5 Space Objects with the Power to Wipe Out Earth

As a response to the American Star Wars program, the Soviet Union urgently prepared a counter-attack program to launch a 1MW orbital laser system. This weapon could potentially target and destroy US satellites, rendering any possible Star Wars weapon obsolete.

The spacecraft became known as Polyus-Skif. Polyus is Russian for pole, as in the extremity of an axis of a sphere. The word Skif refers to the Scythians, an ancient tribe of warriors in Asia, and the European equivalent of a barbarian.

The project was born after Soviet scientists mentioned the US space shuttle made no economic sense and posed the theory that it could be hiding a weapon ready to take out Moscow at any given time.

To counter this imaginary threat, the project, nicknamed the Red Death Star, was rushed into the development phase using spare parts from the Mir-2 space station project. At 121 feet long, over 13 feet in diameter, and 80 tons, the USSR masqueraded the massive weapon as a space station program.

According to Yuri Kornilov, Chief Designer of the Salyut Design Bureau, Mikhail Gorbachev visited the Cosmodrome shortly before its launch. The leader of the Soviet Union explicitly forbade the testing of the Polyu's in-orbit capabilities.

Gorbachev was worried that the Westerners would mistake this activity as a formal attempt of placing a weapon in space. Such action would have contradicted the USSR's previous statements on their peaceful intentions as part of the Outer Space treaty.

The Polyus never made it to space. It was launched May 15, 1987, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 250 but failed to reach orbit.

The Polyus' payload was launched upside down for technical reasons and was supposed to separate from the launching device, rotate 180 degrees in yaw, then 90 degrees in roll and then fire its engine to complete its boost to orbit.

However, after a successful separation, the Polyus rotated a full 360 degrees instead of the planned 180. When its engine fired, it slowed down and ended up burned up in the atmosphere just over the South Pacific Ocean.

This massive failure was attributed to a faulty inertial guidance system that had not been rigorously tested due to the rushed production schedule. The project was abandoned instantly.

After its cancellation, the Polyus' scraps were reused in other USSR space projects, such as the Kvant-2, Kristall, Spektr, and Priroda Mir modules.

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