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Spy Satellites? What Spy Satellites?
mutantcamel writes: "This story at Yahoo says that the actual orbits of US spy satellites are not the same as the ones that the UN thinks that they are. The errors include a launch of a
satellite that was never registered, and only two of the last ten satellites have been correctly registered. The errors are bound to cast doubts on what will really happen with the Son of Star Wars programme." Heh, "errors".
Now, if we used better earth terminals, that were able to reject adjacent signals, we could get closer spacing. In fact, so close that you could damn near walk from bird to bird. But the FCC, as a matter of reasonable policy, decided that 2 degree spacing was as close as we should get for similar signals. However, there are several birds that fly less than .5 degree apart on different bands. Under that scheme, we could put 720 sats in geostationary orbit. As spacecraft get better, such as the newer 701HP's and beyond, that is plenty. In fact, over the past two years, space segment cost has dove downward.
Now of course to make that work, the earth terminals would have to be really good. Your pizza dish would not work. As it is, 3.8 meter dishes are often the smallest even for Ku band signals that work well.
The U.S. is not, has never been, and was never designed to be even a representative democracy. It is, always has been, and was designed to be a constitutional republic with institutions ranging from appointive to fully democratic, and has increased its democratic content over the years through amendment.
For example, state-set property qualifications to vote are still constitutional; the State of Washington could legally limit the right to vote for members of the more numerous branch of its state legislature to persons with assets of at least $1,000,000,000. If it did so, the same property qualifications would also apply to all Congressional elections held in the state. The state can also set whatever method it likes for choosing electors for the Electoral College; it could limit their election to the same persons.
But let's get even more narrow. Can a government be called democratic if the people of Wyoming have votes that count 60 times more than those of Californians and infinitely more times than those of the people of Washington D.C.? Because that's what the Senate does...
Because Congress and everyone else always cause an uproar whenever they discover that someone's been spying on them. They then go on to denounce the act in every possible way, effectively creating the notion that America would never commit such "cowardly deeds".
You are missing the point entirely. There are much more discarded objects up there than satellites (whether spy or not). There is much greater risk of collision with space junk rather than a military satellite.
A much more realistic attack model for a small country would be to put the nuke in a truck or a shipping container and drive or sail across the border to a major city. If they need extra security, they can always pack the stuff in drugs and smuggling it across the border is no problem at all....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Well, to the rest of the world, America represents unrestrained, arrogant capitalism and power"
Well, it cannot be that bad since there are millions willing to risk their lives to join that "decadent" nation.
First of all, write in votes ARE allowed. And Nader didn't get a noticable percentage of the vote because he was leftist nutcase who is campaigning basically on corporations are evil and Big Brother is your friend. Last time I checked Microsoft for all the shit they pull can't put me in jail.
As for Florida, it's called tough luck and percent error. If you have EVER created and helped run a survey (I've worked ona few), you will realize how many wacked out totally non-sensical shit you get. If you say circle one, people will circle three. If the survey is an anonymous survey, I've seen people name and date it etc... At LEAST 1% of people are going to fuck up somehow. Let's also remember that according to reporting by the New York Times, and a bunch of Florida newspapers, under almost any vote counting standard, Bush would have still won. People probably did fuck up, but the way the numbers turned out, Bush won.
And why is there this tacit assumption that ONLY voters for Gore will fuck up their ballot? This tells a lot about Gore voters opinions of other Gore voters...
I just hope cynical unconstructive shits like you go wallow in your own misery and not try to bring the productive world down with trashing of corporations and the rule of law.
>The ignorance and disinformation that gets spewed on Slashdot can get burdensome, I swear.
/.'s just a tabloid website that allows it's readers to type funny comments to each "story". And what marvelous stories they are! Too bad most of it's bunk.
You seem to forget that
>I swear Michael seems to be on lookout for every story with any type of anti-US propaganda.
/.
No, that's Jamie, with his "Your Rights Online" segment. So, you have a problem with all this "anti-US propaganda"? Then hopefully you feel the same way when there's anti-XYZ propaganda. Or maybe you're just anti-free-speech. Or maybe you can just stop reading
You do (hopefully) know that the US is one of the first nations to support the creation of the UN? Yes, the UN is the offspring of the League of Nations, which unsuccessfully tried to stop WWII. Typically, the UN was formed to stop WWIII, because of the threat the US and her allies saw in the USSR and her allies. Since Russia is now dead, and her allies sitting ducks, it's no wonder Americans such as yourself despise the UN, despite how much our government made it our tool.
"As for blocking restrictions on international arms sale, don't forget, it was only 10 yers ago when we put up the lion's share of shutting down the world's biggest bio-war offender."
I suppose you're talking about Iraq, eh? Where the fuck do you think they got bio-war supplies? The U.S. State Dept. approved shipments of Anthrax from The American Type Culture Collection. We *created* Hussein. We kept him armed for ten years, because he was fighting Iran. The US is the major source of terrorism in the world, and has been for the last 50 years.Why is it that it is usually a right winger that cries "Bias" when they see any opinion published which differs from their own?
the Learning Channel and PBS do all sorts of neat documentaries on our spy agencies all the time with their full cooperation, and the NSA has a website and physical museum.
Yes and they do show you everything about it, no secrets at all.
No, it was considered in depth and several people signed off on it. It was planned for months, and is now standard operating procedure to collide our spyplanes into border patrols and then land a planeful of high tech and classified equipment and military personnel in another country.
Yes we can learn anything about you secretly, but if you try to take anything that belongs to us, we want it back. We were just secretly spying on you, everybody knows about it. Please give us back the secret information we've collected that you don't want us to see. And do not spy on our technology. We're not spying on you.
Whereas any Chinese military officer can come over here to America and pay $50 to a small plane pilot to fly over whatever he wants and snap as many pictures as he wants. Then walk into KMart and get them developed in an hour, and mail them via US Mail back to Beijing.
Yes they could make snapshots of the white house, the Cheyenne Mountain a.s.o. All planes are allowed to fly over secret military bases. Get real.
Look a monkey!
Of all the countries in the world, I trust the US by far the most. It's role as a super power has been by far incredibly benign and beneficial in the history of the world. It has been a preacher and a warrior for capitalism, democracy, and human rights. And let's not forget those other nations such as Japan, Germany, and Russia that could have been holding the gun instead of the US...
Spy satellites are known as such simply because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE
As a master of knowing how the world works, did it ever occur to you that the purpose of a spy sattellite is to SPY on something? The only reason one would need to keep them secret, was if they were so few that they could only cover a small fraction of the territory.
Next, in your two next paragraphs, you do another trolling trick, which can be easily found in the trolling faq at geekizoid. Spying, and assasination necessary, and would have prevented WWII. Risk of World War high, therefore spying necessary, case in point assasination that triggered WWI. Classic trolling technique. Extra point given for contradicting statements.
To end it, throw in a few insults, and challenge to flame.
Nice trolling attempt, but not complete. You missed a few things that would have given you a bonus points. You should have started with "I did not read the article, but ...". You also failed to challenge the moderators. Somehow, you also failed to make any challenge against the Linux crowd.
I'll rate your troll a C-. Now go to geekizoid, and study more, you obviously have much to learn.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Has America ever done something that isnt in their own self interest?
I'm a technologist, not a historian, but has any country ever used military force when it wasn't (knowingly) in their self interest?
I'm not talking about taking action that ultimately turned out to be a bad idea (i.e., Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, the US putting troops in Vietnam and Cambodia, etc). I'm wondering if any country ever said, "well, this is not in our self interest, but we'll do it anyway."
You indicate that there infinite orbits. In theory, on paper, this is true. I said that there are limited *useful* orbits. For spying, this means that you have to achieve a path that places you over your points of interest, and a speed which places the satellite over those points during daylight. This limits your choices. I didn't say the number was small, or zero. I simply said it was limited, and I stand by that.
Another assumption you appear to have made is that no orbits intersect. I hope I don't have to explain that one.
Americans would never do that...
Well is sure as hell wasn't the French.
"Spy satellites are known as such simply because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE! How does this come as any great shock to anybody who even has a clue about the way the world works?"
Bullshit. Any nation state that doesn't know needs a good swift kick in the head or has nothing to fear. Look at the nuclear test those sattelites were accounted for then and I bet they could be accounted for and are on a regular basis. Those birds in the sky can't be moved at a moments notice. Well they can but not infinitly so (they run out of fuel). Also it's kind of ironic that the US relies in part on the very UN treatise that it doesn't faloow in spirit. Imagine if they lost a spy sat to a french hunk of tin.
+1 Informative. Rotfl.
Should be Insightful. It is day in europe, so let's get this to +5 before those american bastards wake up.
We get all this bashing, from ourselves, too, because the government is, thank God, very active in pursuing our interests everywhere. Unfortunately, as Hart said, the requirements of strategy are directly opposed to those of morality. So we don't like it. Hate it, in fact. And don't do anything about it- because while most of us vehemently hate an aspect or two about what the government does for us, we know that we need the wole package.
Conflict is a part of the human condition. We can't avoid it, but we can work hard to adjust it. As long as there is going to be fighting in the streets somewhere, I would rather it be somewhere else. I'm sorry, but I'll stick to that. It's a lot cheaper to maintain the most capable military machine we can than it would be to rebuild just one of our cities.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
>Millions of people trying to get in direct contradiction to your bullcrap.
They're only here to make money. Why else are H-1B visas so popular nowadays?
>His duty is to care about US welfare first and foremost.
The government's or the people's?
>He was right to refuse to participate in a treaty that would affect US while leaving whole slew of huge polluters untouched (India, China.)
Nope. The US is the largest polluter per capita. India and China only have a fixed amount of time before they have to adhere to the treaty.
Kyoto is just a bunch of grandstanding bullshit by European leaders. Everyone is for it because every leader with an ounce of common sense knows it will NEVER be implemented. EVER!!!!
Last time I checked, NO EUROPEAN COUNTRY HAS RATIFIED THE TREATY!! Clinton was supposedly for it, but like the world court treaty, he never submitted it to the Senate.
When was Kyoto signed? Why isn't it further along to being implemented? BECAUSE IT NEVER WILL BE!!!
No European leader wants to kill their economy, and no European leader wants to offend their country's green movement. What do they do? Say they support Kyoto because they know nothing in practice will EVER happen.
Trying to vote any "radical" candidate straight into the highest-ranking office of the land is doomed to failure. If you want change, you have to start at a more local level. For heaven's sake, most state's propositions and city's local ordnances on the ballot could have a much more dramatic effect on you than whoever ends up in the Oval Office. If you don't like the Presidential candidates, fine; don't vote for one. But at least vote for your representatives, and on all your state-, county- and city-level propositions.
I think he mean 'rogue', and yes, america is a rogue state, like Irak, north korea, china etc.
Now, to get a more realistic experiment repeat the whole thing with 10,000 marbles thrown around randomly and see whether any two of them collide. The UN tracks about that amount of objects in the closer orbits of Earth. Anything from sattelites, bigger chunks of debris left from rocket launches and other garbage that civilization has literally blasted into orbit. And that only counts objects above a certain size! Scientists (and Lawyers) are getting seriously worried about the amount of debris flying around in the lower orbits.
I just love it when you Americans get angry and lose it here on Slashdot.
The man is not ignorant. The truth of the matter is that what he was saying WAS TRUE. WE AS A SOCIETY CAN'T SIT AROUND AND EXPECT THAT OUR VERY NECESSARY AGENTS THAT SIT IN A DEN OF VIPERS WILL ACT LIKE ANYTHING BUT THE DANGEROUS MONGOOSE THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE. The CIA has cfossed the line many times. It has killed innocents, perhaps hundreds of thousands in its history. But the truth is, there are civilians that harbor terrorists, and that in itself IS JUST AS BAD AS terrorism. I wish the world was as black and white as you see it. Then they could focus on the paramilitaries only, but that is not the truth. The truth is scarier. Many are civilians that kill you when your back is turned. Many would kidnap and kill you JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE AN AMERICAN. Keep in mind that these people kill their own countries citizens too, and they would be twice as to kill you. Many terrorist groups tell themselves hourly that their opinions are GOD'S WILL, so that they can sleep well with themselves for murdering children. The only way to keep a dangerous group at bay is to be more ferocious than them... convince them that you're more dangerous, and willing to do what they can't. Keep in mind that the espionage game is expensive, but it is pennies on the dollar in terms of human life compared to the horrible aspects of war. Wars bankrupt nations, bring warriors into power (even into peacful nations, (like Eisenhower)), and obliterate ethnic groups and make more terrorists.
if they did then you know that if it ever got out to the public then there would be hell to pay for those who made the decision.
This sig intentionally left blank.
what will really happen with the Son of Star Wars programme
Shouldn't that be Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones? Thanks to George Lucas for blowing the whistle on what Dubya is really up to -- building a army of clones.
Well, I guess that proves we're going to have colliding satellites RSN, doesn't it.
What idiot mod marked this garbage up?
Yes most hummanitarian aid. Especially in the case of natural disasters eg. flooding.
I have worked in the government aerospace industry for a decade. Everything I have read so far, including the original posted artical, exhibits great ignorance of the nature of spy satellites, and the UN convention. In fact, I think this whole thing is an attempt at FUD. The artical states "If today's satellite orbits cannot be trusted, opponents reason, ..." when the authors realy mean, "we hope opponents will reasone, ...". It kinda reminds me of the Cassini thing a while back.
Okay, now some facts. Spy satellites are small and disposible. They have very short life spans. The orbits that they are placed in are usually lower then low. It is even possible that aircraft have flown higher. These orbits are only good for things like spy satellites. Some of the more sophisticated stuff is mobile, i.e. able to change their orbits. This makes sence. Often the hot spot needing observation did not even exist at the time of the launch. The UN convention has purposefull wiggle room specificly to address the concerns of the intelligance community. The US is not the only country to take advantage of this wiggle room. And lastly, I doubt that anyone will be able to spot a spy satellite in the sky without knowing its possition, and even then, it would be damn difficult. Come on, think for a moment. If you were to build a spy satellite, wouldn't you make the thing as hard to see as possible? All in all someone is trying to create an issue where none exists, preying on ingnorance.
The Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, or CTBT, wasn't ratified by the US, who, incidentally were the first signatories, because the Republicans were so consumed with their hatred of Clinton that they couldn't see straight to give in to even the slightest notion of a 'victory' to him. Partisan and short-sighted politics thereby diminished the US in the eyes of the world (once again), and severely reduced the level of security in the world. Realize that the US stands to benefit greatly from the CTBT; having already tested its weapons to a great degree, they would only become more secure when Pakistan, India, et al voluntarily gave up the ability to test (and thereby develop) their own deadly creations.
Between that, the Kyoto protocol, NMD, and now this discovery that we have been 'in error' on our satellite orbits (is Russia truthful about thiers?), our prestige in the world is reduced to that of a big bully with an attitude problem, rather than the shining beacon of democratic promise and economic prosperity through principled administration of a higher ideal. Plus the fact that W is arrogantly and defiantly ignorant of the issues, and needs Condo Rice to tell him that Mexico is part of North America...
slightly ot, but it puts it all in perspective, ya think?
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
It strikes me that we must register the location of our (US) spy satalites. Who, I wonder, "requires" this of us? The UN? It also strikes me that the UN seems to be more about a set of contries trying to exert power as a single super power. The US is not apart of that group. Instead, the US is in competition, to a degree, with that group. The UN suffers the same problem as the European Union. Their impotence is their weekness; they can't act as a single entity, because they are fearfull groups in competition with themselves and the world. Their socailist governments are a reflection of that fear; the more fearfull the leaders are, the more they try to control the society by restricting freedom's. The developing countries in Africa, South America and Indo China, represent the biggest threat to the UN. These countries are in the best position to experience the hypocracy of the UN and its weekness. They have suffered because of the UN, and they will not be supportive of the UN leadership, and by proxy, the EU.
True enough, but it is hardly particularly democratic since it enables officials to vote on behalf of the people. It is an undemocratic element that does no real good -- these officials too can vote for persons based on their "charisma" (to use the word of the original poster). Other constitutional and legal elements such as the protection of fundamental freedoms and minority protections should be used to combat potentially dangerous populistic leaders.
How about "voting merely encourages the outdated two-party system, unless of course you don't vote democrat or republican, in which case you might as well have stayed home"? "If you're fucking dumb enough to vote, you're dumb enough to believe 'em" - propagandhi's "Showdown"
Tastes like burning! - Ralph Wiggum
Ah, "rouge", as in "rouge countries, without a democratically elected government". Well, howdy to y'all too, fellers!
To us, Yurpeens, that's indeed what the US of A boils down to these days, with a president-appoint instead of a president-elect, who's government is roguishly negating signed-and-set convenants. Such as the Kyoto treaty, the nuclear disarmament treaties, and so on.
A rogue state indeed. I somehow doubt that any US-controlled space gun will be directed towards its proper target, though.
Maybe it's time to coin a new word.
euro-trash: Mouthy europeans parroting anti-American memes.
If you really believe in what you are saying I find it tragic. It is very very possible to have a civilized society without having a secret service killing people outside your borders. If you look around the world you will that there are countries that get along really well with their neighbouring countries, and have no fear whatsoever that they will be invaded when they turn their back to them. So I agree with the previous poster. You are brainwashed and a troll.
Imagine that the Earth is a perfect sphere. Put several thousand robot cars on its surface. Each car has a constant velocity. How often will the cars collide? Now make them flying cars. Each car flying at a randomly chosen altitude between 0 and 50,000 feet.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"And I'm not saything this from necessarily an American standpoint - I fully respect the rights of all other countries to do the same thing."
Uh huh. So you wouldn't mind if some country assasinated Bush and supported a puppet dicator... Or maybe funded the Canadians to terrorize and wage a guerrila war against the US... Just because they don't like our method of government.
I mean, sure you'd be sad if your side lost, but you fully respect their right to do that sort of thing, eh?
Hmm...kinda true. I agree...
The path of excess leads to the tower of wisdom.
-William Blake, The marriage of heaven and hell
Oh, and the Iridium satellites are the brightest objects in the sky, if you happen to catch a flare.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
It's heavens-above.com with a dash. I accidentally hit "submit" instead of "preview".
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
What you're doing now (Kyoto, blocking restrictions on international arms sale, refusing to ban biological weapons, missile defence etc.) is not.
Don't expect us to bend over for every stupid thing you do now just because of the WWII.
Right on! Now, that's the American additude I hate.
Actually.... they are not trespassing. Overflight was a concept settled in the 1950's, by the Soviets of all people, when Sputnik was orbiting.
And this is a good thing. Without overflight then every satellite would be "trespassing," as even the geosynchronous birds travel over countries on the way to their permanent orbits.
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," said Rep. Billy Tauzin. Gore - 50,999,897 Bush - 50,456,002
"Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T. "
No it was Europeans that didn't.
Just as persuasive and as much supported by facts as your statement.
"Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you?"
Most of these places are heaven , even to natives, as compared to Haiti and other "independent" 3rd world countries.
Well...if I remember correctly...
In 1997, the council approved the issuance of $336 million in bonds on behalf of the Washington State Major League Baseball Public Facilities District (PFD) for construction of Safeco Field. State and county law require that all excess revenue from the authorized taxes be distributed in the following manner of priority.
The funds for the PDF came after a 1996 Seattle Metro area ballet initiative was passed.
But there were cost over runs...that is true.
Well, it depends on your ideals. For people like me( strong libertarian capitalist), it is the farthest thing from what america should be. Aside from that, human nature does not allow for communism to ever be successfully implemented. Communism will always be plagued with under-production, due to the simple fact that people have no motivation without some benefit for themselves. In a communist system, the attainable benefits are drasticly limited, so people feel less of a reason to work their hardest. Greed is a good thing in my opinion.
There are other reasons communism isn't as efficient as capitalism, but it is up to the individual country to decide on their form of government. I do feel that the US has been trading on some of our important freedoms in the recent past, but I still have hope for our courts and congress to correct their own mistakes. As for the spy satellites, it isn't really much of a surprise that the were misinformed, after all, they were spy satellites. Kind of hard to spy when everyone knows where they are right?
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Human nature is subjective, depends on education and social values, communism nor capitalism are instictive manners. Capitalism is plagued with over-production, greed leads to excessive motivation of unlimited benefits. Symptoms are unetical exploitation by few privileged people at the expenses of hard working ones. Inevitable growing of inequality among rich and poor. Sooner or later capitalism is doomed to failure as well. It's a matter of time.
add #15 to your sig, it's going under soon.
Clueless America bashers. Did you read the article? Did anyone bother to actually read the convention?
t .h tm
From the article:
"Unfortunately, the UN registry relies on a treaty that allows long delays in providing data, and does not require nations to give final orbits. "In fact, they mostly provide only the initial orbit," said Petr Lala, research chief for the UN office, which is aware of McDowell's findings."
There is no deadline for registering orbits, and no stipulation that FINAL orbits (or CHANGED orbits, as spy sats CHANGE orbits) must be reported.
Now, go read the Convention:
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SORegister/registx
The Convention states that each launching State will maintain its own register of orbits, and "The contents of each registry and the conditions under which it is maintained shall be determined by the State of registry concerned." That information is then communicated to the UN Register. In other words, when and what gets registered is at the DISCRETION OF THE LAUNCHING STATE.
This treaty is meant to determine responsibility in the event of a space collision. NOT as a means to track objects in space for safety of orbits.
The ignorance and disinformation that gets spewed on Slashdot can get burdensome, I swear.
Derek
Back in seventh grade, I met a kid whose father claimed to have "worked" on the Star Wars program. Now that fact by itself isn't the really interesting part. What *is* the interesting part, however, was that his father who worked in the military contractor biz told him that not only was it functional; there's a good chance that someone's probably already tried to launch nukes at the US and it didn't work. I find it hard to believe that in nearly 40 years since the invention of ICBMs that nobody has even taken a shot at us. Coincidence? I think not. The best way to use a weapon like this is to deny that it exists and avoid public scrutiny...
"What's unamerican about spying? Congress allocates a large budget for it each year, the Learning Channel and PBS do all sorts of neat documentaries on our spy agencies all the time with their full cooperation, and the NSA has a website and physical museum." What's the diffusion time, we these documentaries are broadcasted?? I am Canadian, i have acces to the learning channel and 3 different PBS stations with my cable account, and i hope it will help me being James Bond, like any respectfull member of the commonwealth. :-)
Well, spy satellites are spottable by amateur astronomers... so we should count on that the rest of the world have calculated their orbits themselves.
The danger as I see it is the spy satellites crashing into important scientific satellites or even commercial ones like TV satellites. I would be really pissed of if I couldn't watch TV because of the stupid US government! The NSA,FBI and CIA reading my mail I don't care about, but when they start interfering with what TV channels I can watch, I get mad!
Well, perhaps they do already through sensorship already? Through sensoring sensorship, sensorship can be hold secret.
The USA think they can do whatever they want - and they can. They got most nukes, even though I bet Russia and China got enough aswell.
Find nice cocktail recipes @ www.spitzy.net
On the other hand, since it lets us know its bias straight-off, we can dismiss it without having to wade through the crap that follows.
Look Mr Harvard-Liberal-Academic-Kennedy-Wannabe, we all know you hate Bush. But are you really that naive to think that any nation capable of putting a satellite in space wouldn't be able to make the same kinds of observations you did? I have a feeling most nations understand that spy satellites are, well, for spying, and that unless they want to start a war they'll let us have ours and we let them have theirs. The U.S. Space Command is more than capable of keeping track of all man-made satellites in earth-orbit, so arguments about collisions are irrelevant. And the fact is that the treaty says that contents of each country's satellite registry is comnpletely up to that country, so the U.S. is not in violation of the treaty.The only way I can explain this article is that this "respected space analyst" is either extremely arrogant and naive, or (more likely) an anti-Bush liberal democrat. The other thing to remember is that New Scientist is based in Europe (in G.B. I believe), and to fill a weekly magazine with "cutting-edge scientific journalism" they have to choose a few dodgy topics as filler, the more controversial, the better.
The real unitron has Slashdot ID 5733, and needs to change his sig.
For one thing, spy satellites, aka imaging platforms, are in orbits that are not generally viable for commercial use. They are in sun synchronous polar orbits. The only thing they might hit is another spy satellite. For another thing, the US, Russia, and China all track space debris. They would immediately alter an orbit if it appeared that a collision were imminent.
Use the spatula, Luke
Who cares if the spy sats run into each other? I think it'd be kinda funny.
The chance of an unregistered spy sat running into a civilian sat is so close to zero that it is irrelevant.
Orbits at different heights have 0 chance of intersecting (since the min height of most useful civilian elliptical orbits is well above all spy sats). There are no civilian sats where the spy-sats orbit.
Does this really come as that big of a shock? They are spy satellites. I, for one, would be more alarmed if they were being honest about it.
On the other hand, it really does say something about our country. Not only do we not trust our government, apparantly they don't trust us.
I would bet money that's the only time that has ever happened (aside from collisions during takeoff and landing, when the plane's location is very constrained) in 100 years of aerospace technology and hundreds of millions of flights.
(Of course, evidence of more midair collisions is welcome...)
The joke is that the guy who bought the London Bridge back then made that mistake. He thought UPS would deliver Tower Bridge but what he got was a (more or less) plain thing. Heck, had Home Shopping Europe (tm) been in existence then, he would've got pictures...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
The reason Americans can have the opportunity to live happy lives is thanks to those CIA killing sprees. The whole concept of "civilized" society only exists with a external containment of vicious, natural aggression. If you don't have a stick, your neighbor will come over with his stick and take your food and women.
I don't care what the military does. as long as it maintains my country and stays away from the citizens of my country. Killing people is part of war. I'd much rather have some people running around killing a few dangerous individuals before they raise a army and get themselves and lots of my fellow citizens killed.
And I'm not saything this from necessarily an American standpoint - I fully respect the rights of all other countries to do the same thing. At the same time, I hope the US is better at it than everybody else. I'm not afraid to say that, when the shit hits the fan, I hope my family and friends survive and the other side loses. *AFTER* my family is safe, then I'll hope that the other side is okay as well.
War is hell - people die. And all countries are at war with all other countries. It's just that we don't fire shots all that often at the ones we get along with right now. Korea and Viet Nam are two good examples of what happens when we're not so happy with another country - neither was quote, unquote "War".
We're doing a hell of a lot better than two thousand years ago, when the accepted practice was genocide, sometimes combined with rendering the land infertile, to destroy your neighbor utterly. But don't even begin to think that we're not more than a month away from a fully armed, global war. And *that's* why those CIA assassinations occur... along with why the satellites are hidden as much as they can be.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Just because the rest of the world doesn't know where they are doesn't mean the US doesn't know. All of you people saying "ooh, oh no, there's gonna be a collision..." no there won't be one. The US knows damn well where its expensive satellites are and it'd be damned if it let one collide with a commercial satellite. If it's headed right for one, it'll change orbit, simple as that.
Why is it that political or foreign-relations stories get all the responses with Bush-bashing and America-bashing?
You're right, we should have that in all the stories!
First, the choice of orbit isn't random; some orbits are better than others (land or sea coverage springs to mind). These orbits will tend to crowd faster than others (there is a real shortage of geostationary orbits by now, for example). Second, they'd be circling in similar orbits for years.
:-) ), and toss marbles. This time, however, we toss them in similar directions. Also, we do another toss about every fifty minutes for the next ten years (or around 100.000 times).
OK, let's stand on random point on a cricket field (though I'd prefer an icehockey rink, but whatever
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
"Oh, by the way, guys, my spy satellites are at (orbits). Yep yep."
:P
;P
(US pisses another country off, other country takes countermeasures against said satellites since they know exactly where they are.)
What's next? Should the US tell other countries the names and placements of our human operatives?
That'd make as much sense as the DMCA.
Oy. UN. *snicker* The UN makes me laugh. I'm reminded of the Peacekeepers in Alpha Centauri. And the 'special' rules for UN troops in Warhammer 40k.
The UN is an ineffective platform that only serves as an emotional tampon for bitchy countries. Why the hell would we have an obligation to tell them where our sats are at?
I mean, seriously. It's not like our government really cares about the UN. And it's not like they have to - what are they going to do to us?
Like it or not, the US is currently the most powerful nation on earth. Will this trend continues? Probably not. Even Rome fell. But Rome took over most of the known world before it went out. Like it or not, for the present, we make the rules.
"p.s. 'i didnt like either candidate' is not a valid excuse; try again."
Is too, because I say so. What the fuck are you supposed to do when your candidate is not allowed on the ballot and write-in votes are not allowed. You boycott, and you do it loudly, with letters to the editor and congress and picketts. I refuse to support a system that is fundamentally corrupt. Both parties colluded to exclude Nader from the debates, and then on two occasions used the civil police prevented him from even *viewing* the debates. What would be the reaction of the US if any other nation were to act like this? Our elections do not pass the tests we require of any other nation's election to be considered fair. And that's not my opinion, that's Jimmy Carter's. And further, why the fuck should I vote when, a) the popular doesn't count anyway (Gore won that one) and b) even if it did, the Supreme Court would just hijack the election. (There's a very good analysis of this on lbbs.org) Mind you, I don't think it makes that much difference whether we have Gore or Bush in the Whitehouse. They're both corporate lackeys. I'm not whining about Gore losing. I'm bitching about a fundamentally corrupt election process. If you watch the press, there was recently a justice dept. review released that reached much the same conclusion. Of course they don't state it so bluntly, but that's the gist of it.
end rant
I think the implication here is that the "fast moving chinese" satellite would more than likely be in reality a "kamikazee-bot". And since orbit isn't really the purpose, might indeed be traveling a bit faster than 25,000 mph. And likely not traveling the most conventional path.
You think you know something, when in fact, as Zen teaches us, there is really nothing to be known. You should understand that the ying and the yang have already engaged the problem and the solution is the sound of one hand clapping.
You normally do not see satelites in the sky. But when you lie outside in the gras for some hours at night, you start seeing more and more. We did this a few times and we could see satelites almost all 10 minutes. they do not blink or something, they are just very dimm stars moving a constant high speed from ost to west.
For more information about Echelon, see the broadcast at http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?st ream_id=423.
It's pretty scary...
Edwin
bash$
The US Government is a lot like Microsoft. Neither one of them do things out of some sinister plot, or megalomaniac agenda. In reality, both of them are just terribly, horribly, inexcusably incompetent.
Unbelievably, incedibly, beyond the pale WRONG. Neither the US Gov nor Microsoft is incompentent. Indeed, both are VERY efficient at what they do.
And that's precisely WHY you should be concerned.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
Come on, ever see the spy plane footage of the teh Chinese fighter pilots flying INSIDE the wing of the plane on MULTIPLE past flights? They were hotdogging and wrecked into our spy plane. What's your theory, that the US plane with a top speed of 500kts and a turn radius of 5 miles somehow chased the FIGHTER plane with a top end of Mach 1.5 and can turn on a dime and rammed it???? Perhaps you need to buy that bridge.
"forgive my sarcasm... 'culture'. "
Don't blame us. You are not forced to buy our stuff. It is you and your countrymen who quite willingly spend their money on our movies and our fast food.
"America doesn't have the splendor and glitter anymore it once had, being the 'land of freedom and opportunity'"
Sure as hell it does. Millions of people trying to get in direct contradiction to your bullcrap.
"And I wonder, with an asshole president like Bush who decides the world doesn't need environmental protection (the world isn't his to give - the world is not America!), how long it will take before international conflicts occur (like China already). "
His duty is to care about US welfare first and foremost.
He was right to refuse to participate in a treaty that would affect US while leaving whole slew of huge polluters untouched (India, China.)
This is a U.S. centric post. I apologize to international readers.
People in the US have a right not to vote. The pre-glastnost Soviet Union may have had %100 voter turnout, but that doesn't mean people were pleased with their political system.
Some people believe that the political system in this country is a farce. In particular, I have heard a lot of people complain about the two-party system. If those people choose not to vote, I don't blame them and I feel that their refusal to vote is a valid and highly visible form of protest. For example, imagine if only 10% of eligible voters voted. That would, in effect, be a huge vote of no-confidence in the political system, and might even percipitate a crisis. But if people vote without conviction, then they are effectively propping-up a regime they don't support.
Also, all those pro-Gore people who blame Nader for "stealing" just enough votes away from Gore to let Bush win, I think you need to serisously consider what you are saying. First of all, Nader's campaign (like Perot's) ammounted to a form of dissent. By garnering votes, he showed that a significant portion of people are sick of the two-party system and would like to see other agendas discussed. By suggesting that people who believed in Nader's agenda should not vote for Nader or that Nader should have stepped down, you are essentially arguing that dissenters should keep their mouths shut. That is not really consistent with the American ideal (seldom realized) of tolerating dissent.
By the way, vacamike, I realize that the you are not proposing mandatory voting or anything of that nature. You just get tired of hearing lazy people complain in a totally unconstructive fashion. I feel that way too, so don't think I am giving you a hard time. I just saw an opportunity to express a viewpoint which I think has value.
Oh, and, personally, I vote. In fact, I voted for Gore, although if I had it to do over again, I probably would have voted for someone else. Maybe Perot.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
Well, that would make a euro-fuck just a little smarter than you, wouldn't it? Sheesh. Aren't you even slightly embarrased for saying something so stupid? Do you bash your own family amongst strangers? Get a life, moron.
Would you care to elaborate, or was it a satricial post and I missed it?
huh? how did you get from spy-sat intel (which is almost always shared with american allies) to day-to-day on-the-ground military operations?
>But since I follow geo-political issues I know that the Communist Chinese Government want to invade a soverign nation (Taiwan),
No, there are aspects within Taiwan that recognizes itself as a part of China, just not a part of Communist China. Hey, Wyatt Earp, why don't you admit you don't always give accurate info from now on?
>which could cause huge damages in lost lives, destroyed infrastructure and lost envestments
Bullshit. Most Americans wouldn't be able to locate Taiwan on a map if their lives depended on it. Why not? Because the only reason they care is because politicians and the media tell them to. Then, there's big business, who has a HUGE market in Taiwan, and get CHEAP computer components from them. Not to mention that Taiwan spends BILLIONS on US weapons..
>I also know that the Chinese government wants to take the Spratly Islands, which are a loooong way from China and that will cause problems with the Phillipines, Vietnam and Malasya.
So what if it's "a loooong way from China"? It won't improve the situation there if China dropped their claims. Remember, those three nations you listed are only a few of the actual players involved (Taiwan also has claims, as you conveniently failed to mention.
>In short, many of the things that the Chinese Government claims are the same things that Japan claimed in the late 30s and early 40s.
Yeah, I'd like to see them claim the Sahklin Islands and the various South Pacific islands as well. Sheesh, I honestly don't know if you're being deliberate in spreading this misinformation.
>Oh, and the Chinese are exporting missile and nuclear technology, despite treaties and agreements not to do that.
Which treaties and with whom? I hope you're not assuming that every treaty imaginable to man applied to everyone. That's like saying Canadians are subject to American laws..
>For the 8,015,604th time, the US Orion was in INTERNATIONAL AIRSPACE. Legally. But it's always the Americans that are in the wrong.
And for the 5th time, people in the industry know that spys occasionally leave INTERNATIONAL AIRSPACE to "get a better picture". The only times this is a problem is when the spies get caught.
It doesn't kill anyone's economy and even if it did it should still be ratified. What's the point in having a strong economy if the whole environment is fucked?!
What's next, a slow moving propeller driven spy plane taking down a faster, more maneuverable fighter jet ?
What happens when such "accidents" occur just while some hostile nation is amassing large amounts of troops and tanks on neighbor's border ?
Using the 'an accident might happen' line of reasoning, wouldn't the U.S. also then be compelled to disclose the locations of submarines, ships, armored vehicles and planes so they also don't collide with commercial vessels ?
Other nations hate it, but then they're inclined to hold disdain for any super power. It's the nature of power politics and warfare to be suspicious of the guy with the big gun. It's their purgative to try and get the information, just at it is the U.S.'s to say NUTS.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
>It was in America's (and American citizens - Flying Tigers)
Typical, American's claiming credit for everything. In case you don't know, the head of the Flying Tigers was a Frenchman. Americans weren't the only people in the Flying Tigers.
Have you heard of the Marshall plan?
It could be argued that the Marshall plan was selfish, but that argument could be made about any action ever taken by anyone.
Even a seemingly totally selfless act like sacrificing your life or health for others can be for your pride.
WRT - WWII, even though the US public was quite isolationist, we were involved through lend-lease.
Please get your facts straight before spouting off about what big jerks the US gov't is.
Thank you.
Regards,
Anomaly
Dang.
I hate it when I craft a response and _then_ realize that an AC posted the original message!
There's a reason that "coward" is a part of the AC moniker.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The next time a country is invaded in order to give flood release let me know. there is a difference between using miliary resources to help people and using military force.
~~~
Even unlikely events happen from time to time.
I remember quite well that a few years ago a German an an US plane collided west of Namibia over the south atlantic because the German plane flew at the wrong altitude.
Imagine that: They were probably the only two planes in an area of 1000s of square miles - and they collided.
Tell you what - you get in a plane, and I'll get in a plane. We'll ground all other planes and birds for, say, ten years. You take off from somewhere on the planet, and I'll take off from somewhere else on the planet. We'll fly around randomly and see how long it takes to collide.
Or maybe we'll do a much more realistic example - we'll get two marbles, and stand at two random points around a cricket field. We'll both toss them in a random direction across the field at the same time and see if they hit. Of course, it's *much* more likely that the marbles would collide than two satellites...
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Haiti was under a democratic liberal government led by a majority elected priest who didn't even accept his salary for being president. He was exiled by the Haitian military because he tried to reduce it in size. The CIA supported this all. Do a search on google for the book "Killing Hope" by William Blum
Those are state issues, not Federal issues, BIG difference.
Now I'm from Portland, and I remeber clearly that the Seattle Metro area voted Yes on the new Seahawks stadium in...98 was it?
Now here in Portland when we vote yes on things like North-South Light Rail, stupid Tri-Met makes us vote again so that they don't get the money.
And don't forget how many times doctor assisted suicide or anti-gay rights bills get on the ballot.
Ummm...isnt that the point? You don't want your enemies going down to the courthouse and finding out the cooridents for your spy sat.
If the chinese launced a cheap scientific satellite in one of these orbits to investigate UFO's as payback for a certain embassy..with a nickname of 'explorer 6'.
You lookes al so afraid of spy sattelites and that it's illigal... In Europe (I live in the Netherlands) there is a lot of tolking about Euchalon wich probarly as you all know a spionage centre in Scotland which belong to the USA and the United Kingdom. Which listents to phone calls picks ups e-mails and stuff like this if i put in the word terrorist. The latest rumours are that the USA is using Euchalon to improve the American economics... there where several cases where the American industrie taked orders in Europe through information which they maybe through Euchalon pickud up which can affect the negotiations between the other parties... I don't care I'm watched. I'm doing that important things I should be watched... I'm sorry for my crappy English I hope you understand what I'm trying to write down.
You sir, have been brainwashed by your government. Quit swallowing their propaganda.
Looking away a few degrees is the best way to view stars because the fovea, a concentrated bundle of cones, is located right at the center of the field of view. Whilst its great for seeing color, it isn't as good for seeing dim objects; you need more rods for that. So the best way to look at stars is to look slightly askance at them.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Unbelievably, incedibly, beyond the pale WRONG.
Not at all. The US government is QUITE incompetent, you just don't hear how badly they fuck up and they go through great meassures to make sure the public doesn't find out.
In fact, some of us understand that any action the US Government takes tends to be followed by a long string of follow-up damage control actions. The side effect? Once the government starts work on any plan it takes twice as long, is three as hard, and costs four tims as much for them to execute incorrectly as it would have taken had they just done it right to begin with. This is seen in every body of the US Government from the state to federal to the military. Esspecially the military. Anybody who has been in the military knows exactly what I'm talking about. Those who argue against me don't have a clue what they are talking about.
Besides, Microsoft and the US are nothing alike. Microsoft continues to make money while the US carelessly squanders it. That much should be obvious to just about anybody, even people who think they understand how our government works just because they've done a lot of reading. (Hint: Most of those people are wrong by design.)
I'm not talking about Toilet Seats and Hammers here, I'm talking about something much much worse.
Those satellites don't have random orbits... they have to maintain a certain hight and speed to stay in orbit. So the chance of hitting each other isn't zero at all. With all the satellites being launced, it's getting very busy up there.
2) The Chinese were goofing around, intercepting the lumbering American spy plane with their agile F8 jets, and attempting to force it to land in the traditional way that goes all the way back to the 1950s. Unfortunately, Chinese pilot Wang "Wrong" Wei was not nearly as skillful as the Soviet pilots who had preceded him, and he ended up fulfilling his mission in a way that had likely never occurred to him.
3) London Bridge of the Dickensian era has been in Arizona since at least the 1970s. Oh, wait, you said Tower Bridge...some Americans get those British heritage things confused. At least, the ones that the British haven't seen fit to sell yet.
4) That's "un-American", not unamerican. If I can distinguish between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, the same courtesy can surely be reciprocated.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Civilizations first responsibility is to defend itself. After that it's responsibility is to strengthen itself.
I pray (figure of speech, I'm athiest) that those who run the death squads realize that my agenda falls within the second responsibility. I'm the nag that say's 'do better'. And I only expect to see real results on time scales of 50-100 years minimum.
Please ignore my sig for the duration of this post.
What would Sun Tzu say ?
What's unamerican about spying? Congress allocates a large budget for it each year, the Learning Channel and PBS do all sorts of neat documentaries on our spy agencies all the time with their full cooperation, and the NSA has a website and physical museum.
I don't think it's exactly a secret that all countries able to do so, spy on each other.
The for example that incident with the Chinese - that was ourely an accident.
[sarcasm mode enabled]
No, it was considered in depth and several people signed off on it. It was planned for months, and is now standard operating procedure to collide our spyplanes into border patrols and then land a planeful of high tech and classified equipment and military personnel in another country.
[sarcasm mode disengaged]
And if you're talking about the mere fact that the flight occured, yes, we routinely fly spy missions - that's why the chinese pilots were there and expecting us. We intercept and fly border patrol around our airspace as well. The Soviets were happily buzzing around our airspace up until their government collapsed.
It's been pointed out that Americans have spent billions on spy satellites and reconnisance planes like the U2, SR-71 and now, presumably, the Aurora, all in order to snap pictures of other countries like China. Whereas any Chinese military officer can come over here to America and pay $50 to a small plane pilot to fly over whatever he wants and snap as many pictures as he wants. Then walk into KMart and get them developed in an hour, and mail them via US Mail back to Beijing.
Or now, you can just hit (the misnamed) Terraserver...
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
>(im not commenting on the US govt and its spying - thats not something i can do as i dont live in the US)
.GOV refuses to represent it's own citizens best interests, how on earth can we expect it to respect forign nations, the UN, NATO, or anything else.
Well, yes you can comment on that, I live in Canada, so, I think I will.
The CIA claims, that they're primary purpose in life to to listen in on what we all have to say in any tangible electronic forum. What they do with this is they're own buisness I suppose.
But to be clear, any citizen of a country that has formal cooperative leglislating or policing agreements should be concerned; it makes it just that much more easy for them. I don't want to blab on about the wonders of the tempest project or any other garbage, but I live in a nation who's regard for local democracy is less than admirable.
Canada has joint agreements with the USA on everything from how my computers and phones should work to what CSIS (Canadian FBI/CIA/NSA in one) does in life.
The best thing any average joe has going for him is that he is average and seen to be meek.
What is clear, is that if Americans had decent democratic self respect they would refuse to sanction undemocratic autonomous work, but how many of you know what your senator is up to tomorrow?
We complain about patent abuse, the DMCA and all kinds of junk, but if the US
Spy away, I do grow tired.
Get away from the city. Even 25km is enough distance.
I quite enjoy lying outside at night, at my cabin out in the bush, watching the odd sattellite zip across the sky every so often.
I'm right... You're wrong... Let's just leave it at that.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
America will go Red when they pry my gun from my cold, dead fingers.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This quote from the article made me laugh hard:
/letter/ of various treaties, I'd say the surprising thing here is that US only violated the /spirit/ of this one.
> Although US Space Command says its actions fall within the letter of the treaty, McDowell says: "It's certainly violating the spirit of an international commitment."
In the light of the recent "international commitment" of the US on the
Cheers,
--fred
These aren't the satellites you're looking for. Move along.
spoo
David Hastings' SIGINT satellite page
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Believe me, we know where our space vehicles (SVs) are. And we know where everyone elses are too, even if they do not "register" them. Bottom line, the UN DOES NOT HAVE A NEED TO KNOW.
"I am an american"
Yeh, nice try Ivan.
The UN hasn't stopped any wars or conflicts since it was formed. Wasn't that the purpose of it being formed??
I have to agree with some of the right-wingers in the US that the UN really serves no good purpose.
This article is just another opportunity for US bashing by such luminaries as China, Cuba, Sudan.
Sorry but this one-world government government will never fly.
Capitalism goes through cycles of overproduction though, a crash and boom cycle. Communism is more of a downward trend in my experience. I agree that human nature is changable, but not to the extent of making communism a workable economy. As for the inequality between the rich and poor, there are reasons some people are richer than others, they didn't just magically become rich. Most of the poor people I know didn't just magically become poor either you know? They had kids when they were in high school, had to drop out and became alcoholics or drug addicts (not that alcohol and drugs are always bad things). And considering that the American economy is quite strong and has outlasted any communist economy, I don't really think it is doomed to failure. If it did fail I beleive it would be because it started being too socialist, which looks like it may happen unless the libertarian and constitutionalist parties have a large rise in power soon.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
What happens when a satellite is destroyed or some non-US astronaut killed when he's hit at 25000kph by some unregistered US spy satellite, who's unknown orbit could not have been avoided?
United Nations
The UN only has power if nations support it, if some leading countires do their own thing an undermine the role of the UN then it will get weaker.
Supporting the UN or "following their orders" should be considered as honourable as doign the right thing by your nation, if its not then you should get some perspective.
Was it Bosnia where the US didnt go in under the banner of the UN, or they used their security council powers to say where going in we dont care what you think.
Correction: "That is the most stupid posting I've seen yet. It is obvious you don't understand orbital mechnics. Orbits are NOTpaved roads with gutters passing through mountain valleys of limited width. A satellite in polar orbit, for example, will have the entire earths surface pass under it, eventually. Above the atmosphere the number of polar orbits are almost limitless. Non polar orbits have equal limitlessness in both azumith and altitude."
Maybe if they had some balls and were actually fighting the Germans they would still be alive. Or if dead at least they would have died for a good cause.
Or better yet, go find a couple 10s of thousands of Jews who were saved from extermination and ask what they think.
After reading this i only wish one thing, that it were your grand father who had gotten killed, preferably before your father had been conceived.
Send somebody an email.
It's a done deal - "The Right Thing" always wins over "The Law"
It happened during Jesus of Nazereth's time - he was overthrowing "Biblical Law" and replacing it with doing the "Right Thing".
Same story all over again and again and again..
It boils down to each individual doing the "Right Thing!" as far as they see it.
Can't stop a "Spirit" of "Doing The Right Thing" - and besides it makes you feel really "Good" all over and deep inside to know that you're doing what you reckon is the "Right Thing".
Good on ya's!
Regards.... Derek from Greensborough, Australia.
Just focus in on a nude beach of known location then, over time track the changes the operator makes to keep the satellite on target. Compute from there.
The Spy satellites orbits were computed using an array of pentium I's, which were then submitted to the UN. Ofcourse due to the high accuracy required they used Floating Point numbers.....
Fuck the UN. We've don't owe any allegiance to this would be precursor to a singular world government. We're going to do what is in our best interest and if the UN doesn't like it, they can kiss our ass.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
That is the most stupid posting I've seen yet. It is obvious you don't understand orbital mechnics. Orbits are paved roads with gutters passing through mountain valleys of limited width. A satellite in polar orbit, for example, will have the entire earths surface pass under it, eventually. Above the atmosphere the number of polar orbits are almost limitless. Non polar orbits have equal limitlessness in both azumith and altitude.
I think that's where we lose sight of our (I'm an American btw) strength. We can impose econmoic sanctions on countries, and they do hurt! These countries signed on to the CTBT voluntarily, in the interests of not only lessening the tensions in the world and making it a safer place, but also so they could divert some of their revenue to better use.
It's easy to verify a *** kiloton explosion, btw, with seismic detectors, so verification is easy. Plus I think you can detect the radiation from space, not sure. Maybe with the very same spy satellites we are talking about. Howzat for gettin back on topic!
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Is not the Electoral College a constitutional element?
The reason you want _everybody_ to tell where their satellites are is of course that you don't want any accidents. Having a satellite 'hidden' by placing it in a secret orbit defeats that.
[sarcasm:] It's an outrage! That nations who develop satellite and launch vehicle technology cannot count on the reports filed with the UN, and instead have to also develop sophisticated Radio Detection And Ranging (RADAR) technology, is unconscionable!
Please share with us your knowledge, and explain how those reports can have any impact on collision avoidance. How would a nation, relying upon those reports, apparently without RADAR technology, know where the spent rocket bodies and other miscellaneous detritus from their launch operations ended up? After their satellite decays into scrap and falls apart, how will they inform the rest of us where the bits are floating?
Here in the US, our Air Force runs this outfit (whom I used to work for, picture of the radar here) to keep track of the bits and pieces floating around in space. I suggest that any nation who cannot use similar technology has no business throwing their garbage into space in the first place.
I have lost all hope of ever expecting that slashdot moderators will ever gain a little understanding of the technology of middle of the LAST CENTURY!
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
"A general rule is that the orbital velocity is inversely proportional to orbital the radius."
This is just wrong. Considering geostationary orbits, the greater the radius, the greater the linear velocity MUST be, to maintain the same the angular velocity. This is a mathematical relationship.
Well, my grandfather was a PoW for just over 1000 days at the hands of the Japanese (and lived).
He always said that that "we had em on the run" before the US got involved. And when the US did get involved they had fresh troops and equipment __because__they__hadnt__been__fighting__ natually that would help.
Nice of america to LEND money to the British and Russians to keep them fighing and dying before they had to get involved though.
To make this more general, people often act against their own self-interest. What good does it do a fireman to run into a burning house to save someone else's child or grandmother? What good does it do a policeman to face down an armed opponent? The fact is that some people act out of a sense of responsibility for the greater good of society, and are willing to do so at risk to their own well-being. Nations may, although they often do not, act in the same manner.
Satellite nerd: OK sir, we're ready to register the exact position of this here spy satellite with the UN.
Colonel Korn: (twirls moustache) That's top secret info. Classify it and "spill coffee" all over the UN paperwork.
Satellite Nerd: But you realize that any third grader with binoculars will instantly find out? How can we keep the brightest thing in the sky secret?
Colonel Korn: Hmf. Well, it'll at least be secret from all the second graders, and thats enough for me! Make it so!
If democracy isn't good enough for your country than you have no moral authority to intervene to bring it about elsewhere.
Actually, since the USA sits on the UN Security Council as one of five permanent members, the US has the right to do whatever it wants with atomic weapons, first and foremost.
Any nation that has atomic weapons and doesn't have one of the five spots...is a "rogue nation."
"Saved the world 50 years ago"
So are you refering to ww2, when america ignored the hell everyone else was in untill it landed on their doorstep (perl harbour) and they had to defend themselves.
Its not as if america was fighting from the start.
Has America ever done something that isnt in their own self interest ?
Wanka
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!
Moof!
Space is big. Really, really big. The probability of two satellites colliding is almost zero.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"Bush is an idiot. "
Of course he is not.
It takes a lot of smarts to get where he did ( even if one is related to former president.)
There's a target Americans want desperately to hate. It was Russians during the cold war, and now it's Chinese.
I wouldn't say that Americans were wrong by sending spy plane, just I always want remind people what happen if the case reverse. Americans are not always right.
Indeed, the case of satellite is not comparable. If you want a comparable case, it's similar to plane flying irregular, against common practice pattern over the public air space and collide with a rule-binding whatever jet. You know what, it's always the fault of the irregular flight.
Comparing the situation with highly questionable "accident" (comment depend on who you ask) is not justifiable.
A sig is redundant.
Your state ignored some votes, so your nation isn't democratic? We'll just set aside the fact pointed out in another post - the USA is not a democracy anyway, never has been and has never claimed to be. (For that matter, the "original democracy" didn't allow a majority of its population - women and slaves - to vote at all.)
America has been an interventionist country since 1916 or so. Fact of life, sorry old sport, and all that. Interventionist countries do things like try to protect themselves. The guiding policy here is American politicians feel the moral obligation - rightly or wrongly - to try to help other countries become more free. They don't always necessarily choose the correct way to do so.
If you don't like how things are run, then DO something to change it - that's the beauty of living in a nation with democratic principles. If you don't think your votes change anything, and you aren't willing to try to effect change yourself, your borders are open! Nothing's stopping you from leaving. Read some Aristotle.
gods, I hope I get to metamod this idiotic moderator's crap!
me
Nonsense. First, and unlike communications and scientific satellites, spy satellites are highly mobile. They can maneuver quite easily. Second, the orbits of ALL the other satellites is known to us. Space Command tracks EVERYTHING greater in size, roughly, than a pencil eraser.
The orbits of all these objects is known and entirely predictable. It is known where all these civilian satellites will be at any time throughout their lifetimes. Orbits are extremely predictable. Since that's the case, there is no problem. For one thing, spy satellites tend to operate in orbits that are quite different than any civilian satellites. For those few civilian satellites (few as they are) that operate in roughly the same orbital regime as the spy satellites, again, they are not very maneuverable and their orbits are known COLD. Spy satellites can move freely within this HUGE area that is left to them. They are NOT willy-nilly sent this way and that way without taking into account any other objects greater than the size of a pencil eraser that might pose a risk to it. Space is not crowded in any sense that you would consider meaningful in your day-to-day, prosaic, limited life sphere and the engineers and technicians that operate the satellites REALLY know what they are doing. It is not bumper cars out there. Not even close.
Finally, very few countries are capable of doing what we (the US) can do with satellites and spacecraft. Most certainly are unable to touch our satellites even if they knew when one they didn't want to have spying on them was directly overhead. All they can do is shake a powerless fist and stuff their naughty biological weapons and tanks into hideaways. But then, that's only if they KNOW when they are being looked at.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
You are the miinformed one.
While democracy originally referred to direct people rule, most people in modern times are taught that democracy can be either representative (as in all the western countries) or direct, or a mix between the two (as in Switzerland and some states of some countries). All dictionaries reflect this practice.
What you are doing is twisting words, trying to claim that you have a monopoly on the "right" definition which certainly is not the case. While I do not argue that your definition is incorrect, it is also not the only definition that can be considered correct.
No matter what definition you prefer, it is a fact that the US government system is a (representative) democratic one (in spirit, if nothing else) and your cheap shots do nothing but evade the very valid arguments presented by the original poster.
But what makes it America's "Right" to "Spy" on everybody?
Remember the "Spy-Plane" that regularly flew/flies? off China's Coastline?
America reckoned they had every right to "Spy" - thay acted aggrieved?
"My Country Right or Wrong!" - ?
Uh-Uh! "Do The Right Thing! A Fair Go! And don't Bugger The Bush!" - You know when you're doing the "Right Thing or Not!" - nobody else can tell you what's Right - but be prepared to listen - you might be wrong - there are no absolutes Folks!
I'm frightened that America will go to War to avoid a Recession - that's what it looks like!
Anybody know how much America owes at the moment?
Last I heard the US wasn't giving the UN monies promised.
Regards..... Derek G. Wilson Fiddler.
Michael,
Spy satellites are known as such simply because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE! How does this come as any great shock to anybody who even has a clue about the way the world works?
Though Michael - in this case your stupidity along with your apparent need to troll is secondary. The European posters below who actually believe that their countries do not employ techniques of subversion and spying are living in a fantasy world of their own.
Hahahahahahaha - do you actually think your countries do not spy? Do you actually think they do not carry out and sponser assasinations when nessacary? We know Russia does. We know Britian does. We know Israel does (not european DUH). We know Yugoslavia (and its pieces) do. We know Germany does. If your country doesnt then perhaps you SHOULD be concerned because its obvious your euro-fucks didnt learn your lesson from World War II (yes that could've been avoided with a simply bullet between Hitlers eyes).
You've got to love the socialist children that wander about and comment on slashdot. Contrary to your allegations the world is NOT a civilized place. Do not believe for a second that the world is more than a more a few weeks from another World War. Perhaps I could reference the assasination that provoked World War I - but Im sure you people couldnt have overlooked that. Not at all.
Either way - the US bashing that goes on around this site is getting old. The sad thing is that most of you Euro-Morons that bash the US are probably part of the EU - which makes you nothing more than a wannabe US anyway. So please - think before you post. Try not to make yourselves look like COMPLETE morons while responding to this.
Gamorck
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
If today's satellite orbits cannot be trusted, opponents reason, how will we verify the numbers of future space-based anti-missile lasers and anti-satellite weapons?
I don't get it. If we start having weapons in space, the only way the other countries plan to verify the numbers will be based on the information the owner of those weapons plans to give out? What happened to "trust, but verify?"
I think the Pentagon is thinking that as long as it is the only one putting up antisat weapons, they can program them with the correct orbital elements for their own classified satellites, not the erroneous UN-registered elements. It's like a business keeping double ledgers.
I wonder what would happen if some state the US has antagonistic relations with were to put up a satellite in the exact same orbit as the unregistered 1989-72A, saying "that wasn't supposed to be there!"
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
Actually America routinely doesn't share this date with its allies... Many of the American bombings in Kosovo and Serbia where not disclosed to the European countries until they had happened.
I have a stick. It's called my penis.
commies no, economic/military rivals yes... sure they have one party that governs the country... So what the US has 2 and they are both a bought-out bunch of clowns anyway! The US wants to dominate the world/asia, so does China!
Bottom line while the US was sitting on their collective ASSES making money from the blood and suffering of others (like a little country called Switzerland) people from all over were fighting for global freedom. And those Canadians that you bash also lost per capita more than twice the able bodied males America lost. If not for all those other countries the World would not be safe for democracy. There would have been an annexing of the US and game over. The US then could not fight the world.
As for Britan, and the EU and Canada for that matter, healthcare and the carring for our countries citizens matter to us. We pay higher taxes because of that, but we accept that grudgingly as a price to pay to protect the weakest members of society. That's also why many nations don't have the death penalty.
Vent all you want but there is more than the American view that you embrace. In the rest of the world Canada barely hits the radar of most but I think that's better than being considered the great satan or worse an evil backward country bent on imposing their will on the rest of the world. Make no mistake there really is American hatred that is justified. Look at your noxious emissions even with your justification as a producing country it just doesn't make you popular with the rest of the world.
I hold dual citizenship in the US and Canada, and I've seen the world not so much in black and white like many Americans and Canadians but many shades of grey. Is that the better view? I really don't know if there has to be a better view. You don't like others bashing your country, then fix your country.
In the cold war (which was still going on in the 80s if you all remember), do you really think the US or Russia were going to give eachother precise data that shows where eachother's spy satellites go?
And wouldn't it DEFEAT the POINT of a spy satellite if you knew precisely where it would be at any time? If I knew my boss would only check on me at 3pm each day and ONLY at 3pm, I could just start streaming the games and the porn, and then alt-tab to excel at 2:59.
And does anyone really think that China, Iraq, etc... are so unthreatenning, democratic, and friendly that spying on their military installations is not neccesary?
Let's be real here folks, there's so much crap floating in space, from rocket boosters to random space shit, to broken up satellites, to other space shit whose orbit has decayed, a few spy satellites isn't going to change the probabilities of collision that much.
Why is it that political or foreign-relations stories get all the responses with Bush-bashing and America-bashing?
I would like to have an accurate poll as to how many of these 'informed' slashdot posters actually voted. After all, I have found that the ones who complain the most do so since they didn't voice their opinion at the appropriate place and time; i.e. the polls.
p.s. 'i didnt like either candidate' is not a valid excuse; try again.
Are you awake yet? This has not a thing to do with war, nothing to do with pointing fingers or guns at whoever the media conspires to call the bad guy this week. This has to do with you being a willing, gullible toady of a patriot and failing to rub two brain cells together to check facts, read between lines, or think critically about what they're saying and why they're saying it.
Fact check: the satellites aren't hidden at all. From a few weeks of observation or perhaps even less, you can calculate the orbital elements and track the movement for as long as you like or until the orbit changes again. The orbital elements of these satellites are public knowledge anyway, so why is the US lying? From recent experience, it's because that's all it does well.You don't have any idea what you're talking about. Shut up and listen for a change.
you have a stick. Its called the police.
Maybe you'll get lucky and see the NOSS satellites, there are 3 flying in formation. I've only seen them twice.
SuperID
The question this raises, though, is why anyone would want London Bridge (as opposed to Tower Bridge). You want every piece of architecture that's due to be torn down?
Unfortunately no one will do anything. Not to mention someone would have to pay for the costs to bring those satellites down into safe spots.
Huh? You're calling Gore a charismatic leader?
Erwin (http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010812 ) can make a good use of those satellites... :)
Sadly, you seem to think that the killing is done for you, to protect you personally. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the world continues to progress along the lines you seem to favor, when your time comes, when find the courage to stand up for your individual freedoms against the tyranny of the powerful, you will be killed just as mercilessly as the ones that came before you.
>Colon Powell is doing the nation proud
Maybe, but anyone named "Colon" wouldn't normally be proud. Perhaps you meant "Colin".
To engage in espionage.
To seek or observe something secretly and closely.
To make a careful investigation: spying into other people's activities. How can you have a spy satellite if everyone knows where it is?
"Starwars" was never shelved. They are sure to have been working on it secretly since the 1980s. This 'aproving' of it is merely a balancing of the account books.
Spy sats change their orbits from time to time.
Do you have any appreciation for how valuable the fuel in those satellites is? Satellite orbits decay. The cost of fuel for re orbiting a satellite is tens of millions of dollars since it is going to shorten the service life of the satellite by years, and the other side is going to notice. Moving the sat will give you a couple days at most of adjusted intel. If they're paying enough, they'll get the updated orbits within hours.
Now let's look at some alternative mechanisms:
However, what this completely misses is that this notion of amateur astronomers being able to track the sats is nonsense. Wouldn't it make sense for the intel sats to be difficult to spot? Say by making sure that any surface which might reflect sunshine to earth was painted a matte black? I'm sure there are many intelligence sats that are easy to spot, but I am also sure there is a whole constellation of them which are stealthy.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Take for instance Sweden. What a bunch arrogant xenophobic, elitist motherfuckers. They practically spit on America. Well, that's kind of funny behavior from a country whose sole contribution to WWII was storing the teeth for the nazis after they were ripped from the jews mouths. Heh, but that probably doesn't come up in the heady discussion about the barbarisms of the US.
And don't even get me started on the disgusting halitosis ridden, dental abuse area known as britain.
You can take your neurotic illusions of the utopian motherland and shove 'em up your wimpy euro-asses.
You wanna bitch about America, state your origin and we'll prove that you suck too.
Fucking losers.
The United States is trying to control the whole world. It's a shame really. We need to stay out of other country's issues and focus on our own. Any country that even thinks about going up against the U.S. must be smoking crack.
When has any nation done something not in its own self-interest? Muslims being slaughtered in Eastern Europe, and no one stops it, American or otherwise.
Maybe if they had oil, things would be different...
"Uh huh. So you wouldn't mind if some country assasinated Bush and supported a puppet dicator... "
Then they would be replacing a puppet with another puppet. Atleast this puppet has dopey ears and a 'deer in headlights' look one so enjoys.
-Shaunak.
Right except for one thing: you need to substitute the word 'supporting' for the words 'fighting against'.
"there are no absolutes Folks!"
;)
except for that, evidentally
America is the rouge nuclear state it is trying to "protect" it self from. The irony is that no one can force it to do anything it doesnt want to. The UN might have power, but the US will use its power in ways that wont even be directly tied to it other then a bennifit.
See about the cia and the killing sprees they have had. America had a great ideal, but its time has passed because it can no longer be held true with out money. I am an american.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Ok, who modded that stinking piece of pro-American b.s. up to five? Go out, check your IQ, and verify that it is indeed smaller than your shoe size.
While I agree with the technical parts of the argument (after all, how useful is a spy sat if they (the opponents) know where it is), there's a great deal to be said about the rest of the nonsense.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats.
Let's start with the automatic assumption that China and Russia are the fountainheads of evil, and that America and Britain are the epitomies of good. Britain and American....let's see...these are the same countries that have done their best to divest their citizens of any thin shred of privacy, right? These are the oh-so-respectful of human rights more advanced nations that routinely exploit those third-world [countries]...with imperialist tendencies economically? (And if you think paying someone $10 a month for work that your own country's citizens wouldn't do for $10/hour *isn't* economic imperialism, you need to read a few econ books.) These are the same countries that have shuffled off all of their environmentally dirty industries to the same third-world countries, right?
To be honest, I'm shoked that you have the gall to complain about third world countries....with imperialist tendencies. Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you? Study your own history first, before mouthing off about imperialism. Or is what Americans did in those territories ok because it was so long ago?
You're wrong about the other thing, too. Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T.
This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
And, I suppose, you think that America is just the country to do that, don't you? The good-old world-policeman ruse. And, naturally, to do your job well, you need good equipment, like....oh I don't know....lots of spy satellites? Echelon maybe? Need I go on?
Any country with the puritanical self-righteousness to assume that they know exactly what to do to solve all of the world's problems, will inevitably, and in short order, be proven wrong. This is known as a system controlled by positive reinforcement. The only possible outcome for such a system, is a disbalance that destroyes it. And next time, kindly keep your pro-American nonsense off the threads, or at least temper it to whatever meager extent you are able with intelligence and facts.
We here at slashdot seem to have little clue about the "New Star Wars Programme". Granted this is a little off topic, but the vague reference to the "Son of Star Wars Programme" was a good example of general ignorance of what's being researched and developed right now. There is no Star Wars program. There is no NEW star wars program. Nobody in government refers to ANY sort of current missile defense research as "Star Wars". The current anti ballistic missile defense system is being researched on two different fronts: The use of ground launched interceptor missiles... and the use of air based lasers aboard large planes such as 747s. There are no current plans to use orbital systems for any sort of defense other than spying/reconnaisance. The new ABM defense system has NOTHING, i repeat nothing to do with Star Wars. At all. Period. I apologize if this is viewed as a flame/troll.
It is FACT that we supplied Hussein with arm and anthrax. It's documented. Go file a FOIC with the State Department, or write to Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes.
Hopefully nobody is going to come to the idea of taxing spy satellites because they move and change their orbit.
In recent news, respected space analyst Jonathan McDowell has mysteriously dissappeared after discovering several flaws in the "registered" orbits of US Spy Satellites....
Sound about right to anyone else?
"Excuses are like asses, everyone has one and they all stink." - Adam Corrola
I'd call Reagan a charismatic leader.
My joke got modded as Insightful and my insight got modded as Funny.
ahh.. there are too many people on Earth. It isn't the CIA to worry about, it is the hordes of new babies taking what few resources left (like clean water, clean air, fish, etc).
The CIA is the lest of your worries.
You must not know exactly how the Electoral College works if you oppose it. Without the Electoral college we would have charismatic leaders pushed into office(such as hitler was in pre-WWII).
Disclaimer: I've never had a clearance, and this information isn't really a secret.
:).
The Hubble space telescope was built using the super-structure of a line of spy satalites. A fella-who-knows told me that when they first discovered the optics problem, many people's first suspicion was that they installed a mirror from the spy satellites. This wasn't the case.
BTW, the difference btw the spy satellites and the Hubble is that the Hubble is focused for inifinity and the spy satellites are focused for a few hundred miles or so (and towards the earth, which would burn the Hubbles sensors).
Another thing, (prolly just a myth) is that the Hubble is the 13th of this line of spy satellite; Fun for the numeralogically inclined
Last thing, the US regularly announces satellite launches that don't exist, and skips numbers for the satellites. "SS1...SS2...SS3...SS5..Hey! how'ed they slip SS4 passed us?". They didn't their just fucking with you.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
Please don't shatter my fantasy of flying through earth orbit millennium-falcon-through-the-asteroid-field stle dodging satellites...
~~~
". Of course, it's *much* more likely that the marbles would collide than two satellites..."
Do you have any solid reasoning for this statement? It is quite probable that two satellites will collide. I believe when orbits are calculated, there are some errors allowed for in the orbit in case of servo rocket failures et al. If the US of A is providing false information, it is quite probable that these errors may cause some satellite (commercial or otherwise) to crash into a Spy sat just because they were lead to believe the Spy sat wouldn't be there.
-Shaunak.
Of course they wouldn't do anything as unamerican as spying and lying about too! The for example that incident with the Chinese - that was ourely an accident. And it was their fault too; remember, they are commies. Don't you agree? If you do, you're my pal, and I'll do you a real favour: here in London there's this magnificent bridge, Tower Bridge, that's going to be for sale soon. It's not quite official yet, but just let me know if you're interested. I might get you in before the other buyers...
>All that is going to do is encourage heavy industries that produce a lot of pollution to move to those nations. Kyoto needs to be changed to apply to all nations. OK, here's a better analogy: suppose you're the only 13 year old in a group of six 18 year olds. So, you and your group end up in, say, Germany, where the legal drinking age is 18? Now, you want to drink with your friends but you're not allow, cuz you're only 13. Sucks, doesn't it? Those lucky bastards don't have to wait 5 WHOLE YEARS to be able to drink, and you do.
Let's start with the automatic assumption that China and Russia are the fountainheads of evil, and that America and Britain are the epitomies of good. Britain and American....
Assumption? In this example, it's a fact that Iraq gets it's millitary hardware and support from China and Russia. It's indisputable. Those countries have no beef with Iraq, and Iraq is one of their better customers. I made absolutely no character judgement of Russia or China. Both have struggling economies, and are profitably taking advantage of the situation. I'll reserve the "fountainhead of evil" category for Iraq, a country with a meglomaniac for a leader who continues to reasearch weapons of mass destruction and has a penchant for using them. Iraq also happens to be a major target of US spy-sats these days. I thought the example was relevant to current world events, and explained the technical reasoning that seems irrelevant to the U.N. whiners. Do you have proof otherwise? Please confine your answer to the subjects of a technical discourse of spy-sat operations, and sources of Iraqi military hardware and intelligence.
Britain and American....let's see...these are the same countries that have done their best to divest their citizens of any thin shred of privacy, right?
And you assume I agree with the privacy policies of Britan and the US? In fact, I don't. Thanks for asking.
And if you think paying someone $10 a month for work that your own country's citizens wouldn't do for $10/hour *isn't* economic imperialism, you need to read a few econ books.
And you assume I agree with the policy of shipping manufacturing jobs overseas? Most of the time, I don't. But thanks for asking... BTW, how much would those people be making if those factories had stayed in the US or UK? I'll guess somewhat less than $10 a month... I may be wrong.
To be honest, I'm shoked that you have the gall to complain about third world countries....with imperialist tendencies. Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you? Study your own history first, before mouthing off about imperialism. Or is what Americans did in those territories ok because it was so long ago?
Go ahead... Be shocked. I suggest upping the voltage a bit.
I cannot change the past. I refuse to be held responsible for events that occured before my existance. The US has as checkered a history as any other country. But I can oppose imperialism here and now, and I do so. Thanks for asking... Oh... BTW - That was called "pre-judging". It's where you have some picture of what I am in your mind, and you refuse to employ logic and allow facts to modify that picture, or you gloss over your lack of knowlege about me so that you can be comfortable and secure in your little ideological corner. It's a major source of human misery throughout history. Please get help.
You're wrong about the other thing, too. Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T.
Yea... Iraq displayed how much they learned from WWI & WWII when they invaded Kuwait. Then there's all the countries ruled by strong dictators that fall and end up plunging back into the stone age, like Somalia, Congo... China routinely threatens Taiwan, over a civil war 50 years in the past. I could go on, but it would quickly wander OT. I suppose you had some specific thing in mind? I'm all ears. Flame away. What thing did the rest of the world learn in WWI and WWII that America didn't? And I don't want to hear about methods for effecient rubble removal, and you might take note of the post WWII US policy of rebuilding former enemies. A policy which to my knowlege was unique, and had no historical precident.
And, I suppose, you think that America is just the country to do that, don't you?
Well, I'm certainly not going to sit on my ass and wait for you to pick up the torch!
The good-old world-policeman ruse.
So why the hell didn't europe take care of that little yugoslavian mess themselves a couple years ago? None of the people in the US millitary I know wanted to go. Let me guess they were too busy debating Mao's little insights on Marxism?
And, naturally, to do your job well, you need good equipment, like....oh I don't know....lots of spy satellites? Echelon maybe? Need I go on?
Obviously we need better, so we can avoid bombing the local Chinese embassy... Or was that a hint for attempting to interfere with the 1996 US election... Hmmm...
Any country with the puritanical self-righteousness to assume that they know exactly what to do to solve all of the world's problems, will inevitably, and in short order, be proven wrong.
Hey!!! We found something we can agree on! Yea, America is going to be wrong in the future. We'll try and make it the exception, rather than the rule. We're definitly going to try and not make the same old tired mistakes that europe (socialism puts the rope in europe... right around its own neck...) and much of the rest of the world keep making. We're going to try and guide some of the third-world countries through some of the developmental pitfalls we've experienced, and hopefully help them avoid some of the really nasty ones. I don't know where we're all going. But we're going there together, and we're going to have to learn to live with each other. In the mean time...
And next time, kindly keep your pro-American nonsense off the threads, or at least temper it to whatever meager extent you are able with intelligence and facts.
I'll start tempering, just as soon as you stop making assumptions about my opinions and my intelligence. BTW - we have some spy-sats overhead. You're welcome to try tracking them if you can. We're going to move them around once in a while. Sometimes this will be for operational purposes, which we consider state secrets. Other times, it's to avoid hitting the amaturish crap you keep launching (Oh, am I making an assumption again?? My bad...). Sometimes we move them around just to fsck with your head. In any event... They're staying up there. Deal with it.
Temkin
"No, sir! We do not have any chemical weapons! No, we are not attempting to give you anthrax for your back. Trust us! Would we lie you you, effendi?"
And clueless slashdot posters... Spy sats change their orbits from time to time. These changes are obviously made to support a particular observational project. It would be foolish to routinely publish this information, as it can give away the goal or target the change was made for. This is called operational data, and its classified, hence not released to the public.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats. They know when they're overhead, and can plan their activities accordingly. When the spy-sats are overhead, they park mobile launchers in hangars, keep everyone indoors, and generally try and make a place look uninteresting. So, in order to avoid this rouse a subtle change in the orbit of a spy-sat might be made, to invalidate their intel over a period of time and increase the odds of catching them off gaurd. A larger change might be made to bring a close pass in range of the cameras/radars within an orbit or two, in order to catch some interesting event.
The end result is, whatever orbit data is available on the spy-sats, it's virtually always out of date. It's intentional, and actually a requirement for the spy-sats to get their job done. Get over it.
To be honest, I'm really shocked at the amount of Euro "anti-american" crap flying around here. We share much of this data with your countries. The people in the UN complaining about this are the third-world represenatives who's countries can't track the spy-sats themselves, and are sick of having their own imperialist tendancies thwarted by the bigger more advanced nations. Much of the world didn't learn the lessons of WW1 and WW2. This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
Temkin
CEO: We wish to place our satellite in THIS orbit.
PENTAGON REP: I'm sorry. That orbit is already occupied by Ted's Yard Service. They use that for transmitting important customer data.
There won't be a collision. They probably just fudge some data about a "small, television satellite" being in that orbit instead of a US spy satellite..
Do you like German cars?
Of course, it's *much* more likely that the marbles would collide than two satellites...
Actually, to properly simulate things, we get 100 people to each throw a bag of marbles continuously for a few years. Sure, the odds of any 2 colliding on any given throw are miniscule, but as more people join the game and throw more marbles, the odds of an eventual collision rise considerably.
your analogy would be applicable to the situation at hand if there were only 2 satellites in space. i'm sure you can see that this is not the case.
...and the denial of it working gives you a chance to build a "new missle defense program" that has the accuracy to hit incoming missles...or pretty much damn near anything we tell it to...pure genius. The small dwarf that lives inside Colon Powell is doing the nation proud. (If you don't believe there is a small dwarf inside Powell, I've devised a quick and easy test: Hit him in the head with a hammer.)
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
You are mistaken or misinformed. The U.S.A. is NOT a democracy or a democratic-republic. It is a Constitutional Republic with Democratic Institutions. I challenge you to show me any legitimate piece of information that states otherwise(basically, facts not opinions).
-Mike
I swear Michael seems to be on lookout for every story with any type of anti-US propaganda.
I think he is the type of guy, the kind that was targeted by Russian KGB for cooperation.
Assuming he would ever had access to any vital information ( he won't) I doubt he would resist temptation.
I mean, the guy hates everything American.
Do you believe in treaties ?
The problem is that most of these treaties will be secretly disregarded by the very countries we want to abide by.
In effect we will end up limiting our capabilities without any way to enforce compliance on others.
Then how are the geosynchronous satellites that orbit at only 6,500 mph staying up there, eh?
(Hint: It takes more energy to put satellites in higher orbit, but their orbital velocity isn't as high. A general rule is that the orbital velocity is inversely proportional to orbital the radius. The 'escape velocity' is a measure of the kinetic energy needed to move an object to an infinate distance from the planet where, it turns out, the orbital velocity is zero.)
but inside american borders, the world IS america so we can do whatever we damn well please....and if you don't like our culture, complain to your government and get it blocked!
--AC
Sure as hell it does. Millions of people trying to get in direct contradiction to your bullcrap
They're trying to get in because America has jobs, not because they fantasize daily about the ideals of freedom. In American TV shows they always depict foreigners dying to get into America spouting some crap about wanting to be in "the land of the free", "american dream", blah blah blah. The truth is more like, "our country is poor, we have no jobs and no money, in America there is only 4% unemployment, they have jobs and money, lets go". We also have many people trying to get in here in South Africa, but nobody here is making bogus claims that those people long for the ideals of freedom and liberty - these people want one thing - JOBS. (South Africa is not a rich country by any means, but its a lot wealthier than most of the surrounding countries.)
Yes it is nasa who luanch the US Spy satilites yes nasa.If a satilite is luanched they(a contry/company) check for space junk older satilite out of comision perhaps other contries cheek to see if the put a satilite in orbit it will not hit junk they dont just spend millions of USD to have it hit a satilite for 50yrs ago or part of an old space ship or UFO
Yes, I am free. And yes, Echelon exists to keep me that way. It tells my government when one of your politicians or wackos sells weapons grade U235 to Iraq or Iran, and gives our covert operations a chance to nullify the threat. Echelon has probably already saved your ungrateful hide more than once. Echelon also tells my government when your govenment tilts the economic playing field out of balance by aiding commerical ventures illegally. Echelon also tracks aliens and and American traitors efforts to overthrow the lawful government of this country. And, had Gore won, Echelon would still be working, because even Gore isn't so stupid that he'd close down the most effective electric spy system ever created. He might have turned it onto non-Democrats, but he wouldn't have turned it off.
And the retaliation is? Oh yeah, American supplied ROCKETS. I don't condone the bombings at all, but the so-called retaliation (it's called 'terrorism' when perpetrated by the other side) is far out of proportion. Just look at the kill ratios over the last year, or the last 50 years.
And the bottom line is still that Israel is an illegal occupying force. And how do they get away with it? Oh yeah, the US vetoes every Security Council motion against the Israelis.
Don't misunderstand me. Violence is despicable. I would much rather that the the Palestinians use Gandhi's methods.
Oh, and just where do the monkeys fit in?
Moderate this up to (+1, Informative)!
Any satellite moving slower than 18,000 miles per hour isn't going to be up there for long. Any satellite moving faster than 25,000 miles per hour isn't going to be in the vicinity of Earth for long. Within that range of orbital speeds, it really does not matter how small and maneuverable your satellite is. Evasive action is not possible. By the time you notice a collision might be imminent, it has happened.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
However, there are a limited number of useful orbits.
The Kyoto treaty is a slick piece of Anti-U.S. legislation that will not stop global warming.
As for blocking restrictions on international arms sale, don't forget, it was only 10 yers ago when we put up the lion's share of shutting down the world's biggest bio-war offender.
Problem is, you guys keep walking around with your stupid "peace in our time" mentality.
When will you learn, paper & talk are cheap when compared to U.S. blood'n'guts !
they are spy sattelites, they wouldn't be worth the millions we spent on them if everyone knew exactly where they were... now would they?
Using the words of George Carlin: "how can it be a spy satellite, when on the news they say it's a spy satellite?" The point being, of course, that spy satellites naturally are supposed to spy on people, and it's not very productive to spy on people if they know exactly where you are and what you are seeing. So, of course the owner of a spy satellite will try to conceal it's whereabouts. In case of war, shooting down a satellite you know where is is also a hell of alot easier than if you didn't know.
If you still think the US are evil here, think about how successfull a real, human spy would be if he walked around with a big sign saying "I'm a spy!" That wouldn't work very well, now would it? In fact, it would simply be silly, not to say stupid, right? It's the same thing with satellites (of course not completely, but the analogy is sound).
If anyone is worried about bias, I'm Danish, not American.
Bjarke Roune
What's the point of having a global treaty like Kyoto, if several countries are exempted from it because they are classified as 'developing'? All that is going to do is encourage heavy industries that produce a lot of pollution to move to those nations. Kyoto needs to be changed to apply to all nations.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The last time it happened was to prevent "The Death of the Nation" (Tm) aka NAFTA. As I seem to remember, the result was a thing call a landslide for NAFTA.
The Canadian government represents the Canadian government. Every now & then we have to toss them out for a few years to get them to behave.
The point of a strong economy is the keep protecting the environment. Every time there is a recession, the jerks fire up their chain saws an go harvest some fire wood. The jerks claim they thought it was Crown (public) land. Only had to cut one chain to open the fence. The best one was the clown who dropped a tree completely across the road, taking out the power and phone lines, and crushing his own trailer.
Everything is great in theory. Reality differs. Such is life.
"The need for (railroad) signalling arises the very second that the railroad gets it's second locomotive"... - Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis
"Did you realise that satellite was illegally parked, sir? I'm afraid we are going to have to impound it."
Hehehe.
Umm
Call me strange but if i was going to spend billions of dollars on a network or spy sattelites and then put them in orbit would i then wilingly tell the world just where they really are ?
Hey saddam theres a spy sattelite that passes over this point of Iraq at this time of the day so dont put that bio weapons plant there.
Isnt the point of having these tools that no-one knows where they are ?
Just a thought
(im not commenting on the US govt and its spying - thats not something i can do as i dont live in the US)
The reason you want _everybody_ to tell where their satellites are is of course that you don't want any accidents. Having a satellite 'hidden' by placing it in a secret orbit defeats that. Sooner otr later some commercial or scientific satellite is going to get too close, and we will have a _very_ expensive incident - and if my memory doesn't fail me, according to international law, US would be solely responsible and would be obliged to pick up the tab.
Worse, if one state feels they can do this with impunity, other states will do so as well. If two reconnaisance satellites from different countries where to destroy each other, it would lead to a lot of tension as both sides would try to determine whether the incident was an accident or deliberate on either part. Having misunderstandings over this kind of thing is not good...
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And are you also happy because you are free and Euchalon excist???
Actually, it's perfectly legal to spy outside of the 12 mile limit.
That's what the US Navy plane was doing when it got body checked.
Chinese and Russian trawlers do it all the time off the US coast. The US and the Soviets had treaties that made it clear it was OK to send planes over eachother's country. They could be shot down, but it wasn't an act of war to be flying there or to be shot down. Soviet Bear bombers and recce aircraft were herded away from the US, Canada, UK, Norway all the time during the Cold War. US RB-47s, U-2s, helicopters and British Lincoln bombers were shot down by the Soviets, East Germans, and Chinese numerous times during the Cold War.
You people should live in West Texas. We see more stars our here on the ranch with the steers than you Yankees would see in a blue moon, if you even have blue moons. We also have landings here like Roswell on a frequent basis. The National Academy covers them all up. I personally have seen more than three aliens on my ranch. One of them came to a barbecue out on the back section of the ranch and mostly enjoyed the beef rubs, but did comment on the potato salad. So when you are looking at all of those lights up there, just remember that some of them land down here.
Against true dangers as represented by those that would commit atrocities such as biological warfare, nuclear terrorism or other indiscriminant undreamed of horrors against another population. When I said Civilization, I mean't CIVILIZATION, not the US. Or any other country for that matter.
Or anyone else who can shoot down a satalite and want to make fun of the US.
No, we did not destroy your satalite. We just hit one or another peace of space junk floating around - of course we check that you don't have any satalites close by before we run our tests.
who are complaining, I ask do you expect that the owners of a spy sat. will really give the full orbit of them. Most of the other countries are also not giving the full orbits. Also, many countries today have sky watching capabilities and fast computers capable of calculating the path. So why do these countries simply "update" the database with info about all sats? They simply do not want to give out information on what information they have. In other words, they do not want to tell the world that they are spying.
the so-called retaliation (it's called 'terrorism' when perpetrated by the other side)
Funny, I don't see the Israeli's DELIBERATELY setting out to blow up young children, babies, teenagers and other civilians. Seems to me they at least attempt to attack military targets. When last did you hear an Israeli saying on television that they would deliberately keep blowing up Palestinian children and babies? Answer: its never happened. Yet it seems every time we hear about the latest suicide bombing, there is another Palestinian terrorist on the screen saying "its not enough, we will keep sending more". The father of a suicide bomber was interviewed and he was saying how proud he was of his son, that he wished it had been him that did it. How do you fight that peacefully? How do you get rid of such zealotry by peaceful means? I don't see how myself. I hate the idea of war and violence, but as far as I can tell, the only way to get rid of a zealot like that is to drop a rocket on his head. Only problem is, there is no shortage of new recruits being brainwashed - you need to destroy the leaders of the organizations. Anyway, this is quite off-topic.
Nope! Mr Anonymous, you can never be 100% sure of anything but I like what you're saying - bit like whether we have free will or not - you can never really "Know" anything or be sure somebody else understands what you're writing... Good and Evil switch around every now and again. What's "Bad" one day can be "Good" the next. Go by what you think is Right - if you do what you think is Right that's an "absolute" for you but remember it may change due to new facts, changing circumstance and Government Laws. You see Laws have to be legitimate and reasonable - they are usually legitimate and if they are not reasonable - they can be overthrown by a Jury (in some countries) or by changing the Law through Political Process. The idea behind reasonable is what a reasonable man would think was "Right!" "Do What You Think Is Right" as it is you who has to live with the results of your choice. And besides it makes one very happy to do the "Right Thing" as far as one can know and understand it. (Should be appended to Oaths in Court) as currently nobody "knows" the truth??? But I think the US regards itself as an absolute! "My Country Right or Wrong!" - scary stuff for outsiders to hear. Ciao!
Are you an ignorant fool who thinks black people are monkeys too? I seem to recall the phrase "Palestinian suicide bomber" occuring in the past a few times. Like today, and the day before yesterday, for example.
Rightnow, there's only ONE country that in my eyes is trying world domination. Either by agressive 'oh we are the world savers' armed interventions, or by
Go ahead and mark me as flamebait
Hussein created Hussein. The US has been the major force fighting against terrorism and imperialism for the past 50 years.
Sometimes the Police don't have the funds or the Jurisdiction or the "Law" to do the "Right Thing" on your behalf. We chose rule of law - but today many things are happenning that are outside of the province of the "Local Copper". i.e. "Scammers" such a FCIASIA - http://www.fciasia.com have been pulling Millions of dollars a month out of Australia for over year and the Authorities can't/won't do anything. I'm advocating an Internet Action Group - whereby people send a few bogus email enquiries etc., to keep them busy (not "Scamming" suckers like me and many others) - if you're really feeling adventurous you can get them to ring you somewhere safe - like they do - and keep them busy. I have a JPG of a TT of some funds that you could Fax them if you want to go as far as stuffing up their Financials. But, that's a bit of the track of this thread. However, the same principle applies, if your Govt can't/won't do anything them we have to ourselves - as individuals and collectively protect ourselves. I reckon that the U.S. is the biggest threat to most of our lives in our lives at the moment. And although I'm not an American Citizen I'm going to express my displeasure at the U.S.'s behaviour of late to their Embassy here in OZ via email and then I'm going to go to the WhiteHouse via the web and send some feedback. Then I'm going to bed. Do your Best and you can Rest Regards... Derek.
I knew, of course, that a word like 'unamerican' in the title would give me a bit of attention.
First of all, you Americans take yourselves too serious. Over here we tend to be more relaxed, with the possible exception of the French (whoops, here I go again). We all make mistakes, we have to be able to laugh at ourselves - and allow others to laugh at us too.
Secondly - every government spies, and we all know this. That's not what I am after. But I hate hypocrisy, and no government is better at it than the American. Extremely 'religious' and moralizing on the surface, but filthy on the inside. And this country wants to be the world's light? Bear with me for a second while I control my laughter.
Don't get me wrong - I don't 'hate America' and I don't particularly praise China. But if you guys want the respect of the world, be respectable. You want to tell us all about thruth? Be truthful. You want to tell us about democracy? Be a democracy, then. You want to tell us about freedom? Learn something about freedom first, for God's sake.
By not being compliant.. the US seems to have all moral authority to enforce various test ban treaties. Pathetic.
With George Bush running things it's no wonder things aren't where they're supposed to be.
It's just like the Americans like to boast that they have the right to shoot a trespasser. These satellites are trespassing whole countries.
Just disable them.
Sending an email to a U.S. congressman is a waste of time. They receive so many emails that they hardly read any of them. If you want to have your voice heard, your best bet is to type up or write a letter in freehand and mail it the old fashioned way. You'll have a much larger chance of your words being read.
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!
"It's silly. These things are among the brightest objects in the sky," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based policy group. He says the Pentagon has grown arrogant, believing "we won the cold war, we can do whatever we want".
The brightest objects in the sky, even with all the light pollution? Seriously, I've never seen a satellite other than SkyLab. And then, only because everybody in the neighborhood knew when it was to fly by!
Those things don't need navigation lights or bright colors. I'm afraid, Mr. Pike, that the Pentagon can do anything they want in this matter.
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
The United States of America is the greatest nuclear power in the universe. Liberal nerd geeks like you should all hang your heads in shame. We need to nuke em all, now, and not later. If we would wipe places like France we could get all of the wine over here. Also, if we could nuke Germany we have all of the sausages and beer. We should be the only country left; with a genius like our President who knows how take a real vacation, we could rule the world.
As others have pointed out, the US is deliberately not telling the UN the right orbits.
Hate to sound like a right wing wacko, but where does it say in the Constitution that the US listens to the UN? We can (not saying we should) tell the UN to pound sand. A significant number of Americans believe we should. Guess what, they vote that way, too.
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Shame on the US! But then again.. if they are all registered they wouldn't be "spy" satellites.. would they?
Yup the American government helped many thugs get into power. They armed them to take down regimes and now there is a nice human mess to clean up. Much like their pollution output they don't want to clean up the mess that they made because it's politically unpalpable.