Russia in need of ‘Space Realism’

RIA Novosti commentator Alina Chernoivanova
The recent string of spaceflight accidents in Russia is the symptom of a deep crisis in the nation's aerospace industry. Experts say it's time to tone down the rhetoric about Russia being a "great space power." Russia must overcome possible new setbacks and work hard in order to return to the level of quality of 20 years ago.
Russia has lost six spacecraft in a matter of nine months. Last December, a Proton-M booster rocket failed to put three Glonass-M satellites into orbit. The launch of the Rokot booster rocket carrying a military geodesic satellite Geo-IK-2 ended in failure in February. These two accidents cost Anatoly Perminov his job. The long-serving official, who had been at the helm of the Russian Space Agency for seven straight years, left his job before the end of his contract and the completion of the industry overhaul he was supposed to carry out.

Read More

H-IIA Japanese Space Rocket

Beware Russian & Americans, as there comes another player in Space race…Japan is pushing its already praised technical & engineering abilities to have a slice in the shares of billion dollar space launch industry, specializing in the launch of commercial satellites. Being renowned of their silicon & nano industry Japanese are trying hard to prove that they are second to none in even designing monsters like rocket launchers.

Read More

China Could Make 5th Gen Engines By 2021

originally posted by DARKY

China Defense Blog posted this interesting report on the future of Chinese figther engine production — something PLA officials publicly acknowledge is the major “bottleneck” in the development of China’s 21st Century fighters.Basically, the report by China Sign Post says that China will be able to mass produce high-quality, “top-notch” fighter engines capable of powering a modern TACAIR fleet in five to ten years. That coincides nicely with the amount of time it will likely take to start mass producing its first wave of stealth fighters like the J-20.

Read More

Russia Looks to Match US on Virtual Battlefield

by Richard de Silva

The Russian military has declared its objective of having its own serious gaming platform for training its troops by 2013. General Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff, announced the move to modernise methods by investing heavily into new technology based on popular video game technology but in a form that is far more reflective of the realities of frontline combat.

Read More

Moon Machines

The right tools for the job... The U.S. Moon missions would never have gotten 10 feet off the ground without the pioneering engineers and manufacturers and the amazing machines they created to turn science fiction into history-making headlines. From nuts and bolts to rockets and life support systems, every piece of gear was custom made from scratch to perform cutting-edge scientific tasks while withstanding the violent rigors of space travel. Now here's your chance to climb aboard the capsule, put on a spacesuit and learn the real stories behind the right stuff.

Read More

A Russian DARPA…

by Konstantin Bogdanov

In Russia, the voices continue, offering to create an equivalent of U.S. DARPA, functioning at the Pentagon. That is the problem author attempts to solve? And what they want, really?

A background of increasing problems with the performance of defense contracts one of the pioneers recent harsh criticism of the military departments - General Designer of Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering - Solomon once again announced a long time wandering in the summit, idea of the formation of state structures responsible for the defense advanced research. As an example of this establishment Yuri Semenovich gave DARPA.

Read More

Pakistan’s Nuclear Forces, 2011

The US raid that killed Osama bin Laden has raised concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. In the process of building two new plutonium production reactors and a new reprocessing facility to fabricate more nuclear weapons fuel, Pakistan is also developing new delivery systems. The authors estimate that if the country’s expansion continues, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile could reach 150–200 warheads in a decade. They assess the country’s nuclear forces, providing clear analysis of its nuclear command and control, nuclear-capable aircraft, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles.

Read More

Why Getting China to Consume More Won't Stop U.S. Decline

BY IAN BREMMER

Halfway through 2011, we've already seen an extraordinary year of volatility: turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa, the eurozone's ongoing fiscal crises, Japan's triple disaster, the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yet these dramatic events have obscured a slow-moving, underlying shift of much greater long-term importance: global rebalancing. In its simplest form, rebalancing means this: a reset of the global economy shifting the balance of accounts between the world's established and emerging powers or between its biggest consumers and biggest savers. That alone, of course, is a transition of landmark historic significance. Yet it is far from the only consequence, for rebalancing is not just an economic story, but one that will result in a seismic shift in the international balance of power, in every region of the world.

Read More

Russian UAVs Dozor

The Russian Dozor-600 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). All of these pictures were been taken during 2010 Engineering Technologies, Zhukovsky Russia.

The Russian Dozor-100 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). All of these pictures were been taken during 2010 Engineering Technologies, Zhukovsky Russia.

Read More

PAK-FA/T-50 & South Korea

by Konstantin Bogdanov

What's behind the attempt to include Seoul in the number of applicants for a place in Russian Air Force fighter jet T-50? What are the chances of our fifth-generation machines, and in what form it could get to the South Korean armed squadrons?

The domestic aviation industry are predicting the impending struggle in the new export tender.According to newspaper The Korea Times, a leading Russian manufacturer of combat aircraft -  "Sukhoi" expressed a desire to participate in the competition to supply fighters for the Air Forces of the Republic of Korea, suggesting T-50, developed in the framework of the PAK FA.

Read More

Miral-Exposing Israel in Palestine

Being a factual film it raises the troubled historical background of Israel & Palestine. The Israel army is shown as a vicious animal gobbling the Palestine land via aggressive use of force & persuasion. With no care of human rights; war prisoners & civilians the occupying Israel army has taken drastic measures in handling of Palestinians, which to them are the real perpetrators of war!!

Not only the Palestinian but Israeli Arabs also are forsaken in denying basic human rights & suffer rudimentary behaviour at the hand of authorities. Film also shows that in Israel a cultural change towards westernizism has occurred, which wasn't witnessed in the presence of Muslims in Israel. Such culture is often seen by Palestinian (largely Muslim) Arabs as immodest.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com | SnapApp Quiz Apps

Read More

All the Dear Leader's Bootleggers: North Korea's Secret Trade in Nukes -- and Whiskey

BY SIMON HENDERSON

Pakistan and North Korea have been involved for decades in a secretive trade: The Pakistani military acquired missiles from North Korea, and Pyongyang, as part of the deal, gained access to Pakistan's uranium enrichment centrifuges. Now, new details have emerged that reveal how this relationship was smoothed by money. The Washington Post published revelations today, attributed to me, that top-level North Korean officials bribed Pakistani military officials with over $3 million in exchange for the nuclear technology. This disclosure offers fresh details about how nuclear weapon secrets have proliferated across the globe -- and provides a unique insight into the dangerous consequences of the hermit kingdom's "entrepreneurial" role in world affairs.

Read More

Kornet-EM New Capabilities of Antitank Guided Missile Systems

Antitank guided missile systems (ATGM) have been developed and produced globally for already half a century. Since then they became the most popular and wanted type of high precision weapons (HPW) thanks to their usability and relatively low cost. For example, there have been produced around seven hundred thousand TOW antitank missiles whose latest modifications are still being produced.

Read More

North Korea Admitted As The Largest Supplier Of Missiles

North Korea has become the largest supplier of different types of ballistic missiles to various developing countries, according to Defense Aerospace, with reference to a report by research company Forecast International. In the period from 1987 to 2009, North Korea has exported 1200 missiles, representing about 40 percent of this market segment weapons. For comparison, the direct competitors in the market  of ballistic missiles to the developing countries - Russia and China - have managed to export only 400 and 270 missiles, respectively.

Read More

Polyethylene Bulletproof Vests Just As Good As Steel Versions

A Moscow-based research institute has started making new bulletproof vests with high-modulus polyethylene (HMPE) inserts.
When tested together with metal vests, the polyethylene plates withstood Kalashnikov assault rifle and Tokarev handgun rounds at five meters, just like metal ones.

Read More

What Will Happen In Afghanistan And Pakistan After 2014

For more than a quarter of a century, the history of Afghanistan is one of unending violence, death and tears. Now let us see what the future holds for this unfortunate land and, by extension, for Pakistan and the whole South Asian region. This future begins in July 2011, when US President Barack Obama will begin withdrawing 10,000 troops. General David H Petraeus wants the withdrawal to be slow because, in his opinion, the eastern part of the country is still insecure. But Obama’s mind seems to be made up. He wants this done soon and, in addition, he wants the 33,000 troops he sent in the autumn of 2009 to come back home before 2012 too. This withdrawal is widely linked with the coming presidential elections in the US but, even granting this, is this a bad thing? If many Americans want the end of the Afghan war, is the desire of the military and the neocons to give a tough nationalistic front to the world the best course of action? Or is it peace and reconciliation and the cutting of losses?

Read More

Less Is More: Cutting U.S. Military Aid To Pakistan

By James Traub

I accompanied Sen. John Kerry on a trip to Pakistan two weeks after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Outrage over the revelation that bin Laden had been hiding in plain sight not far from Islamabad had prompted pundits and congressmen to call for an end to funding this supremely problematic ally. Kerry told me what he told Pakistan's military and civilian leaders: His colleagues were "overwhelmingly negative about aspects of the relationship" and "needed to see which way Pakistan was really going to go." The Pakistanis heard him out respectfully and promised a stepped-up commitment. Kerry was followed to Islamabad by a parade of senior American officials who offered a similar mix of blandishments and threats. And then -- surprise! -- the Pakistanis changed their minds. Or maybe they had never meant it.

Read More