https://thespacereview.com/article/4598/1Barbarian in space: the secret space-laser battle station of the Cold Warby Dwayne A. Day and Robert KennedyMonday, June 5, 2023Skif was certainly not peaceful. It contained prototype systems for a powerful orbiting laser intended to burn American satellites out of the sky.
Quote from: Blackstar on 06/06/2023 01:48 amhttps://thespacereview.com/article/4598/1Barbarian in space: the secret space-laser battle station of the Cold Warby Dwayne A. Day and Robert KennedyMonday, June 5, 2023Skif was certainly not peaceful. It contained prototype systems for a powerful orbiting laser intended to burn American satellites out of the sky.So the Soviets were inspired by Star Wars "Death Star".
Quote from: catdlr on 06/06/2023 04:54 amQuote from: Blackstar on 06/06/2023 01:48 amhttps://thespacereview.com/article/4598/1Barbarian in space: the secret space-laser battle station of the Cold Warby Dwayne A. Day and Robert KennedyMonday, June 5, 2023Skif was certainly not peaceful. It contained prototype systems for a powerful orbiting laser intended to burn American satellites out of the sky.So the Soviets were inspired by Star Wars "Death Star".Read the rest of the article to find out.
The black color of the enclosure/shroud for sure gave Skif a menacing look!Did anyone figure out why they chose black? Was this the "natural color" of the fairing/shroud, which protected it during launch? Anecdotally this was the first time the Soviets used some composite (carbon fiber?) material rather than metal for (part of?) the fairing.
The article mentions the United States' Zenith Star laser program. Here are some images and a 1989 GAO report about Zenith Star.
Quote from: Blackstar on 06/06/2023 09:39 pmThe article mentions the United States' Zenith Star laser program. Here are some images and a 1989 GAO report about Zenith Star.... and some more Zenith Star prototype hardware, and a 2-page article from 1987. For a better quality color image of the ITEK LAMP mirror, see Dwayne's post at https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2485335#msg2485335
[* for which a second source would be nice if we can find one.]
Quote from: Blackstar on 06/06/2023 10:22 amQuote from: catdlr on 06/06/2023 04:54 amQuote from: Blackstar on 06/06/2023 01:48 amhttps://thespacereview.com/article/4598/1Barbarian in space: the secret space-laser battle station of the Cold Warby Dwayne A. Day and Robert KennedyMonday, June 5, 2023Skif was certainly not peaceful. It contained prototype systems for a powerful orbiting laser intended to burn American satellites out of the sky.So the Soviets were inspired by Star Wars "Death Star".Read the rest of the article to find out.Spoiler alert! The answer is .... (Sorry, I can't do that to Blackstar. The article is a great read, one of his best, well worth the time).
Interesting post by first SDI Chief Scientist, Yonas: https://www.potomacinstitute.org/steps/featured-articles/65-it-s-laboratory-or-goodbye which deals in part with Polyus.
Quote from: LittleBird on 07/05/2023 07:51 pmInteresting post by first SDI Chief Scientist, Yonas: https://www.potomacinstitute.org/steps/featured-articles/65-it-s-laboratory-or-goodbye which deals in part with Polyus.He cites the right sources on that subject. (Lantratov, Asif, and me and Robert.)
At Reykjavik in October 1986, Reagan and Gorbachev almost agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons, but Gorbachev’s fear of initiating a space race with the US, and Reagan’s misguided commitment to SDI prevented what might have changed the course of history. The mystery of why they failed at a historic agreement has haunted me for decades.The mystery I pondered for many years was focused on something Mikhail Gorbachev said to President Reagan at the Reykjavik summit meeting. He said four words that abruptly changed the course of history: “It’s laboratory or goodbye.” And now I think I understand.So what really happened at Reykjavik? What role did the SDI play in the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union? Many historians and analysts have considered this question over the decades. None other than the “preeminent historian of the Cold War,” Yale history professor, John Lewis Gaddis wrote that the SDI “may have been the most effective in ... promoting internal reform in the Soviet Union…the SDI may well have pushed them over the edge.” 1 He was not alone in this theory and many well informed scholars have agreed with Gaddis that “…SDI was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”Having served as the first chief scientist of the program, and from my vantage point of the SDI program that existed in 1986, I understood that we had few if any technical accomplishments to prompt a giant arms race, let alone the collapse of the Soviet Union. It seemed to me to be like trying to knock over a Sumo wrestler with a feather. When Nigel Hey interviewed me for his book, The Star Wars Enigma about the SDI’S role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was unable to clarify or substantiate Gaddis’ claim. I told Hey “the real SDI story is about human behavior, bluff, fear, confusion and hope.” When Hey asked me about the reported description by Robert McFarlane, Reagan’s national security advisor, that SDI was “the greatest sting operation in history,” I replied, “there was no sting, there was no plan, but the story unfolded anyway. It happened because the role of people – crazy, thoughtful, selfish, drunk, stupid, clever people – is to contribute unpredictably.” 2So why did Reagan and Gorbachev consider the future of SDI so important that they could not come to an agreement? This, to me, was an enigma, particularly given what I knew about the state of the program at the time. I was not satisfied with just leaving an important part of my life as a mystery, so I set out to uncover the reasoning behind the decisions that took the world to the edge of abolishing nuclear weapons and then backed away.I now think that Oleg Baklanov, the leader of the Soviet military industrial complex, and the fate of Polyus, the Soviet’s first space based laser experiment, hold part of the key to unraveling the mystery of Reykjavik. At the same time, a clash of ideologies, not between the US and the Soviet Union, but rather between the political and technical leaders within each country, created unresolvable conflicts that led to strategic errors. But before I explore the pivotal role these factors played, I want to take a look at the events that led up to the summit.