Lunik: The CIA’s plot to steal a Soviet satellite (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Lunik: The CIA’s plot to steal a Soviet satellite (2021)

technologyreview.com

123 pointsmarcodiego50 comments

Amazing that one crisis that nearly gave away the operation is nobody had experience backing up a trailer.

I 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.

There 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

And lots of road trips too. I'm pretty careful what I eat prior to a long ride.

I 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.

Seems 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-ship...

Rule number 1 of committing crimes: Don't commit other crimes at the same time.

Don't break the law while you're breaking the law.

The 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.

I think the x-47 could also be used for an insert satellite in orbit stealthily mission.

Sounds like a lot of effort and expense for something that’ll quickly be spotted by even amateur enthusiasts somewhat quickly.

I 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_regard...

yes that was it, now I feel several sorts of awkward as I specifically looked it up because I could not remember the designation and yet, still somewhere between the list of x-planes and the comment entry the X-37(reusable baby space shuttle thing) became the X-47(stealth unmanned aircraft). Thanks for the catch.

Why is there so much secrecy surrounding it? Is it not a publicly funded project?

> Why is there so much secrecy surrounding it? Is it not a publicly funded project?

It's a military project so it's not surprising theres a lot of secrecy around it. Even more so that it's likely related to some sort of intelligence or combat missions.

The entire original design for the Space Transportation System was fatally compromised by the requirement it be able to do that mission, setting back human spaceflight 40 years, and then it never did it.

> then it never did it

Who knows what would be floating around our little world right now if that capacity to grab stuff out of orbit didn't exist, hmm?

It did, but only as a test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49

do you think they would publicly state they had done it, if they did?

> 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!!

They started as evil and dumb, and they've stayed that way. Abolish the CIA.

Why 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.

Simpsons did it! https://youtu.be/xSVqLHghLpw

Interesting point. What are some specific instances in which the CIA saved us from the Soviet menace?

The other guys have an unaccountable, unelected, and unconstitutional secret police, so we need one too!

You’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.

Reminds me of this wiki article I randomly came across last week about the former chief of the KGB predecessor… there is zero equivalent of this in the US https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria

Gambler's ruin where the prize is nuclear holocaust does attract a certain type

Let'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

I thought this happened because the claw was pretty heavily damaged during deployment, only a small bit of it was actually able to grip.

>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.

or 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

The 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).

I understand many (most?) claw machines these days have sensors in the prize chute and will go into a "strong claw" mode until such time as a prize is successfully dropped. So not quite forcing a win, but certainly making it more fair.

Well it actually did work, it was just that the sub broke apart and the pieces they were most interested in fell back to the ocean floor.

This is like a project manager that agrees to ship code that is known to be buggy and doesn't actually do what was intended, but performs just enough to fool a casual user. No. No. NO. Please, update your definition of working

DanG 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.

A 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?

I wondered this too.. A whole truck full of armed soldiers tasked with guarding the truck just... left for the night?

I 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.

https://archive.ph/th6xF

Very 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.

The 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.

It 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.

Related - others?

How the CIA Stole a Soviet Satellite - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8083605 - July 2014 (1 comment)

Looks 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 (in my case, it redirected to https://orbitalfocus.uk/of.php/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php which I manually changed to the seemingly correct URL).

Ok, I've added https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37328027. Thanks!

Wow, didn't realise the Americans relied on stolen Soviet tech to win the space race. Is this common knowledge?

Very interesting article! Thanks HN as always. And the submitter of course.

oh, so you are stealing as well.. who would have thought.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com