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Also CIA, NSA and the NRO. Also maybe some of the NASA stuff also. http://www.nro.gov/about/nro/w...

The launch was for NRO, National Reconaissance Office, they,

Monitoring the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
Tracking international terrorists, drug traffickers, and criminal organizations
Developing highly accurate military targeting data and bomb damage assessments
Supporting international peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations
Assessing the impact of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and fires.
NRO - What We Do

China, Europe or India have to put people on the moon to relight US population's push to get back to the head of the race.

Almost right, but not quite. What will get US motivated is the Asteroid Belt. The first one to colonize the Asteroid Belt will rule the solar system. Chelyabinsk was a wake up call to the Russians. The belt is chock full of nuke-scale explosive ordinance (rocks + velocity + impact = boom). Chelyabinsk meteor released 20 to 30 times the destructive force of Hiroshima, it just didn't strike ground... had it been made of the right stuff our current funding for NASA would be solved, just sayin'.

Bonus, [most] meteor impacts don't leave behind a radioactive mess. Nudge a few rocks in the right direction and you can intercept any incoming ordinance before it strikes the Belt Base. Sling a rock and destroy any city on any planet or moon. Strap a nuke to a rocky body and blow it up as it reaches orbit, you get an orbital debris cloud.

He who rules the Asteroid Belt rules the Solar System.

Until then, it seems simply too hard to get enough political support.

Fuck political support. NASA is just the propaganda arm for the NRO. US has no problem getting anything into space. We still launch the biggest rockets in the fucking world, they just carry the heaviest [spy] satellites in the world. We only partner with the Ruskies for LEO bullshit as a matter of diplomacy and as a front to give them some cash. We stopped going to the moon once our ICBM engines were fully tested (that's the real reason we even had a public facing space program).

You want support? Tap into some that's coming from our military, who has already advanced the space race so far in secret that you wouldn't believe what we're capable of today. NASA is not at the forefront of space exploration. We should fund the shit out of them to manufacture public consent to get the ignorant masses to do what's best for humanity, but I'm not surprised or losing any sleep over the future of NASA's Space Pork spending.

we did this due to the cold war. the Soviet Union had managed to put the first satellite into orbit, the first man into orbit, and made the first hard landing on the moon with Luna 2.

And now the ESA is probing a comet, and China is probing asteroids and trying to explore the moon with rovers.

Protip: The Chelyabinsk metor was ~25 times the Hiroshima bomb without any of the radiation aftermath, it just didn't strike ground. Whomever sets up a colony in the asteroid belt will rule this solar system, not to mention this planet. If the cold-war era space race was about nuclear armament, then it's stupid NOT to be still racing to space today.

We did not explore space for any other reason than the fact that we as a nation had been directly challenged and bested.

Incorrect. You explored space because your nuclear ICBMs needed reliable launch tech. Once the rocket engines were in the bag, the space exploration programs were scaled back. NASA went to the moon because you needed to manufacture public consent for rocketry to build your nuclear armament for M.A.D.

Besides, plutocrats have been benefiting immensely from rocketry, and as soon as the private sector could do so they have profiteered just fine as well; Look at the satellite industry, for example. Think of how big the war chests would have to be if you were building space-tanks?

Instead of defunding privateer operations, perhaps you should take a look at the war budget (which TFA conveniently dodges). NASA is a drop in the fucking bucket comparatively. You spend more on just air conditioning for your troops abroad. Trillions wasted on war? Give me a zarking break. You've got the money. The problem is your Military Industrial Complex wants to get fed and keep growing, but it is heavily invested in cranking out Earth-bound weaponry due to that pesky "no weapons in space" treaty (which everyone secretly violates, hence why China proved they could shoot down satellites from the ground).

Not to worry, only uninformed fools like you think NASA is the only US government agency launching rockets.
I <3 the US National Reconnaissance Office, they launch the biggest rockets in the world and provide valuable and publicly acceptable intel that also helps the public good with everything from weather research to natural disaster rescue efforts.

You'll make great advances in human space exploration eventually, whether we like it or not: Off-world colonization is the only way to lessen the current 100% chance of earthling extinction due to CME, Asteroid, gamma ray burst, etc. If I was an alien overseer (which I am most certainly NOT, and thus not in violation of the Prime Directive by saying so... though I DO need a vacation), then I would classify your race as non-sentient if only because you're not self-aware enough to make ending extinction your #1 priority.

Know what would be a good test for sentience? Send 'em a single ice comet in the shape of a "meta material" that would be nearly completely undetectable to any single-planetary bound telescope tech. Sort of like an ice cube of death. If an intelligent species couldn't detect it, land on it, and decipher the Galactic language in time to engage the onboard self-destruct sequence by about 50 earth-orbits after they had nuclear weapons and the technology to set foot off-world, then they're too irresponsible and/or ignorant to be deemed sentient and their kind deserves to die off to make room for others. I mean, for fuck's sake, Pluto isn't a planet anymore because you'd have to admit you only just discovered something 27% more massive than Pluto that's been whipping around your back yard in 2005! That means you're sitting there smug as triceratops and just as sure of your continued existence while remaining as blind as bats! FFS, the NRO even gifted NASA not 1 or 2, but THREE Hubble-class telesc

"We're tracking every flying object in the sky." -- Bullshit. I guess that was just grandstanding from NORAD and also demonstrates the futility of the NRO. How many billions have Americans alone spent to ensure this can never happen already? I mean, was every bit of that post 9/11 "security" just posturing and scaremongering?

Egg meet face, world. If you ask me, having a large passenger jet disappear in mid air just goes to show how much we've squandered in the guise of security when without actually getting any safety at all.

After all, the NSA has a fleet of its own satellites with far better image resolution capability than the DigitalGlobe effort.

Actually, that would be the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Snowden has mainly revealed metadata -- what info collection programs exist, rather than actual data -- what was collected.

The NSA has emphasised what it does is benign as in mainly collects metadata.

Metadata -- no harm. no foul on either side.

Why do you purposefully remain ignorant? Metadata collection is far more powerful than is warranted.

We don't need wiretap spying. No serious threat can make a move against us without us knowing instantly. Seriously. Cars and Cheesburgers kill 400 times more than a 9/11 attack every year. We need no expensive War on Terror, DHS, or massive spying apparatus: The Flu kills 6 times more every year than a 9/11 scale attack -- Yet we still accept the risk in driving kids to get a happy-meal and let them play with other kids. If they want to spy they can get out of the damn basement and stand next to me or point a laser microphone at my windows. An encrypted chat/voip program on a burner phone illustrates why the massive spying is incapable of preventing any danger. Further, as a Scientist, I need evidence to believe a claim. Aggregate data of this size is harmless? Prove it.

A government without secrets is immune to spies. Snowden showed the NSA to be leaking worse than a sieve -- All of our taxes spent on data collection the enemy can easily leverage against us too. Tracking everywhere I go and what ideals I hold by what places and sites I visit is a perfect tool for terrorists and enemies to silence those who advocate greater freedom.

"No harm. no foul on either side" -- Grow up kid, you have some history to study.

they would still have to justify their process for taking it from us. Last I knew, the constitution does not state "the ends justify the means".

They could justify their actions, but you wouldn't like the justification. Here's their justification: The NSA is tasked to silence "radicals" such as Privacy Rights Activists, Women's Rights Activists, Civil Rights Activists, and nearly every Anti-War Activist group to maintain the status quo. The cold war is over, the military industrial war machine was not dismantled, it fell into the wrong hands. These secret programs have been corrupt since their inceptions.

They'll point out where their counter intelligence is leveraged against folks you don't like, but fail to tell you how it's also used against good innocent people as well. Note that this NSA tactic is the same evil as their COINTELPRO justification.

What Snowden did was Patriotic and Honorable, not Treasonous because Treason is exactly how you would describe the actions of the wiretap surveillance agencies. I have no problem at present of the visual surveillance of all outdoor activity. However, since the cold war is over, and we have mutually assured nuclear destruction, we don't need wiretap spying. No force can make a move against us without our instant knowledge. Any war fought on our soil will not succeed against us. So, the Terrorist Threat was invented, meanwhile Cars and Cheeseburgers kill 400 times more people than 9/11 every year and we don't have a war on Automobiles and Happy Meals. We must end the government secrecy so we can trust our governments again. A spy can not harm a government without secrets.

The Snowden leaks illustrate that the NSA has become a huge single point of failure. State sponsored enemy spies have Far More access to the information than Snowden ever dreamed. The Stasi like spying has disgraced us and stripped us of any honor we would bestow. What soldier would answer the call to fight for a country who's actions are indistinguishable from that which we are sworn to fight against? The NSA is now, and has always been, an enormous threat to national security.

Agreed. I use coreboot on all my systems. I put my /boot/ on the firmware, and used a saved configuration so there's no searching for IDEs, etc. at boot. I boot to the login in less than a second.

I do a little firmware / OS dev of my own. Coreboot is far superior than "Secure Boot". Here's why: An OS must kick off its own crypto chain to verify executables and maintain the security provided by signed boot loader. Instead of having to go into the BIOS and enter some long hex code that you and your users WILL mess up for UEFI, I just put the crypto stub of my OS in the firmware. The BIOS just needs an option to say:
[x] Allow OS install on next boot. Then the BIOS can load a stub of the OS into firmware.
That's far simpler, and just as secure -- I mean, if the (possibly PW protected) BIOS can be exploited beyond boot-time then Secure Boot isn't secure either. Bonus: You don't have to implement a FAT32 file system and risk getting sued by MS, like you do with UEFI.

Public key crypto means my OS stub in firmware doesn't have to change every time the kernel does. It can just validate the OS image signature. The benefit is that you don't have to pay the Microsoft tax to get the security features of secured boot sectors. Additionally, if your OS boot payload is small enough then you can deliver the whole thing, and use it as a fall-back if the up to date kernel is missing or corrupt. Let me tell you, today's firmware has space enough for a full OS already -- Complete with animated graphics, backgrounds, and sound effects on many systems. If an OS stub in firmware isn't enough then a second stage loader or data file can be loaded from storage and verified (especially useful for between-boot configuration stuff, to select what OS to multi-boot by default, etc. -- If missing, use sane defaults from firmware install).

An OS stub firmware loader far simpler, more flexible, has no vendor lock-in, and is just as secure (or more secure) than UEFI Secure Boot. Unfortunately, Coreboot isn't going to help if the HDD, GPU, etc firmware or chip microcode has been exploited by the Ken Thompson Hack. The answer is to demand the end of government secrecy -- We have no expectation of privacy outdoors, so we don't need wiretap spies -- Without it we still have more than enough spying. A government without secrets is immune to spies.

Get a clue, its not just the US/NSA that does this. They are just the ones that are getting beat up in the press.

Yep, it's too bad the NSA doesn't actually protect national security, and is instead just ensuring all the other state sponsored enemy spies can get at more info than a contractor like Snowed did.

Imagine what it would be like if the government wasn't allowed any secrets or wiretaps. Our public policy would be the same policy we actually furthered around the world -- We wouldn't have to worry about diplomats making secret arms deals behind our backs; If such things were actually required to save lives then we'd understand the circumstance. The only reason we can't trust their actions is because secrets mask their motives, even when they are on the up and up.

We have amazing spy satellites launched via the biggest rockets in the world already. They would simply have more funds to split with NASA and be more benefit to actual security, science, disasters relief, while ensuring no force can make a move against us without us knowing instantly. They could even map submarines from space with ground/water penetrating radar. Better space collaboration would ensure decommissioned tech helps the space exploration initiative. No spies can threaten a government without secrets.

If the NSA were actually protecting the national security of America then they could be tasked with finding all the backdoors in the hardware and software. No one could put backdoors in for fear the NSA would find out, publish it, and ruin their business. Today they stay silent and let the public purchase systems the NSA likely knows have been compromised by enemy spies -- This saves the NSA time: They can just use the existing backdoor instead of put their own in. If the NSA weren't allowed secrets, they'd be eliminating exploits instead of leveraging them and our hardware, firmware, and OS's would be more secure. Eventually other governments would have to start up their own programs of outing intentional exploits just to ensure their people they weren't compromising public security. In addition to the Space Race, we'd have a Privacy Race, where competition would be in building the most secure systems. Public and private sector security experts could be assisted with new tools to show where flaws lie. Security would be a selling point and methods of provable security would be devised (I have done so myself on small scales). Computers and programs have finite state, so provable security is not impossible: Instead of spying the data centers and supercomputers could be tasked with hardening all the hardware and software. People would buy the USA security endorsed systems with pride. We'd have less identity fraud -- one of the most prevalent crimes. Conspiracies could be silenced through truth not ignorance. If we outlawed government secrets and required scientific evidence that their programs were helpful not harmful then we could trust our governments more than any citizens ever could before.

Sadly, we're too primitive and politically oppressed to apply the simple Scientific Method to governance. None can have assured trust or security from prying eyes because we allow the government to have secrets. That the priority of secrets is valued above security by the spies is obvious and evidenced by the way they compromise security and do not inform the world that we are buying insecure products. They risk spies accessing more than Snowden ever dreamed due to the priority they place on secrecy over security in their digital spying programs. These secret programs aren't getting beat up nearly as bad as they should be in the p

I disagree because your statement is blatantly false. The NSA can not serve a useful purpose. Simple application of the mathematics of information disparity proves you can't prove your statement to the contrary. As a scientist, I don't believe things without evidence, especially not statements lacking disprovability.

You're aware Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, and PRISM's room 641A existed before 9/11. They failed to prevent 9/11, and every terrorist attack since the 70's. The NIST helps secure our encryption systems. By what amazing feat of mental gymnastics do you arrive at the conclusion that a secret research group can be proven to be helping secure our communications? No, that's asinine. I require evidence. The government secrecy is directly opposed to both freedom and security.

Especially since we've got an army of hubble-esque telescopes zipping around the earth providing total global situation awareness. You don't need warrantless wiretaps with that kind of spy power.

Bonus, the NRO helps with natural disasters, weather, and space sciences. Defund, NSA, DHS, etc., spit the funding between NASA and the NRO. The folks benefiting from domestic spying could instead make their money selling space wares... Ah, but then they wouldn't be able to do insider trading quite so well at all.

You can't be serious, right? By what logical misstep do you propose we trust again a spy who has proven to be a double agent? The same goes for an OS compromised by malware, there is no "removal" of malware, you nuke it from orbit, because it's the only way to be sure.

They want to have their cake and eat it too. We should either have no privacy indoors & in our communication between indoor areas while having expectation to not be spied on outdoors, or have zero protection of privacy outdoors & assurances that our communications are not compromised. Look, if you want to spy on my conversations you can just stand next to me, or aim a laser microphone at my windows or glasses. You don't need to tap the coms lines because folks can buy a burner phone and install their own encrypted voice and text applications. It'll be to late to do anything by the time it's deciphered. The domestic spying and wiretaps only prevent legitimate use of the technology.

Unfortunately, information theory tells us we can not have assurances that our communications are not spied on unless we eliminate the secret spying operation. We have a chance to eliminate secrets and stand brave among the most powerful nations who have mutually assured nuclear peace, and against which no terrorist can pose a threat. Scaremongers would have you believe the terrorists are nothing to sneeze at, yet every year the flu claims SIX TIMES the lives as a 9/11 scale attack. Cars and Cheeseburgers are 400 times more deadly every year than 9/11. Even the most devastating of terrorist threats is not even a flesh wound. We need proportional protection: If you're so scared of 1/400th the threat a Happy Meal poses, then allocate 1/400th of the taxes we spend on heart disease and accident prevention to the NSA and DHS. We need no secrets. Without secrets no spy can harm us.

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

- John F. Kennedy

As a rational human being: If you, Snowden or anyone would say that the NSA can serve a useful purpose then the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence to support your unproven claim. Don't forget to prove your hypothesis you will need to more significantly disprove the null hypo

All they need to do is drop an 'A'.

Been there, done that. Thus no expectation of privacy outdoors, I'm fine with that. It's the tapping of communications indoors and between indoor places that I have a problem with -- Since Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, and PRISM's Room 641A existed before the NSA failed to prevent 9/11. So, the decades of NSA unconstitutional wiretap spying is demonstrably expensive and useless, while the other NRO spying advances space research, directly helps the military, and doesn't invade your home. I'll take NASA Johnson Style.

Hubble's mirror design changed to match the existing mirrors already deployed in spy satellites -- Aiming an army of Hubbles at earth? That's some awesome spying capability; No terrorists or enemies could make a significant move against us without us finding out immediately already thanks to space spying programs. And, when we launch more impressive satellites the old spy-sats can be donated to NASA and pointed into space, or sent to other planets.

Why not just hold a vote? I'm sure the citizens would be in favor of giving NASA all the funding allocated to the NSA and DHS since you're 4 times more likely to get hit by lightning than face terrorist attack... Every year: Heart Disease and Accidents kill four hundred times more people than a 9/11 scale attack, but we're not having a War on Cheeseburgers, or War on Automobiles. "Terrorist Threat", yeah, apparently NSA hasn't heard: They've convinced us to wear tinfoil hats despite the far more dangerous threat of lightning.

We need proportional protection. Cut the anti-terrorism budget for NSA, DHS, etc. to 1/6th the funding we have for anti-flu, since the flu kills six times more people than a 9/11 scale attack, every year. Give the funds to NASA, or the NRO if you're really scared of your own shadow. Problem solved.

http://nro.gov/

They are sitting in a cleanroom in upstate New York. There is a longer, more detailed article in the New York Times. The satellites may save $250M each or more on various NASA missions, but they still need to be launched and have a program built around them — which may put dark matter research more than a decade ahead of schedule.

For the folks who don't know what the National Reconnaissance Office is, the NRO is the member of the US Intelligence Community responsible for designing, building, launching, and maintaining the United States' intelligence satellites. It does not do intelligence work itself, nor does it direct the use of space assets. Judging from some of the comments on the NYT article, I should also say this: NRO has been around for a half century, and its existence was declassified two decades ago, so this isn't some kind of "new"/shadowy intelligence agency. While its work is classified, its purpose and function is well-understood.

For a look at what kinds of work NRO does, see

Declassified US Spy Satellites Reveal Rare Look at Secret Cold War Space Program

Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of three of the United States' most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites...

Secret No More: Spy Satellite Designer Reveals Life's Work

Phil Pressel had kept a secret for 46 years. A secret that he shared with no one, not even his wife, since he first went to work for the Perkin-Elmer optics company in 1965...

Aside: I know this is difficult to comprehend for some on slashdot, but US intelligence assets in space are almost exclusively used for FOREIGN intelligence. Occasionally capabilities of, e.g., the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) may provide civil support in natural disasters. Our intelligence operations are not transparent, and are kept secret to deny our adversaries knowledge of our techniques, capabilities, sources, and methods. Be happy that we're able to repurpose for science intelligence assets that might otherwise have been destroyed or kept secret beyond all usefulness.

And the National Security Agency (NSA) is focused on signals intelligence, not image intelligence. Eevee is right, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, located at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia) is the more likely producer/consumer for this type of analysis. The National Reconnaissance Office (parent org for the NGA) admits to housing a small number of NSA workers in its offices, but I'd guess they're there as mathematics consultants (developers/programers) rather than as analysts or operators.

Halve the budget? What budge? The U.S. Federal budget?

Military spending in its entirety isn't even a quarter of the federal budget. Item #1 is Social Security and #2 is interest on federal debt (both are going up in a huge way). Social programs such as food stamps, AFDC, HUD grants, and other sorts of direct programs to individual citizens also are as a group much more than military spending as well.

Even if military spending were completely eliminated and abolished, that we got a happy world that would never even touch the USA or anything considered vital to Americans needing a military force of any kind, the U.S. Federal government would be mostly the current bloated self that you know... and we would be without any sort of military protection at all.

While I don't deny that there is some military spending that is over the top and hugely wasteful, it is specific programs that need to be targeted with this sort of hostility rather than taking it out against the whole of the military establishment.

I've heard horror stories about the National Reconnaissance Office in terms of massively over budget projects and horrific accounting practices that should make any congressmen blush to even think when they've voted for their budget.

Considering that the NRO is mainly about spaceflight and development of space vehicles (mainly spy satellites), it seems to be a good target in terms of a comparison to NASA. Even more: NASA's budget is about half that of the NRO. Now that is a sobering thought.

The NRO: America's other space agency.

Want some real fun? Check out NRO junior, and find out what they really do!

Dude, you know the name "National Security Agency". It's not the most secretive agency within the US government.

besides, NRO is more secretive and it's still known by name.

By NRO do you mean the National Reconnaissance Office? Which I don't think has anything to do with the AF right? (I don't really know but I am curious)

And you're thinking of the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office.

There's even a website!

"Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building
Wed Aug 21, 7:45 PM ET

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident.

Officials at the Chantilly, Virginia-based National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure.

The agency is about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the runways of Washington Dulles International Airport.

Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test employees' ability to respond to a disaster, said spokesman Art Haubold. No actual plane was to be involved -- to simulate the damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building.

"It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility," Haubold said. "As soon as the real world ( news - Y! TV) events began, we canceled the exercise."

Terrorism was to play no role in the exercise, which had been planned for several months, he said.

Adding to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight 77 -- the Boeing 767 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon ( news - web sites) -- took off from Dulles at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 50 minutes before the exercise was to begin. It struck the Pentagon around 9:40 a.m., killing 64 aboard the plane and 125 on the ground.

The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation's spy satellites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA ( news - web sites).

After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at agency headquarters were sent home, save for some essential personnel, Haubold said.

An announcement for an upcoming homeland security conference in Chicago first noted the exercise.

In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA officer assigned as chief of NRO's strategic gaming division, the announcement says, "On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team ... were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day."

The conference is being run by the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute.

___

On the Net:

National Reconnaissance Office: http://www.nro.gov/

Central Intelligence Agency ( news - web sites): http://www.cia.gov/

National Law Enforcement and Security Institute: http://www.nlsi.net/ "

Although his link is from "prison planet" the original article is from AP.

You make it seem like McCarthyism is a bad thing. Forgot to read the "Critique" part "Though McCarthy's specific charges were unsubstantiated, material unearthed in Russian archives after the fall of the Soviet Union has proven that his general charge (that Communist spies had infiltrated the federal government) was true. The American Communist Party (CPUSA) was in the pay of the Soviet Union. Communist spies included Julius Rosenberg and Theodore Hall, who gave nuclear secrets to the Soviets " There is more evidence that say Mccarthy was right" Google - "McCarthy was right" You don't have to have a current space program to be a threat and and you don't have to participate to be involved in the space race. We must protect ourselves at any cost. It is all about us. The North Koreans are persuing Nuclear weapons. The Chinese are just on crack and constantly attacking our Interent and communications or trying to buy our infrastructure. When I think about satilites and a current space race I think of communications scrambling, imagery, radar, media blocking (ABC,CBS, Al-Jazeera etc...) During Iraq, we used our satilites to block communications and get current maping of the area. In Iraq we used six National Reconnaissance Office http://www.nro.gov/ satilites of diffrent types: optical satellites, infrared and ultraviolet satellites radar imaging satellites, combo radar, optical, infrared and ultraviolet satellites, signals intercept and detection satellites, ocean observation satellites. Think about how bad we would have got our ass kicked if we didn't use our existing satilite cluster like Milstar, Lacrosse, keyhole, Navstar GPS. We have Air superiority now we need space. It is not always about a laser beam being shot down from the sky. However that would be pretty dam cool.

Stereo from space is nothing new. The first ever spy satellites all had stereo panoramic cameras. Two cameras mounted on the same platform would not provide sufficient parrallax to get useful stereo, so what is most likely happening is that ALL images are in stereo with images taken forward and behind the sensor. This sounds good in theory, but the utility is somewhat limited, and you probably won't get any good nadir shots.

...probably had this ability in the late 60s or early 70s.

Check out the cameras

Don't know when the birds got stereo capability, but the first photos were returned in 1960.

...probably had this ability in the late 60s or early 70s.

Check out the cameras

Don't know when the birds got stereo capability, but the first photos were returned in 1960.

I was surprised that the NRO (National reconnaissance office) was fully visible in the latest 2002 batch of USGS photos. In the old photos it appeared as nothing but a field. Then again the DoD didn't even admit it existed until 1992, and its present location in Chantilly, VA was classified until 1994. It was hilarious, before 1994 it was played off as the "Honeywell building." With 24/7 armed guards and all those satellite dishes? Yeah right!
For you Northern Virginians it's that huge building across 28 from the Capital Expo Center right before the 28/50 exits.
I was going to try and check it out with NASA's World Viewer but couldn't get at it before the server fried.

- Cary
--Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

Actually I sent these people some email after hearing a claim of this being a first (which isn't true, project Corona did mid-air recovery of returning space capsules) and they have a few people who did this during project Corona.

Closest Thing to a Corona Homepage

Alright, time for handholding:

"The NRO designs, builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites. NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment."

From their site

What the fuck do you think the NRO does?

No, no, they're on Sunrise Valley, south of the Toll Road. With a lot of other things out in Dulles, Manassas, and Gainesville. Ah, wait, sorry, you said three-letter agency. I thought you were talking about AOL.

The complex in Reston north of Sunset Hills and just east of Town Center Parkway is CIA; allegedly it was the office of development and engineering, but I have heard -- from admittedly random sources -- that a lot of CIA's HR activities are there, too. For years, CIA job applicants were instructed to send their resumes to a PO box in Reston, so that makes sense.

The big green building in Chantilly off Rt. 28 is NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, which controls the spy satellites etc. The NRO is and isn't part of the CIA. Depending on how you choose to look at it, it's either independent or not.

In any case, this stuff is hardly secret; the NRO has a sign out front (Rt. 28 actually looks onto the back of the building), and their address is on their website.

No, no, they're on Sunrise Valley, south of the Toll Road. With a lot of other things out in Dulles, Manassas, and Gainesville. Ah, wait, sorry, you said three-letter agency. I thought you were talking about AOL.

The complex in Reston north of Sunset Hills and just east of Town Center Parkway is CIA; allegedly it was the office of development and engineering, but I have heard -- from admittedly random sources -- that a lot of CIA's HR activities are there, too. For years, CIA job applicants were instructed to send their resumes to a PO box in Reston, so that makes sense.

The big green building in Chantilly off Rt. 28 is NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, which controls the spy satellites etc. The NRO is and isn't part of the CIA. Depending on how you choose to look at it, it's either independent or not.

In any case, this stuff is hardly secret; the NRO has a sign out front (Rt. 28 actually looks onto the back of the building), and their address is on their website.

While I agree that eventually everything comes out, the US government when they have a mind to things can stay under wraps for quite some time. Though by now we know all know the Aurora exists, but over the past 15 operational years, no one has ever seen one. And the National Reconnaissance Office existed for 3 decades while nary a journalist knew they existed.

While the parent was modded as funny, I really believe it's more likely than not that NSA really may be promoting it because they have it cracked.

IIRC, Lockheed was the primary contractor on the HST and all NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) satellites.

Some links (non-classified, publicly-available knowledge):

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

"What is a keyhole satellite and what can it really spy on?"

ScottKin

...and the Corona satellite.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.

I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.

Hick town eh?

Oh yeah, way out there in Fairfax County.

Funny, we have the NRO, one of the largest airports in the US, an 802.11b wireless network, SGI, a linux users group, and an Intel datacenter, not to mention also having a boatload of linux careers. Oh yeah, and don't forget that MAE-East often gets cut by cows chewing on the fiber out here in hickville. Oh, I forgot some little things like ThinkGeek, NSI, and ARIN.
Oh yeah, and that hick high school is getting me my CCNA.

I'm not even going to mention AOL, Erols, or the CIA.

But you get the picture.

- Cary

Depends on who you are and what you have access to. Your average internet user? No. If you're the NRO, its a different story...

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

The one that got them in so much trouble because it obviously cost so much more than they could afford in their "official" budget? Nothing like a little ostentation for a secret agency.

No, wait. I'm thinking of the NRO.

They're the folks who didn't officially exist until a few years back, when someone FOIA'd em out of hiding.

Actually, the suites are also required in the SR-71's slower high altitude sibling, the U-2/TR-1 . At 65,000' it fairly close to to being in a vacuum. (btw. the U-2 has an unpressurized cabin).

to get back on topic, I thought I'd scrap together two other sites that try to pear into the deep blackness. First is Mark Wades, Encyclopedia Astronautica . One of the most complete space history sites on the net (except for the .mov files, nothing on deepcold is not on Encyclopedia Astronautica in more detail). The other The Federation of American Scientists is an excellent source on everything black.

On the scale of 1 to 10 Red Herrings, I give those sites an 11, I give deepcold half a herring head.

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken