FBXL Social

I like this picture, actually. Just like America, the slavs are squatting in the remains of (apparently) a greater civilization. For years they had ONE An225, renting it out and promising they'd finish building the second air frame they inherited. That never happened, of course. Every year this big POS would make the rounds, while Antonov would promise it would make more of them - or at the very least, finish the one they had that was "70% complete".

I should mourn the loss of a treasure, sure, but there's something so ignoble about keeping a machine like this going when its owners can't figure out how their fathers built it to begin with. Neither side of the conflict has been able/willing/funded enough to build a replacement for this, and instead of telling the truth (it's useless aside from the gee-whiz factor) they would pretend they could still do it any day they felt like it.

Someday we'll see american C-5s in the boneyard in similar fashion, and I'll feel the same: A government does not deserve what it cannot maintain

Not to mention that they COULD and SHOULD have evacuated the aircraft. In all the initial reporting it seemed like there was just nobody paying attention to this supposed cultural touchstone. That Antonov ws their nation's pride, and not a single person thought to take it out of the danger zone whatsoever.

Maybe not even possible, but if they'd even THOUGHT to evacuate it then there would be reasons published as to why. They would be able to say it wasn't worth the SAM risk, they didn't have it airworthy, etc. Instead everyone around the world seemed to care 300% more than they did, because they only touched on its status when nerds started panickedly asking how it was.

Hey look at that I was totally right, I was thinking they wouldn't let this story out if it did happen....called it!

I was just looking for another picture of the wreck.

This will, of course, never happen. Ambitious autism projects like this are the capstone of an orderly, safe, functional nation. It's a huge cost outlay for a very vulnerable asset that only really matters to niche weirdos around the world. The russians only funded it to keep up the space kayfabe, and there aren't that many missions that need crap like this.

Look at the manifests for the airbus guppy fleet and it's pointless 1-off pieces like "Vintage chimney shipped intact", or "world's largest Qing-dynasty LGBT mural", it's a novelty more than it is a strategic airlifter.

And it looks like this unfinished aircraft got blown up by artillery in 2022, anyways, so it's gone too. Something so squatter about inheriting a half-finished airframe that your grandpa worked on in 1987, spending 40 years telling everybody "awww yeah any day now we'll get to work and finish it"

@WashedOutGundamPilot Not a single penny more should be spent building ground-based telescopes by anyone ever.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot It is an outdated concept but most of these projects were planned before the hubble telescope

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot The old ones, of course. But everything new should be in space. Even radio telescopes. Especially radio telescopes.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot Radio telescopes would be extremely expensive. The only practical orbit would be a distant earth orbit because of the danger of space shrapnel damaging the radar dish (or equivalent) on the satellite

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot You're thinking it would be a huge, hulking structure like an earth-based telescope. In space, it could just be a kilometer-wide sparse net of fine wire. It would weigh next to nothing compared to its size. Rumor has it there are already spy satellites with that general construction.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot those kind of satellites sound like FUD fantasy. A satellite that size is impossible to hide. there is nothing human out there larger than the ISS

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot I am not even talking about mass I am talking about cross section of such satellite.

Also if any nation had a telescope better than the Hubble they would not hide it but brag about it.

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot I never claimed they were hiding them. We (the government) track space debris down to roughly golf ball size. The "supposedly" part is what the exact structure of a radio spy satellite is. The people who know aren't allowed to talk about it. They certainly have very large arrays that unfold, though nobody talks about how large, size-wise.

Unrolling some cleverly-twisted wire in space is easy. They do it all the time to deploy solar arrays.

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot On the contrary. A few years ago the DoD gave NASA the optical guts of a cancelled spy satellite and it was far better than Hubble. I forget what NASA did with it. Probably threw it away because they were too busy wasting money on SLS.

Countries definitely do not talk about what their spy satellite tech is. They'll drop some hints or make vague claims, but none of that can be trusted one way or the other.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot also even if you were to bring such a station down to a reasonable size it doesn't stop it from being a radar tower in space that everyone can see

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Militaries can see it. They wouldn't talk about it because that would tip their hand about what their observation capabilities are. Just looking at the launch vehicles and retired historic designs, spy satellites are YUGE.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot Its not militaries that can see it. it is everyone. that why the US military couldnt block the use of GPS only scramble the code

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Only militaries or people closely connected to governments are scanning near-earth space with high-precision radar. Try to build a radar that can tell you more than "yup, there's something there all right" and some men in suits will show up before you break ground.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot spy satellite tech is bullshit hype. after the 2000s at least civilian designs have been outpacing almost every form of military electronic

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot The optics on spy satellites are better than the Hubble. Dunno about JWST, it's pretty good. But the main thing you're missing is that the military doesn't have the budget constraints that some random NASA project has. They can afford to put optics in space that NASA can't. Likewise, they can afford to put massive satellites into orbit to spy on your wifi or whatever.

The tech isn't special, it's just that NASA is broke and the Pentagon spends like no tomorrow.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot The problem with that idea is it is like trying to hide mars from a casual astromer. is it possible? yes. is it practical? fuck no

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Casual astronomers don't have extremely powerful, extremely precise small-wave radar systems. We're talking NORAD Early Warning type stuff. The signal intelligence satellites are passive; they just listen. You'd have to bounce a signal off them to see them, and that signal would have to be in radio spectrums since the antennae are small and nonreflective.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot YOU DONT FUCKING NEED HIGH PRECISION RADAR TO DETECT NEAR EARTH SATELITTES. IF YOU HAD IN THEORY A STLEATH SATELLITE IN LOW EARTH ORBIT IT WOULD JUST BE AS USELESS TO THE HOME NATION AS IT WOULD BE AS DETECTABLE

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Detect the existence of? no. Determine the size of? yes.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot YOU DONT NEED THAT STUFF RETARD

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Ever heard of black paint? They put it on all the spy satellites so home-gamers can't just point their telescope up there and see what's going on. More accurately, so the other team can't point their observatories at it and get really good pictures.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot I hate talking to normies about space detection.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN HIDE THE SIZE OF A SATELLITE. PEOPLE WOULD JUST USE THE SILHEOTEE TO DETERMINE THE SIZE

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot The silhouette of a thin wire mesh is basically non-existent. A thin wire mesh in space is basically invisible. You don't need much surface area to reflect or detect radio waves.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot but the thing is you absolute retard is that that wire mesh is made to absorb radar signals that come from earth just as easily as the ones from space. any weather radar station could pick up that kind of station.

@Groomschild @WashedOutGundamPilot Weather radar points outward, not upward. And did you ever notice how the resolution gets worse the further out you get? That's all about precision, and precision is costly. Besides good weather radar is damn expensive and people aren't just buying them to scan the skies for shits and giggles and visits from suits.

@gentoobro @WashedOutGundamPilot by picking up the rapidly moving black spot in space