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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".
It's heavens-above.com with a dash. I accidentally hit "submit" instead of "preview".
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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.
"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
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.
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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.