Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-that-up-there? dept.

A mysterious Russian satellite displaying "very abnormal behaviour" has raised alarm in the US, according to a State Department official. "We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it," said assistant secretary Yleem Poblete at a conference in Switzerland on 14 August.

She voiced fears that it was impossible to say if the object may be a weapon.

Russia has dismissed the comments as "unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicious" [sic].

The satellite in question was launched in October last year. "[The satellite's] behaviour on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities," Ms Poblete told the conference on disarmament in Switzerland.

"Russian intentions with respect to this satellite are unclear and are obviously a very troubling development," she added, citing recent comments made by the commander of Russia's Space Forces, who said adopting "new prototypes of weapons" was a key objective for the force. Ms Poblete said that the US had "serious concerns" that Russia was developing anti-satellite weapons.

[...] [Ms Stickings (Royal United Services Institute - RUSI) said] "The narrative coming from the US is, 'space was really peaceful, now look at what the Russians and Chinese are doing' - ignoring the fact that the US has developed its own capabilities."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:26PM (9 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:26PM (#722299) Journal

    That quote grates across every nerve I have. It's worse than typical meaningless nonsense.

    "We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it,"

    WTF does that mean? At face value, it something like, "We don't know anything, but we can't verify that we don't know anything."

    I will note that the quote was in Switzerland. OK, so, maybe the speaker isn't a native English speaker. Perhaps the quote was poorly translated. But, holy shit - the sentence is worse than meaningless as it appears here.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:58PM (#722328)

    maybe try reading the article
    a declared “space apparatus inspector.”
    well we dont know wtf a "space apparatus inspector" is and we cant walk up to it to check
    maybe our swiss pal is fine at english and ur not

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:00PM (#722331)

    > "We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it,"

    ...but all that quote was supposed to do was make/keep you scared. Did it have the desired effect?

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:45PM (#722368)

    WTF does that mean?

    Weasel words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word [wikipedia.org]

    A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an informal term for words and phrases like "researchers believe" and "most people think" which make arguments feel specific or meaningful, even though these terms are at best ambiguous and vague. Using weasel words may allow someone to later deny any specific meaning if the statement is challenged, because the statement was never specific in the first place. Weasel words can be a form of tergiversation, and may be used in advertising and political statements to mislead.

    Now you know

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:04PM (4 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:04PM (#722380) Journal

    "We don't know anything, but we can't verify that we don't know anything."

    Reminds me of the classic: "There are known knowns..." [wikipedia.org]

    Sounds like, according to that characterization, this is mostly an "unknown unknown" with a slight tinge of "known unknown." :)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @07:52PM (#722456)

      err, you should get things straight. This is a known unknown. We know something that we don't know. Yeah? Simple?

      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday August 17 2018, @05:46PM

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday August 17 2018, @05:46PM (#722866) Journal

        Reading comprehension. Try it.

        I said "according to that characterization," i.e. the quoted text. I wasn't addressing the actual state of things in TFA as a rational person would understand them, only the ludicrous quotation.

        The clue is also in the smiley I appended to my post. In case you don't know, that's often a symbol of a joke/sarcasm/quip, rather than serious analysis.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:28PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:28PM (#722484)

      Hey, did you know that the phrase(s) would seem to originate from "The Kybalion" a text on Hermetic Philosophy (C) 1912. That's not in wikipedia, but you can find the text of the book online. The original is better than the lame quotes on wp etc. Anyway, just a fact that some of us know these things -- go, google for more :)

      and no, the news thing seemed to just be hysterical fear mongering to me. too bad that the propaganda spin is a lot like the stuff that led up to prior world-wars.

      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday August 17 2018, @05:53PM

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday August 17 2018, @05:53PM (#722870) Journal

        Well, I'm pretty sure Rumsfeld wasn't quoting an old obscure Hermetic text. And the concept goes back to the foundations of epistemology, at least to ancient Greece, even if the phrasing may be modern.

  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:42PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:42PM (#722417) Homepage Journal

    From TFA: "What would be enough information to prove what the purpose of an object is? We have pointed out Russian satellite behavior that is inconsistent with what Russia claims it is – a so-called inspector satellite not acting in a manner consistent with a satellite designed to conduct safe and responsible inspection operations."

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.