You surely jest, since it is the Ukrainian prime minister who wants to build a wall.

Not only that, Chernobyl has also helped to bancrupt the USSR. The cleanup cost enormous, more than a yearly military budget.

Donetsk was regularily bombed from the air, so it would have been only a matter of time for the rebels to use a SAM. Besides, this tragedy is why I have doubts that the SAM launcher was loaned hardware - the launchers normally don't operate alone and are only designed to be operated alone in an emergency. They usually come with a command post, several launchers, reloading vehicles, missile transporters, a tracking radar vehicle, a power generator vehicle and other supporting machinery. In short a full batallion commanded by a major. I don't think Russians would give just the launcher to "monkeys" - they never have previously.

Balkans are peaceful nowadays by the way. I hope it stays that way.

In-flight telemetry already exists. Has existed for a while, actually. That is why AF447 was found. Unfortunately it is not really real-time (which surprises me - I develop software for vehicle tracking, it is a very sensible thing to do).

MH17's lesson is: "close the airspace above a war zone". Should be obvious, really.

Now I know that you are bloody conspiracy-theorist. It was even in the ATC transcripts - the dispatcher was trying to shoo the Polish airplane away because there were no landing conditions whatsoever. Two airplanes have tried to land earlier. One of them (Yak-40 with journalists) almost crash-landed, the other (an Il-76) tried to land for two times and has given up.

Are you trying to be funny? GPS would not have helped in either case - both planes were where they were supposed to be.

And as for the Ukrainians, how exactly would you know? Have you personally inquired where the people responsible for shooting down the flight from Israel are living now?
Want me to one-up the fun? The officer who authorised the shoot-down of KAL007 was an Ukrainian as well.

The Spanish inquisition has probably killed less people than were killed at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. And if I remember correctly, they were, in fact, less cruel than the usual legal practices back then.

Russia does have several time zones. Ten or so. Just saying.

Your facts may be right, but the conclusion you are making is the conspiracy theory I've meant. Here are also three points for you that are verifiable facts as well.

1) USA was directly involved in the previous instability, so what? Remember that $5 billion figure Nuland mentioned?

2) Gas has never been used against Western Europe. Like I already mentioned, even in the worst times of cold war USSR was a reliable supplier and that continued after 1991. Ukraine was the only country where natural gas shipment was used as a political tool - which is even sort of understandable, given their history of stealing gas.

3) Because Europe was fine with natural gas from Russia and had no need of the much more expensive American gas - LNG terminals cost money and the pipeline has been there for decades. Suddenly a coup in Ukraine happens and Russia is painted as the root of all evil in German media, together with calls for different gas suppliers. It got more moderate by now, but few months ago I thought it is 1980 all over again.

4) Wouldn't be the first time when USA tries to stage a government change. They have paid the terrorists of Contra, for example.

My guess is, it is not nearly as simple as you think it is and neither as simple as what I've written, playing the devil's advocate, if you will. To be honest, I don't think that USA has sponsored that coup, but I do think that they deliberately added more fuel to the fire when they saw the opportunity. As you say, realpolitik.

A conspiracy theory can cut both ways: the coup in the Ukraine was staged by USA to open new markets for their current fracking gas glut. Sounds about as plausible.

Eh what? Russia has reliably exported natural gas even in the worst times of cold war.

Aerojet has bought a bunch of NK-33 for $1.1M each, same price as a Merlin engine, but nearly twice the thrust.

Not quite. NK-33 uses an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle, which indeed was considered impossible by Lockheed Martin. SSME used a fuel-rich staged combustion cycle, which is, apparently, less efficient. Technology matters because NK-33 has a very impressive thrust-to-weight ratio (almost twice of SSME while producing 80% of its thrust) and also a good specific impulse.

Not quite single use. From what I remember even though the engines were originally meant for a non-reusable rocket, they were manufactured to withstand up to 15 firings. Kusnetsov overengineered them for prospective future use. Thus Aerojet would be able to test-fire each engine several times before passing them to Orbital Sciences.

Here is your citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

As Orbital has little experience with large liquid stages and LOX propellant, some of the Antares first stage work was contracted to the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye SDO, designers of the Zenit series. The core provided by Yuzhnoye includes propellant tanks, pressurization tanks, valves, sensors, feed lines, tubing, wiring and other associated hardware.