, when a KGB agent skipped the trailer entirely and simply smashed an AIM-9 through the back window of his Mercedes, marked it with a red flag as required by law for the drive home, and slowly mailed it in pieces to Moscow. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-the-kgb-shipped-sidewinder-missile-by-mail-moscow-21673 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-the-kgb-ship...
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- somat 3y agoThe space shuttle had "steal satellite out of orbit" as a mission profile but I don't think it ever did. I have suspicion that the airforce interest in the x-47 is to retain the possibility of this mission.
- eatmyshorts 3y agoIt did, but only as a test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49
- ruined 3y agodo you think they would publicly state they had done it, if they did?
- _kbh_ 3y agoI think the x-47 could also be used for an insert satellite in orbit stealthily mission.
- sithadmin 3y agoSounds like a lot of effort and expense for something that’ll quickly be spotted by even amateur enthusiasts somewhat quickly.
- willvarfar 3y agoI think we're talking about the X-37, which is a secretive unmanned shuttle. There is a lot of speculation about the possible uses and missions for the X-37. Amateur astronomers enjoy trying to locate it, but it keeps manoeuvring! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#Speculation_regarding_purpose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#Speculation_regard...
- billfruit 3y agoWhy is there so much secrecy surrounding it? Is it not a publicly funded project?
- rkagerer 3y agoA chorus of car horns drew commuters from their cars to protest, as the Soviets decided to peel away. Why did the guards leave the vicinity of the rocket? The article doesn't say. Was it because the girls and party were waiting for them?
- wkat4242 3y agoI wondered this too.. A whole truck full of armed soldiers tasked with guarding the truck just... left for the night?
- fbdab103 3y agoI am more interested if the cloak and dagger yielded any actionable intelligence. The article notes that there was a successful launch weeks after the caper, but that seems far too quick for any kind of learnings to have been implemented. Also curious of any notable historical decoy/honeypot ploys. Fake technology developments intended to be captured so as to waste enemy resources.
- dingaling 3y agoThe article is ambiguous on what object was actually 'kidnapped'. Other sources indicate it was an upper stage, presumably a flight-spec but unflown example. It certainly wasn't a 'satellite' or an actual Luna probe.
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- wkat4242 3y agoIt must have been an upper stage yes plus the spacecraft it carried, the dimensions mentioned by the article were way too small to be the whole stack with a booster.
- anonymousDan 3y agoWow, didn't realise the Americans relied on stolen Soviet tech to win the space race. Is this common knowledge?
- donotsay 3y agooh, so you are stealing as well.. who would have thought.
- wkat4242 3y agoVery interesting article! Thanks HN as always. And the submitter of course.
- mike_hearn 3y agoVery cool, kind of "For All Mankind" vibes going on there. But I'd be kind of more interested in understanding why the Soviets were able to get so far ahead of the US and then how the US managed to suddenly catch up and leapfrog them.