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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".
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
"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.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.
"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?
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
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
Yes, but spy sats aren't in geostationary orbits. They occupy orbits that almost no other spacecraft would want. They tend to have very low orbits, which results in a lower spacecraft lifetime due to drag. They also tend to have sun synchronous orbits so that they can image the same spot under the same lighting conditions repeatedly. So, maybe it is more like tossing all the other marbles* around on the north side of the cricket field, then tossing one along the south side and expecting that odd one to hit the one of the rest. Oh, and before you toss your "spy" marble, you also get to look at your huge radar network that tracks every other marble and tells you where they will all be.
m for those of you who like going to the original sources ) and sure enough it says in article IV section 2 that each State "may, from time to time, provide the ...United Nations with additional information." "May provide" does not mean "Must provide." The U.S. is within the letter of the treaty (not that I would be upset if we weren't), and is not endangering anyone recklessly. Considering all the socialist, paternalist B.S. that finds its way into U.N. reports and the outright corruption of many U.N. relief and "peacekeeping" efforts, why is it that errors in the space objects registry are what is considered newsworthy?
Besides, it isn't like we are the only country doing this; we are just the only country people are bitching about (big surprise). If you read the article, Petr Lala (of the UN office) is quoted as saying that they mostly are only given the initial orbit of spacecraft. If that is true, then the registry is a bunch of useless crap anyway. I checked the treaty ( http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SORegister/regist.ht
* A little math will may be illustrative here (all sizes are approximate):
Vol. of a marble = 3.8E-5 cu. ft.
Vol. of a cricket field (up to 50 ft) = 5.5E6 cu. ft.
Vol. of a Kehole Spy Sat (size of a bus) = 6E3 cu. ft.
Vol. of available space in LEO (200 to 1000 km) = 1.5E20 cu. ft.
The marble is 1.4E11 times smaller than the cricket field. The Spy Sat is 2.5E16 times smaller than space in LEO. Therefore the Marble is more than 175,000 times more likely to be a navigation hazard to its fellows than the satellite is in space. Perhaps "you stand somewhere in the city and throw a marble and I'll stand somewhere in the city and throw another one" would be more like it. Oh, and don't forget I still get to call up NORAD ahead of time and see where your marble is going to be.